Commedia all’italiana: Three Films by Dino Risi (1959-1962) (Review)

Commedia all’italiana, or Italian-style comedy, was a genre of Italian cinema that achieved considerable success from the 1950s through to the 1970s. These films, though farcical and/or satirical, placed a greater emphasis than before on realism, shooting on location and creating believable, three dimensional characters. They were united by the common goal of authentically exploring contemporary post-war Italian society and tackling topical issues such as Italy’s economic miracle, the rise in consumerism, emancipation, the class system and relationships between men and women. Whilst many filmmakers operating within the genre, it is generally agreed that Dino Risi was one of the most important and influential. This week, Radiance have released their Commedia all’italiana Blu-ray boxset, which comprises of three of Risi’s films; 1959’s Il vedovo starring Alberto Sordi, 1960’s Il Mattatore starring Vittorio Gassman and lastly 1962’s Il Sorpasso which saw the director reunite with Gassman and have him star alongside the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant.

1959’s Il vedovo (The Widower in English) stars Italy’s pre-eminent comic actor Alberto Sordi as Alberto Nardi, a philandering and arrogant Roman businessman based in Milan. Whilst Nardi considers himself a shrewd and tenacious man of enterprise, the reality is his elevator business teeters on the brink of bankruptcy thanks to numerous mishaps and disasters and Nardi’s own poor head for business. In order to keep his head above water, Nardi continually relies on his rich and successful wife, Elvira (Franca Valeri), a woman whose attitude and acumen he can never hope to aspire to, no matter how deluded he is. Faced with his latest roll call of debtors, Elvira decides enough is enough and vows to never give her husband another penny. Amused by Nardi’s ineptitude, she publically ridicules and berates his lack of foresight, safe in the knowledge that he will never leave her or bite the hand that has fed him for so long. When a train said to be carrying Elvira crashes with no reported survivors on board, Nardi is beside himself… with joy! Free at last and with her considerable inheritance and business portfolio at his disposal, Nardi sets about liquidising numerous assets in relation to ‘old’ industry such as cattle farming to focus solely on giving his own factory the boost it has so long needed. He’s in the process of housing his shapely young mistress Gioia (Leonora Ruffo) in his wife’s mansion when Elvira returns – having never boarded the train in the first place. Frustrated by his wife’s good fortune, Nardi now believes that the only way he will ever progress up the ladder to the success he dreams of is if he bumps Elvira off. With the aid of his closest confidants in the factory, Marquis Stucchi (Livio Lorenzon), his former captain in the war now fallen on hard times, Fritzmayer (Enzo Petito), his chief designer, and his uncle-cum-personal chauffeur, a former Roman cab driver played by Nando Bruno, he sets out with a dastardly plan to kill Elvira by sabotaging the elevator in their apartment block.

Il vedovo is a great introduction to the filoni of commedia all’italiana because, not only is it very funny, it also assembles so many of the genre’s concerns. Despite being our central protagonist, Nardi is far from a likeable figure; he is a philanderer and an arrogant megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur and dreams that far outweigh his capabilities. When he realises he cannot attain his dreams by fair means, he sets out to murder his own wife. He is a real character, depicted warts and all, albeit in broad comedic terms that make him and his dark designs more palatable for audiences. This ugliness, combined with Risi’s commitment to confront the true nature of Italian society, even in comedy, is also evident in Nardi’s displays of unrepentant fascism; he’s heard to claim there is a man he continues to admire greatly but whose name it is no longer polite to mention in public (Mussolini), whilst his bigotry and xenophobia is directed towards the English whom he blames for a disastrous deal he tried to make during the Suez crisis – a deal which led to a nervous breakdown in which, the first sign of his mental imbalance, was to ask for a lightbulb when he wanted a cigarette. With the debtors circling, both the Marquis and Nardi’s uncle hear him ask once again for a lightbulb to comedic effect. A natural clown, Sordi plays the part brilliantly, mining the opportunity for laughs with great skill and a ligthness of touch that rivals the likes of Peter Sellers or Jack Lemmon, stars who performed in similar movies with murder in mind; The Ladykillers (1955) and Battle of the Sexes (1960) for Sellers, and How to Murder Your Wife (1964) for Lemmon.

