tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149411832127844385.post7768975457334993261..comments2024-03-22T14:34:39.101-04:00Comments on MONDO 70: A Wild World of Cinema: On the Big Screen: VINCERE (2009)Samuel Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149411832127844385.post-62119994505111925022010-04-19T09:31:25.108-04:002010-04-19T09:31:25.108-04:00This sounds fascinating Samuel, I will have to che...This sounds fascinating Samuel, I will have to check it out. I remember he made a big splash in the late 60's on the art film circuit in the U.S. with CHINA IS NEAR.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01808503055317962289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149411832127844385.post-76402909929223269552010-04-18T21:54:00.645-04:002010-04-18T21:54:00.645-04:00Sam, I intend to watch this again on DVD and the s...Sam, I intend to watch this again on DVD and the scene you describe in your first paragraph is one of the first screencaps I'd choose. I should give more credit to Mezzogiorno, too;she's absolutely convincing as a woman of her period and looks like she could have stepped out of a silent film.<br /><br />Better than Good Morning, Night, huh? And I know you've seen a lot more from Bellocchio than I have, so you're saying a lot here. I'm still mulling things over, but Vincere is definitely a formidable film.Samuel Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00934870299522899944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9149411832127844385.post-50237344046343497332010-04-18T20:11:30.773-04:002010-04-18T20:11:30.773-04:00Mezzogiorno's performance is the best I've...Mezzogiorno's performance is the best I've seen this year by man or woman in a leading role, and Bellocchio's deft navigation of expressionistic visuals (that scene where Ms. Mezzogiorno scales the protective prison fence to scatter letters is quite a brilliant set piece in this regard), but in this amazing essay, I was most fascinated and in agreement with you discussion of opera and music in the film:<br /><br />"This is as good a time as any to mention the role of music and movies in this film. Benito and Ida are operatic in their passion, and the socialists and fascists as a whole seem operatic in their political passion. We hear snippets of opera on the soundtrack and characters sing what I presume to be either opera arias or patriotic songs of the period. Music suffuses most of the movie, but I'm not literate enough in Italian music to tell how much comes from credited composer Carlo Crivelli and how much is classical sampling. It's very florid and feverish to fit the spirit of the time, and Vincere itself is operatic in its subject matter of a spurned lover and her son cast into madhouses."<br /><br />While the film does as you say have the feel of an old-fashioned biopic, I do believe there is a sense of abstract here as well.<br /><br />As far as this:<br /><br />"But if you're looking for the Benito Mussolini story or some explication of Italian fascism, this is the wrong film for you. It's mainly the story of two people caught up in the passions of a cultural moment and the comeuppance that comes eventually to both of them...."<br /><br />I'll readily say I am unconcerned about the history as I can find that elsewhere; I'm more concerned with and was ravished by what Bellocchio gave us, in what I now see as his best film.Sam Julianonoreply@blogger.com