Cinematheque Ontario presents the third of our tributes to Marcello Mastroianni over the last two decades, winnows his remarkable career to its highlights (though, inevitably, some will find grievous omissions).
"Sensitivity limits actors or, rather, makes them mediocre. Intellect and composure, that's what makes actors great." - Marcello Mastroianni
Mastroianni embodied so many currents of postwar European cinema, from the high modernism of Antonioni and Angelopoulos to the popular comic tradition of Monicelli, Germi, and De Sica, from the fabulism of Ferreri and Ruiz to the vestigial neorealism of the Tavianis and Bolognini, that his death in 1996 took on considerable symbolic import.
Mastroianni studied to be an architect but became an actor, more or less like one of his indecisive characters, through diffidence and coincidence. After his film debut in the minor 1947 I Miserabili, he spent the early part of his acting career in Luchino Visconti’s stage troupe, appearing in everything from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams. “It was the most important company in Italy,” he said in an interview, “so I got into the theatre from the golden door.” He became Italy’s leading screen actor with his performance as the blindly devout lover in Visconti’s haunting White Nights. His role as the cynical gossip columnist in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, and as the director’s alter ego in 8 ½, established the insoluble link between star and maestro. He simultaneously became Italy’s pre-eminent comic actor in films by Scola, Monicelli and Germi, and played gull to Sophia Loren’s guile in De Sica’s series of raucous marital farces. Whether in the “comic pathetic” roles of indolent, befuddled working class men, the “dramatic” roles of existentially troubled intellectuals, or the “tragic-comic” roles of vain aristocrats, Mastroianni always managed to disguise his prodigious technique with a casual, shrugging, sometimes dishevelled, ease.
– James Quandt, Senior Programmer
All screenings are restricted to individuals 18 years of age or older, unless noted otherwise.
D
Starts: Jun 13, 2008
Ends: Aug 1, 2008
At: Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), 317 Dundas Street W., Toronto Playing: Friday Thursday Wednesday Monday Saturday
Times: various Cost: Tickets start from $5.90, plus tax and service charges
Getting there:
Dundas and McCaul
For more information contact:
Phone:
416-968-FILM Email:
CustomerRelations@tiffg.ca
