OBITUARY: VIRNA LISI

Virna Lisi, the Italian actress whose career was both enhanced and hindered by her photogenic assets, has passed away in Rome after a brief, determined battle against an unspecified cancer. She was 78.

Born Virna Pieralisi in the picturesque central Italian seaside city of Ancona, she made her debut at age 17 in Carlo Borghesio’s 1953 melodrama, La corda d’acciao (The Steel Rope), having been discovered in Paris by producers Antonio Ferrigno and Ettore Pesce. Audiences were immediately captivated and Lisi found steady work - as the luminous Maria in Armando Grottini’s musical E Napoli canta (Napoli Sings, 1953); opposite legendary funnyman Toto in the anthology comedy Questa e la vita (Of Life and Love, 1954); and Francesco Maselli’s La donna del giorno (The Woman of the Day, 1956), in which she excels as ambitious model Liliana, who conjures a rape story for publicity only to have the consequences spin out of control.

However, these early career highlights were tempered by works that merely exploited her rare beauty, such as Mario Mattoli’s Le diciottenni (Eighteen Year Olds, 1955), an uncredited turn in Antonio Pietrangelo’s Lo scapolo (The Bachelor, 1955) and Alex Joffe’s broad comedy Les hussards (Cavalrymen, 1955). She turned to the blossoming world of television to further establish her acting credentials, taking on the lead role in the landmark 1957 mini-series ‘Orgoglio e pregiudizio’. The format would serve her well over the course of her career, with roles in such hits as ‘Una tragedia american’ (1962), ‘Philo Vance’ (1974) and ‘Beauty Centre’ (2001) as well as dozens of TV movies helping her maintain a high public profile.

A support role in Sergio Corbucci’s blockbuster historical epic Romolo e Remo (Romulus and Remus, 1961) and her potent presence in Joseph Losey’s 1962 erotic-drama Eve brought Lisi to the attention of Hollywood producers at a time when studios were unveiling a Monroe-like starlet almost weekly. But Lisi’s talent and craft was already well-honed and she was sought to co-star with many of the international industry’s top male stars - Jack Lemmon (How to Murder Your Wife, her 1965 American debut); Marcello Mastroanni (Casanova ’70 and Kiss the Other Sheik, both 1965; The Voyeur, 1970); Alain Delon (The Black Tulip, 1965); Vittorio Gassman (A Maiden for The Prince, 1966); Frank Sinatra (Assault on a Queen, 1966); Tony Curtis (Not With My Wife, You Don’t!, 1966); Anthony Quinn (The 25^th Hour, 1967; The Secret of Santa Vittoria, 1969); Rod Steiger (The Girl and The General, 1967); George Segal (The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No, 1968); William Holden (The Christmas Tree); Charles Aznavour (The Heist, 1970; Love Me Strangely, 1971); David Niven (The Statue, 1971); and, Richard Burton (Bluebeard, 1971, alongside Raquel Welch).

Virna Lisi was aware of the dangers of being typecast in the ‘exotic beauty’ role. She famously turned down Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, the international sensation that would make Jane Fonda a star, and bought out her contract with the United Artists studio, convinced the were withholding strong parts from her in favour of skin-deep support turns. She went to great lengths to challenge herself in often non-commercial fare, such as an early starring role alongside Gastone Moschin and Nora Ricci in Pietro Germi’s Signore & Signori, which would earn the Grand Prix trophy at the Cannes Film Festival. As she matured, accolades were bestowed upon her for Liliana Cavani’s Al di la del bene e del mal (Beyond Good and Evil, 1977), Alberto Lattuada’s drama La cicala (The Cricket, 1980); Carlo Vanzina’s comedy Sapora di mare (Time for Loving, 1983); and, Luigi Comencini’s romp Buon Natale, Buon anno (Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, 1989). Her greatest triumph would come in 1994, when she was cast as ‘Catherine de Medicis’ opposite Isabelle Adjani’s titular monarch in Patrice Chereau’s La reine Margot (Queen Margot); the role would earn Lisi honours at Cannes (Best Actress) and France’s Cesar Awards (Best Supporting Actress). She has been honoured with eight career achievement awards, including acknowledgement from Venice, Lecce and Taormina festival bodies.

She has largely worked in television since completing Christina Comencini’s 2002 Italian ensemble dram, Il piu bel giorno della mia vita (The Best Day of My Life), her dominant matriarch winning acting honours at the Italian Film Journalists Awards and the Flaiano Film Festival. Her final film, Latin Lover, reteams the actress with Comencini and is due for realease in 2015.

Married to architect Franco Pesci for 53 years (he passed away in 2013), Virna Lisi is survived by her son, Corrado, and three grandchildren.

"YOU CAN'T TAKE IT, BILLY!": CRANKY COMICS AND CAUSTIC CRITICS

Life Itself, director Steve James' moving, insightful adaptation of the late Roger Ebert’s memoirs, takes its title from perhaps his most famous quote, “The only thing I love more than movies is life itself.” But falling afoul of his generosity was never pretty; the critic that cherishes the artistry of cinema is quick to deride those that fail to honour his lofty ideals. Just ask Rob Schneider…

Rob Schneider found fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live before a stop/start bigscreen career that included Judge Dredd, Down Periscope, The Animal and a regular support bit in a lot of Adam Sandler films as the guy who yells out ‘You can do it!’ Despite a fratboy fanbase that made minor hits out of The Hot Chick and The Benchwarmers, his leading man cred ground to a halt after 2007’s dismal Big Stan.

Schneider’s biggest hits were the Deuce Bigalow films, in which he played a worthless schmo who finds himself an in-demand male whore. Critics tore them to shreds, of course, none more so than Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times, who stated that the 2005 sequel, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (pictured, right), was overlooked at the 2005 Oscars “because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third Rate Comic.”

