TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES
Sicilia! |
Il bell'Antonio
Mauro Bolognini
1960 - Italy / France - 1h45
Magnano, the son of a wealthy and respected Sicilian family, returns to Catania after spending three years in Rome where he was trying his hand at a diplomatic career. Antonio is an extremely handsome young man and has always exercised great charm on women and aroused men's jealousy. Following a financial agreement, Antonio's parents decide to marry him off to Barbara Puglisi, with whom he falls in love...
A cruel investigation of Sicilian society in the early 1960s, Il bell'Antonio depicts a backward-looking and archaic conception of sexuality. A few months after La dolce vita, Marcello Mastroianni put his dandyish character back in the spotlight to play a troubled character with the assistance of Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was fascinated by machismo in Italy, co-writing the script. The film's staging exploits the political, symbolic and romantic dimensions of impotence in love and won the other creator of the work, Mauro Bolognini, a Golden Leopard at the Locarno Festival.
CAST AND CREW
Cast : Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Pierre Brasseur
Screenplay : Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gino Visentini
Cinematography : Armando Nannuzzi
Sound : Franco Groppioni
Editing : Nino Baragli
Music : Piero Piccioni
Production : Arco Film, Cino del Duca, Societé Cinématographique Lyre
French distributor : Théâtre du Temple