Post by klep on Dec 24, 2018 10:05:02 GMT -6
MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/24: Seven Beauties
CHRISTMAS COUNTER-PROGRAMMING WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is provided by a guest contributor
Seven Beauties is a peculiar footnote in 70s cinema. Lina Wertmüller made history with the film and became the first woman to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. As of 2018, she remains the only female director to receive such a nomination for a film not in English. However, the film itself is largely forgotten, mostly seen as a curio of the 70s that just so happened to crack a glass ceiling. This is a shame because the film is one of the greatest war films I've seen and my choice for the darkest comedy ever made. It's a transgressive masterpiece and every bit as hilarious, harrowing, and uncompromising as it was back in 1975.
From the start, Wertmüller makes it clear she is not interested in playing nice. The first image is one of Mussolini and Hitler shaking hands, interspersed with documentary footage of the bombing raids, fascist rallies, and other grisly business, all set to comically smooth jazz music ('Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah'). What's even more impressive is after opening the film on such a brazen note, she doesn't let up. The film unfolds partially in flashbacks, partially in the 'present day,' and follows Pasqualino Settebellezze ('Pasqualino Seven Beauties'). His nickname comes from the fact he has seven sisters, each one homelier than the last. Played by Giancarlo Giannini, Pasqualino is a vile piece of work; a dimwitted mama's boy and aspiring gangster, he is obsessed with the idea of 'honor,' but is all too eager to shed it when he thinks it will save his skin. When he discovers one of his sisters has taken up with a pimp, he kills the pimp and dismembers the body. Wertmüller directs the scene like a screwball set piece and Giannini gives it a Charlie Chaplin like slapstick zest.
From there, the film follows Pasqualino as he ends up in a mental asylum and later a concentration camp. It's here the full depth of Wertmüller's demented genius starts to reveal itself. Pasqualino reveals himself to be a proud fascist. In the asylum, he rapes a bed-bound patient and after being subjected to a series of brutal medical procedures (electroshock therapy and being sprayed with a water cannon), he is given the choice to serve in the Italian army or stay in the asylum. He joins the army but deserts his post and is soon captured and sent to a Nazi death camp. Wertmüller introduces the camp with a scene showing hanging bodies, nude corpses covered in dust, prisoners being herded into small cells, all set to the swirling tunes of Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries.' Is the scene too much? Of course it is! Yet there lies its power: Wertmüller makes no efforts to sanitize the material or make it 'presentable': her film is about a fundamentally indecent person and there is a certain incredulous humor that comes with it.
He soon begins a shockingly ill-advised plot to woo the camp's lead commandant, a hideous, terrifying woman with a whip, in an attempt at freedom. She isn't impressed (she frequently calls him 'shit macaroni') but decides to toy with him to see how far she can push him before he snaps. This leads to the film's most infamous scene: the commandant forces him to have sex with her and if he fails to do so, she'll kill him. Giannini, in one of the most well-deserved Best Actor nominated performances I've seen, is so committed to the material that his fearlessness give the scene a perversely comic energy. It's depraved and yet Wertmüller has made it so abundantly clear that Pasqualino is shameless, so watching him go as far as he does gives it a darker than midnight comic flair, even if the scene itself is unbelievably grotesque.
What follows in the last 15 minutes of the film is so harrowing that any humor Wertmüller mines from the horrors abruptly crumbles. The film's comedy initially came from an intriguing balance of the genuinely funny and the 'oh God, are they really going that far?' incredulity. When the humor finally falters Seven Beauties reveals the full scope of its nihilism. There is no catharsis. There is no hope. Even the final scene gives a grim reminder that after witnessing unspeakable atrocities there is absolutely no guarantee a person will turn toward goodness or charity. As Roger Ebert so eloquently asked in his review: 'Why did Wertmuller make it? To explore banality and cruelty? To give us a vision of the Nazi experience in which moral choices are irrelevant and the characters join together in a grim mutual debasement? To make, as an exercise, an ultimate black comedy?'
To answer 'all of the above' wouldn't be inaccurate. On another level I believe she made the film as a way of reckoning with her own fury and heartbreak over what her country did in WWII. Wertmüller was born in 1928, so her childhood and adolescence where shaped by the rise of Italian fascism. She does what I almost never see filmmakers do when they make films about WWII and the Holocaust: she takes her country to task. She eschews sentimentalizing the horrors or giving hope that people can rise above such trauma. Save for two prisoners in the concentration camp, every character in the film is either a fool, a worm, or a villain. If Pasqualiano is supposed to represent the Italian everyman, Wertmüller is saying the majority of Italians, especially Italian men, are cruel, violent misogynists who will ultimately get swallowed up by an even crueler, more violent system. With a worldview like that, it's no surprise 'Seven Beauties' attracted some fierce criticism (Pauline Kael called it 'a triumph of insensitivity'). But it's bold and challenging and depressingly relevant as authoritarianism is on the rise across the globe once again. It's so of its time and yet so timeless all at once.
The final shot is Pasqualino looking blankly into a mirror saying 'Yes, I'm alive.' Sometimes living truly is a fate worse than death.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/31: To Die For
WINTER WEEK!
Featuring what is perhaps Nicole Kidman's finest performance, Gus Van Sant's To Die For dramatizes a real-life crime by a woman obsessed with television stardom. Come join us next week for our discussion! To Die For is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.
