Directed by Ettore Scola • 1977 • Italy
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni
Italian cinema dream team Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni are cast against glamorous type and deliver two of the finest performances of their careers in this moving, quietly subversive drama from Ettore Scola. Though it’s set in Rome on the historic day in 1938 when Benito Mussolini and the city first rolled out the red carpet for Adolf Hitler, the film takes place entirely in a working-class apartment building, where an unexpected friendship blossoms between a pair of people who haven’t joined the festivities: a conservative housewife and mother tending to her domestic duties and a liberal radio broadcaster awaiting deportation. Scola paints an exquisite portrait in muted tones, a story of two individuals helpless in the face of Fascism’s rise.
Up Next in Marcello Mastroianni at 100
-
One Hundred and One Nights
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1995 • France
Starring Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Henri GarcinA celebration of cinema’s centennial, ONE HUNDRED AND ONE NIGHTS finds Agnès Varda at her most playful. It is also perhaps her unlikeliest project: a star-studded comic fantasy with an extravagant...
-
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Directed by Vittorio De Sica • 1963 • Italy, France
Starring Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Aldo GiuffrèWinner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar at the 1964 Academy Awards, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW is a sparklingly original comedy that casts Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren...
-
Big Deal on Madonna Street
Directed by Mario Monicelli • 1958 • Italy
Starring Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Memmo CarotenutoAn all-star cast and jazzy score highlight this charming comedy, a deft satire of classic caper films like RIFIFI. BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET hilariously details the plight of a sad-sack grou...
