This month, the Cannes Film Festival is invited to the Cinémathèque with a retrospective of the BEST ACTOR AWARDS… the awards that honored the best actor, revelation, or consecration from the official competition between 1952 and 2009.
An eclectic selection of 25 films to watch or discover the greatest actors of international cinema such as Marlon Brando (Viva Zapata! by Elia Kazan), Vittorio Gassman (Scent of a Woman by Dino Risi), Jack Nicholson (The Last Detail by Hal Ashby), Daniel Auteuil and Pascal Duquenne (The Eighth Day by Jaco Van Dormael), Benicio del Toro (Che, Part 1 & 2 by Steven Soderbergh)…
MARIO MONICELLI (PART ONE)
“Master of Italian comedy (…), having directed the greatest actors of his time, Mario Monicelli is the author of an immense body of work created over nearly sixty years of career.” (Jean A. Gili)
A tribute to one of the great directors of Italian comedies through a selection of films.
An excellent observer, and sometimes a revealer of Italian customs, Mario Monicelli gave prestige to a long-denigrated genre, rediscovering the ways of the Italian tradition of entertainment, those of the commedia dell’arte.
After collaborating on the writing of numerous scripts, he moved to directing and gave Alberto Sordi one of his first anti-hero characters in “A Hero of Our Times,” thus contributing to the launch of one of the iconic figures of Italian cinema. The director became prominent in satirical comedy with “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” a worldwide success, considered a masterpiece of the genre. Then he directed an ambitious social fresco, “The Organizer,” on the strikes in Turin and their terrible repression at the end of the 19th century, with Marcello Mastroianni, as a political agitator, whom Monicelli finds again in a role of a jaded seducer in “Casanova 70.”
He signed a zany comedy that became a cult classic with “My Friends,” and then worked with Dino Risi and Ettore Scola on “The New Monsters,” a film of sketches, many of which were improvised, according to Age and Scarpelli. Monicelli filmed a slapstick comedy set in papal Rome, “Let’s Hope It’s a Girl,” with Alberto Sordi in a double role, and paid tribute to women in “Let’s Hope It’s a Girl,” a comedy imbued with serenity in the face of existence.
In his last film, “The Roses of the Desert,” the director takes a dramatic and picaresque look at the involvement of Italian troops in Libya during the Second World War.
OLLIVIER POURRIOL’S STUDIO-PHILO: WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 AT 6 PM
“The Meaning of Family” with film excerpts: War of the Worlds, A History of Violence, Little Miss Sunshine…
Free entry with the presentation of a membership card.
SHOWINGS FOR THE DEAF AND HEARING IMPAIRED: MAY 25 AND 28, 2011
Recently equipped with an electronic subtitle machine, the Cinémathèque’s theater offers screenings adapted for the deaf and hearing impaired, with this month’s feature: “The Fox and the Child” by Luc Jacquet, a lovely ecological fable for young and old.
AND ALWAYS:
CINE B: A curiosity… “Fantastic Voyage” by Richard Fleischer, Friday, May 27 at 10 PM. The 70s sex symbol, Raquel Walsh, miniaturized and injected into a researcher’s brain to combat an attack…
SILENT FILM OF THE MONTH: October by Sergei M. Eisenstein, Tuesday, May 17 at 6:45 PM
PASSPORT TO LATIN AMERICA with Alamar by Pedro Gonzales Rubio on Wednesday, May 25 at 8 PM.
FORGOTTEN… a session dedicated to the forgotten ones of the history of cinema with: “I Will Spit on Your Graves” by Michel Gast, on May 20 and 21, 2011
