Friday 16 December 2022

Splendor (1989 Ettore Scola & scr)

I'm not sure how I got onto this now - it's no Cinema Paradiso, unfortunately, (which only came out the year before) but is a reasonably sweet film about the life of cinema proprietor Marcello Mastroianni (looking as weary as ever), his man magnet usherette Marina Vlady and a young, chatty aimless man who becomes the projectionist, Massimo Troisi.

Seems to go on rather, and the ending, in which the deserted cinema is unexpectedly repopulated, then it snows, then the film Splendor starts, is cute but entirely fanciful. One carp - Armando Trovajoli's theme is used too often. Photographed by Luciano Tovoli, flitting back and forward between colour and black and white for no accountable reason (other than to present life as cinema?)

Recognised a few of the clips - those I didn't were La Grande Guerra (Mario Monicelli), La Cena Delle Beffe (Alessandro Blasetti), Miracolo a Milano (de Sica), Play Time (Jacques Tati), I Pugni in Tasca (Marco Bellocchio), Il Sorpasso (Dino Risi) and  (Costa Gavras).





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