Risi’s movie is also a satire of the economic miracle, a period of vast economic growth that occured in Italy in the post-war years and saw the nation become a global industrial power as it moved away from traditional industries such as farming. Rapid economic expansion saw massive influxes of migrants (an estimated 9 million) from the rural heartlands of Southen Italy to the so-called ‘industrial triangle’ of Milan, Turin and Genoa. This phenomenon is characterised both in the ignorance and bigotry Nardi shows towards Elvira’s farming businesses and the rural folk who work fo her in his own fatal desires to get righ by any means possible in order to keep up with the Joneses. It’s clear to me that Risi is arguing that a dangerous fool like Nardi is a product of where society was heading. A word of caution though, another example of these movies reflecting the society of the time can be found in the humour. There’s a moment here in which Nardi reveals that Fritzmayer is wanted by the police in his native Germany. “Is it political?” the Marquis asks, presumably sympathetically given his and Nardi’s own wartime allegiences, but Nardi soon removes him of that, replying that Fritzmayer is wanted for molesting a twelve-year-old girl. This shocking truth is delivered as a punchline by Sordi. Nothing says ‘made in 1959’ quite like the sexual abuse of a minor being played for laughs.

The second film in the set is 1960’s Il Mattatore, which translates as ‘The Showman’ in English but was titled Love and Larceny for (some? all?) English speaking territories. The Showman is a much better title, because it became the moniker that its star Vittorio Gassman came to be known by. Gassman was Italy’s Il Mattatore, a much respected household name and prolific actor whose stature was not unlike Olivier’s; indeed, Gassman was a renowned stage actor performing not only the Bard but also as Stanley in A Streetcar Named Desire, as well as a leading matinee idol in Italian cinema. His talents subsequently stretched out to Hollywood with roles in Rhapsody (1955) for Charles Vidor, in which he starred as Elizabeth Taylor’s love interest, King Vidor’s 1956 adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace alongside Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, Richard Fleischer’s 1961 biblical epic Barabbas opposite Anthony Quinn, Robert Altman’s Quintet (1971) an ennui-filled dystopic vision of a future ice-age in which he secured second billing beneath Paul Newman, the Burt Reynolds vehicle Sharkey’s Machine from 1981, in which he played a mobster, and, in one of his final roles before his death in 2000, Barry Levinson’s star-studded 1996 hit Sleepers, in which he memorably portrayed the vengeful, aging gangster King Benny.

In Il Mattatore, Gassman plays Gerardo, failed actor whose gift for mimicry affords him the opportunity to pull off a series of scams for a number of years which he relates in flashback to an inept trickster who has tried and failed to con him and his wife (Anna Maria Ferrero) out of a few thousand lira. Despite Gassman’s unmistakable talent and star-wattage chemistry, I personally found Il Mattatore the weakest of the three films included here. It’s not without its funny moments, but it’s less laugh-inducing than Il vedovo and less profound than Il Sorpasso, despite a script from Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari who would go on to pen that film for Gassman and Risi too. I think the problem I had with it is that, as a non native of Italy, it’s not as easy to pick up on the dialect of that country’s various regions and so, the humour and skill within Gassman’s performance as he dons various guises, falls a little flat. I mentioned Peter Sellers earlier in relation, Il vedovo and this is definitely the kind of film that the renowned chameleon performer could have made in England or indeed Hollywood. Again the concerns of the commedia all’italiana are evident in Il Mattatore with its frank depictions of criminality and its less than wholesome protagonist, combined with its satirical potshots at a society becoming consumed by capitalist consumerism.

The final film in the set is Il Sorpasso, and Radiance have definitely saved the best until last. If Risi was the master of commedia all’italiana, then Il Sorpasso (sometimes known in English as The Easy Life) is his masterstroke, a film that quietly and surreptitiously transcends the notion of mere comedy to deliver upon its unsuspecting audience something far more profound. It’s a film that will stay with you for a very long time and is one that a good deal more could be written about than what I’m about to detail here. It is also a movie that I would advise is best to go in blind to and so, although I will imply some significant moments here, I’ll try not to spell it out too much.

For Il Sorpasso, Risi once again reunited with Il Mattatore‘s scribes Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari and its star Vittorio Gassman as Bruno, a brash and cocksure middle-aged alpha male who bundles into the life of Roberto (Jean-Louis Trintignant, in one of his early Italian film roles), a shy and painfully polite young law student, one fateful Bank Holiday afternoon. Perhaps if made earlier, Il Sorpasso would be a broad chalk and cheese example of commedia all’italiana, but Risi – now helming his fifteenth movie – creates a complex and multi-layered meditation on life and friendship. It’s a road movie, in which the journey itself could be seen as a metaphor for life.

The first thing you’ll notice about Il Sorpasso is how insufferable Bruno is. Gassman is giving it the full Il Mattatore here, playing a character for whom his whole life is a performance. A loud, fun-seeking lothario, he is the stereotypical image of the Italian male; a handsome yet over-confident, loud and vainglorious peacock of a man driving recklessly in his little flash sports car offering up opinions that are misogynistic, racist and homophobic seemingly without a care. In comparison, Roberto shelters meekly within the older man’s large shadow. Swept up in Bruno’s whirlwind, he is repeatedly looking for a way to extricate himself until he isn’t, and yet – though it may not be evident on an initial viewing – it is actually Roberto who plots the course of much of their seemingly aimless journey. These two men are extreme opposites; Roberto quietly and obsessively carries a torch for the young lady across the street, Bruno can and will talk to anyone. Roberto is educated, studying law, yet Bruno sees far more than his young friend can, including a raft of new spotlights on the familial set-up of Roberto’s relations.

One thing that does unite them however is the film’s implication that they each possess something of the child about them. Bruno is so carefree as to see everything in black and white, good and bad. He is oblivious to detail. His joie de vivre is infectious like that of a giddy toddler or an excitable puppy. In contrast Risi often places children in the same shot as Roberto (including one child waving to him near the film’s climax), the implication being that the character shares much with infants as he too has not yet fully embraced life, or immersed himself in its tumultuous waters. It is only towards the end of the movie that he admits to Bruno that the last two days they have shared together have been the happiest he’s ever known, primarily because he has given himself to the moment and accepted Bruno’s approach to life. And yet, ever so subtly, Risi repeatedly suggests that Bruno is exactly what Gassman was known to cinemagoers as; a showman. There’s an inner heartache to Bruno that is visible only ever on the fringes of the celluloid frame. His marriage hasn’t really worked and is doomed to conclude in divorce. His daughter is so free-spirited that she no longer requires him and makes those feelings plain. And does he really have any friends? Risi never fully lays these cards on the table, but they are nonetheless there for the audience to pick up, should they wish.

Again, Il Sorpasso continues the tradition of social commentary evident in commedia all’italiana, with the economic miracle, the rapid rise in consumerism and city living once again featuring in Risi’s sights. This is most notably seen in the sequence in which Bruno pokes fun at an ancient country bumpkin hitchhiker, an elderly man whom he initially plays the mean trick of only pretending to stop for, until Roberto insists they give him a ride. Later, however, as the summer’s evening wears on, both men spy a happy group of farmhands and villagers partying in a field. Risi juxtaposes the old and new Italy here with a rustic scene that sees the rural partygoers dancing ‘the twist’, much to the amusement of both Bruno and Roberto, the modern men. In another quietly devastating sequence, a road traffic accident that has seen numerous white goods scattered along the road halts Bruno and Roberto. The former leaps from his car, determined to seek the driver of the lorry in order to make some deal for the damaged goods. The driver does not say a word. Instead, he turn away from the scheming Bruno, his head in his hands as he begins to cry. As he moves we see for the first time the dead body in the road. Pardoxically for Bruno, the man whose simple view of life has ensured that he has seen things that Roberto cannot, seems wholly oblivious to the tragedy before his eyes. It is arguably Risi’s most profound condemnation yet of Italy’s capitalism and a thematic foreshadowing of what is to come. I’ll say no more, just watch it.

Once again, Radiance delivers some great extras with this release, including newly recorded interviews with Italian cinema experts like Richard Dyer, Andrea Bini and Remi Fournier Lanzoni, archival interviews and documentaries and visual and audi essays, as well as an 80 page booklet featuring new writing unavailable to this reviewer but no doubt worth your while.

Mark’s Archive – Commedia all’italiana: Three Films by Dino Risi (1959-1962)