Italian Cinema Classics are available from January 20 through February 28, 2021

Curated by New York film professors Ted Folke and Howard Menikoff, who will introduce each film and host a Zoom discussion with invited guests about Italian cinema.

There is no additional charge to view the discussion but feel free to make a donation to the Rosendale Theatre.

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Ted and Howie chat about what they love about Italian cinema.


 

La Strada

$10 |(1954) | Drama | 1h 48m | Italian with English Subtitles
Director: Federico Fellini
Stars: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MOVIE 

Introduction by Ted Folke:

There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in La Strada, the film that launched them both to international stardom. Gelsomina is sold by her mother into the employ of Zampanò (Anthony Quinn), a brutal strongman in a traveling circus. When Zampanò encounters an old rival in highwire artist the Fool (Richard Basehart), his fury is provoked to its breaking point. With La Strada Fellini left behind the familiar signposts of Italian neorealism for a poetic fable of love and cruelty, evoking brilliant performances and winning the hearts of audiences and critics worldwide.

TRAILER:

 


 

Intervista

$10 | (1987) | Drama/Fantasy | 1h 53m | Italian with English Subtitles
Director: Federico Fellini
Stars: Sergio Rubini, Antonella Ponziani, Maurizio Mein

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MOVIE

Introduction by Howard Menikoff and Ted Folke:

Something of a late-career companion to 8½,Federico Fellini’s penultimate film is a similarly self-reflexive (and self-deprecating) journey through both the director’s dream life and his cinematic world—which are, here as always in Fellini’s work, inextricably entwined. In Rome to make a documentary about the great filmmaker, a Japanese camera crew follows Fellini on a tour through his longtime home studio of Cinecittà as the maestro’s memories and fantasies unfurl in a dizzying, dazzling, time-bending love letter to the art and spectacle of moviemaking. The film’s sprawling vision even makes room for an appearance by Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg who, in an unforgettable bit of movie magic, relive their iconic Trevi Fountain scene from La dolce vita, lent new poignancy by the tacit acknowledgement of time’s passing.

NOTE: THIS TRAILER FOR INTERVISTA IS IN ITALIAN, HOWEVER THE FILM HAS ENGLISH SUBTITLES:

 


 

The Conformist

$10 | R | (1970) | Drama/Political drama | 1h 47m | Italian with English Subtitles
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Stars: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MOVIE

Introduction by Ted Folke:

In Mussolini’s Italy, repressed Jean-Louis Trintignant, trying to purge memories of a youthful, homosexual episode–and murder–joins the Fascists in a desperate attempt to fit in. As the reluctant Judas motors to his personal Gethsemane (the assassination of his leftist mentor), he flashes back to a dance party for the blind; an insane asylum in a stadium; and wife Stefania Sandrelli and lover Dominique Sanda dancing the tango in a working class hall. But those are only a few of this political thriller’s anthology pieces, others including Trintignant’s honeymoon coupling with Sandrelli in a train compartment as the sun sets outside their window; a bimbo lolling on the desk of a fascist functionary, glimpsed in the recesses of his cavernous office; a murder victim’s hands leaving bloody streaks on a limousine parked in a wintry forest. Bernardo Bertolucci’s masterpiece, adapted from the Alberto Moravia novel, boasts an authentic Art Deco look created by production designer Ferdinando Scarfiotti, a score by the great Georges Delerue and breathtaking color cinematography by Vittorio Storaro.

TRAILER:

 


 

Seven Beauties

$10 | R | (1975) | Comedy, Drama, War | 1h 56min | Italian with English Subtitles
Director: Lina Wertmüller
Stars: Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE MOVIE

Introduction by Ted Folke:

Nominated for four Academy Awards® including Best Director, Seven Beauties stars Giancarlo Giannini (Swept Away) as Pasqualino Frafuso, known in Naples as “Pasqualino Seven Beauties.” A petty thief who lives off of the profits of his seven sisters while claiming to protect their honor at any cost, Pasqualino is arrested for murder and later sent to fight in the army after committing sexual assault. The Germans capture him and he gets sent to a concentration camp where he plots to make his escape by seducing a German officer. “Intriguing… absorbing and mysterious” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).

TRAILER: