Italian Cinema Today

Join me in beginning the Lenten season with my favorite adaptation of one of the Gospels-  Pier Paolo Pasolini's  1964 “Il Vangolo Secondo Matteo" (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) and a few classics that I recently discovered.  Considered by the Vatican to be among the best film adaptations of the Gospels, Pasolini's film was shot in the regions of Basilicata and Calabria. He cast his mother as Mary and many locals as extras. Spanish actor Enrique Irazoqui was cast in the role of Jesus. He was just 18-years-old when he landed the part. He had been in Rome at the time of casting and auditioned for the role. I contacted Irazoqui around this time last year to ask him about his experience making the film. He suggested that we have a conversation via Skype. Although the connection wasn’t very good, it was thrilling to talk directly with this actor whose film I had been watching for at least 20 years. He was very friendly and nostalgic in his recollections espe...

Actress Valentina Cortese has died at the age of 96. She’s appeared in films with the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner and Audrey Hepburn, and starred in films by such masters as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, and François Truffaut. Last year, she was the subject of Francesco Patierno’s documentary, Diva! . Born in Milan on New Year’s Day in 1923,  Valentina Cortese’s mother, an up and coming musician who had just earned her degree and did not want the birth revealed, placed her in the care of another family. Patierno’s  documentary, which made its North American premiere at Lincoln Center’s Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, explains Cortese’s childhood growing up among the “marvelous, strong people” of farming communities in the Lombardia region of northern Italy. Those early years of her life shaped the independent, honest woman she became. Cortese describes her childhood as “poor but warm.” Although she seldomly saw her real mother, she ...