CHRISTMAS COUNTER-PROGRAMMING WEEK!
Note: This week's essay is provided by a guest contributor
Seven Beauties is a peculiar footnote in 70s cinema. Lina Wertmüller made history with the film and became the first woman to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. As of 2018, she remains the only female director to receive such a nomination for a film not in English. However, the film itself is largely forgotten, mostly seen as a curio of the 70s that just so happened to crack a glass ceiling. This is a shame because the film is one of the greatest war films I've seen and my choice for the darkest comedy ever made. It's a transgressive masterpiece and every bit as hilarious, harrowing, and uncompromising as it was back in 1975.
From the start, Wertmüller makes it clear she is not interested in playing nice. The first image is one of Mussolini and Hitler shaking hands, interspersed with documentary footage of the bombing raids, fascist rallies, and other grisly business, all set to comically smooth jazz music ('Oh yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah'). What's even more impressive is after opening the film on such a brazen note, she doesn't let up. The film unfolds partially in flashbacks, partially in the 'present day,' and follows Pasqualino Settebellezze ('Pasqualino Seven Beauties'). His nickname comes from the fact he has seven sisters, each one homelier than the last. Played by Giancarlo Giannini, Pasqualino is a vile piece of work; a dimwitted mama's boy and aspiring gangster, he is obsessed with the idea of 'honor,' but is all too eager to shed it when he thinks it will save his skin. When he discovers one of his sisters has taken up with a pimp, he kills the pimp and dismembers the body. Wertmüller directs the scene like a screwball set piece and Giannini gives it a Charlie Chaplin like slapstick zest.
From there, the film follows Pasqualino as he ends up in a mental asylum and later a concentration camp. It's here the full depth of Wertmüller's demented genius starts to reveal itself. Pasqualino reveals himself to be a proud fascist. In the asylum, he rapes a bed-bound patient and after being subjected to a series of brutal medical procedures (electroshock therapy and being sprayed with a water cannon), he is given the choice to serve in the Italian army or stay in the asylum. He joins the army but deserts his post and is soon captured and sent to a Nazi death camp. Wertmüller introduces the camp with a scene showing hanging bodies, nude corpses covered in dust, prisoners being herded into small cells, all set to the swirling tunes of Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries.' Is the scene too much? Of course it is! Yet there lies its power: Wertmüller makes no efforts to sanitize the material or make it 'presentable': her film is about a fundamentally indecent person and there is a certain incredulous humor that comes with it.
He soon begins a shockingly ill-advised plot to woo the camp's lead commandant, a hideous, terrifying woman with a whip, in an attempt at freedom. She isn't impressed (she frequently calls him 'shit macaroni') but decides to toy with him to see how far she can push him before he snaps. This leads to the film's most infamous scene: the commandant forces him to have sex with her and if he fails to do so, she'll kill him. Giannini, in one of the most well-deserved Best Actor nominated performances I've seen, is so committed to the material that his fearlessness give the scene a perversely comic energy. It's depraved and yet Wertmüller has made it so abundantly clear that Pasqualino is shameless, so watching him go as far as he does gives it a darker than midnight comic flair, even if the scene itself is unbelievably grotesque.
What follows in the last 15 minutes of the film is so harrowing that any humor Wertmüller mines from the horrors abruptly crumbles. The film's comedy initially came from an intriguing balance of the genuinely funny and the 'oh God, are they really going that far?' incredulity. When the humor finally falters Seven Beauties reveals the full scope of its nihilism. There is no catharsis. There is no hope. Even the final scene gives a grim reminder that after witnessing unspeakable atrocities there is absolutely no guarantee a person will turn toward goodness or charity. As Roger Ebert so eloquently asked in his review: 'Why did Wertmuller make it? To explore banality and cruelty? To give us a vision of the Nazi experience in which moral choices are irrelevant and the characters join together in a grim mutual debasement? To make, as an exercise, an ultimate black comedy?'
To answer 'all of the above' wouldn't be inaccurate. On another level I believe she made the film as a way of reckoning with her own fury and heartbreak over what her country did in WWII. Wertmüller was born in 1928, so her childhood and adolescence where shaped by the rise of Italian fascism. She does what I almost never see filmmakers do when they make films about WWII and the Holocaust: she takes her country to task. She eschews sentimentalizing the horrors or giving hope that people can rise above such trauma. Save for two prisoners in the concentration camp, every character in the film is either a fool, a worm, or a villain. If Pasqualiano is supposed to represent the Italian everyman, Wertmüller is saying the majority of Italians, especially Italian men, are cruel, violent misogynists who will ultimately get swallowed up by an even crueler, more violent system. With a worldview like that, it's no surprise 'Seven Beauties' attracted some fierce criticism (Pauline Kael called it 'a triumph of insensitivity'). But it's bold and challenging and depressingly relevant as authoritarianism is on the rise across the globe once again. It's so of its time and yet so timeless all at once.
The final shot is Pasqualino looking blankly into a mirror saying 'Yes, I'm alive.' Sometimes living truly is a fate worse than death.
OUR NEXT MOVIE OF THE WEEK for 12/31: To Die For
WINTER WEEK!
Featuring what is perhaps Nicole Kidman's finest performance, Gus Van Sant's To Die For dramatizes a real-life crime by a woman obsessed with television stardom. Come join us next week for our discussion! To Die For is available for rent on Amazon Video, though it is not free for Prime members.