The admittedly nasty review was the final straw for Schnieder, who took out full-page ads in the daily trade papers blasting Goldstein’s own lack of award silverware. The comic pointed out that the critic did not have a Pulitzer Prize because they didn’t have a category for “Best Third-Rate, Unfunny, Pompous Reporter, Who’s Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers”.

What has all this to do with the late, great Mr Ebert? Well, as the critic himself often pointed out, Roger Ebert does have a Pulitzer Prize, for Criticism, which he won in 1975; he was the first film critic to be so honoured. Deciding to weigh in on the very public slanging match, Roger Ebert penned one of his most deliciously caustic commentaries, elegantly stating, “As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize,” before concluding his review of the film with, “Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr Schneider, your movie sucks.”*

‘Your Movie Sucks’ would become the title of his follow-up book to ‘I Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie’ (its title taken from Ebert’s lees-than-favourable take on Rob Reiner’s North), both bestselling collections of his most scathing reviews. As Life Itself continues to play to warm audience reception and critical acclaim, we are reminded of his witty but blistering rhetoric in these excerpts from the pages of his 2007 compendium…

Half Past Dead (2002; with Steven Seagal and Morris Chestnut; directed by Don Michael Paul).
Plot: A criminal mastermind sets in motion a plan to infiltrate a high tech prison to unearth a hidden $200million in gold, with an undercover FBI agent the only hope to stop the scheme before it is too late.
Said Ebert:  “Half Past Dead is like an alarm that goes off while nobody is in the room. It does its job and stops, and nobody cares.”; “Seagal’s great contribution to the movie is to look serious, even menacing, in close-ups carefully framed to hide his double-chin. I do not object to the fact that he’s put on weight. Look who’s talking. I object to the fact that he thinks he can conceal it from us with knee-length coats and tricky camera angles. I would rather see a movie about a pudgy karate fighter than a movie about a guy you never get a good look at.”

Fantastic Four (2005; with Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba and Chris Evans; directed by Tim Story).
Plot: A group of astronauts gain superpowers after a cosmic radiation exposure and must use their new powers to fight the rise of their enemy, Dr Doom.
Said Ebert: “Are these people complete idiots? The entire nature of their existence has radically changed, and they’re about as excited as if they got a makeover on Oprah.”; “(The) really good superhero movies, like Superman, Spiderman II, and Batman Begins, leave Fantastic Four so far behind that the movie should almost be ashamed to show itself in some of the same theatres.”

Be Cool (2005; with John Travolta and Uma Thurman; directed by F Gary Gray)
Plot: Disenchanted with the movie industry, Chilli Palmer re-invents himself in the music biz and woos the widow of a big-deal record executive.
Said Ebert: “Be Cool becomes a classic species of bore; a self-referential movie with no self to refer to. One character after another, one scene after another, one cute line of dialogue after another, refers to another movie, a similar character, a contrasting image or whatever. The movie is like a bureaucrat who keeps sending you to another office.”

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004; with Milla Jovovich; directed by Alexander Witt)
Plot: Our heroine awakes to find her surrounds infested with monsters and zombies and must escape before all is destroyed by a nuclear missile.
Said Ebert: “Parents: If you encounter teenagers who say they liked this movie, do not let them date your children.”

The Hills Have Eyes (2006; with Ted Levine an Kathleen Quinlan, directed by Alexandre Aja)
Plot: An all-American suburban family detour into a deserted desert landscape where mutants hunt them for their flesh.
Said Ebert: “It always begins with the Wrong Gas Station. In real life, as I pointed out in a previous Wrong Gas Station movie, most gas stations are clean, well-lighted places.”; “Nobody in this movie has ever seen a Dead Teenager Movie, and so they don’t know 1) you never go off alone, 2) you especially never go off alone at night, and 3) you never follow your dog when it races off barking insanely, because you have more sense than the dog. It is also possibly not a good idea to walk back to the Wrong Gas Station to get help from the degenerate who sent you on the detour in the first place.”

*The long feud that ensued between Schneider and Ebert was laid to rest in some thoughtful correspondence that the comedia shared with Roger Ebert's widow, Chaz, which she reproduced in full on her blog page at rogerebert.com in October 2013.

REMEMBERING PAUL MAZURSKY

Paul Mazursky carved a unique niche in the contemporary Hollywood landscape. The writer/director, who passed away on June 30 in Los Angeles at the age of 84, was born into a Ukrainian Jewish home in working-class New York, his mother a musician, who gave recitals for dance classes; his father, a hardened labourer. That ‘art/work’ dichotomy infused his cinematic view of his world, from his beginnings as an acting student of Lee Strasberg to stints in stand-up comedy and finally a place amongst Hollywood’s A-list for over two decades.

In a career that spanned 19 films, he boldly tackled modern reworkings of Fellini (Alex in Wonderland, 1970), Truffaut (Willie and Phil, 1980), Shakespeare (Tempest, 1982) and Bergman (Scenes from a Mall, 1991). He has delivered one deeply personal work (1976s desperately undervalued Next Stop, Greenwich Village) and was not without his misguided follies (Columbia Pictures deemed his 1993 film industry satire, The Pickle, “unreleasable”). But more often than not, Mazursky’s words and images captured the zeitgeist, leading to some of the most caustic social satires and compassionate dramatic comedies in American cinema history… 

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Mazursky had directed the short Last Year at Malibu and penned the script (with co-writer Larry Tucker) for the Peter Sellers 1968 hit, I Love You, Alice B Toklas (Tucker and Mazursky had teamed on TV writing gigs, notably the pilot episode of The Monkees). For his feature directorial debut, he drew upon his experiences at a new-age communal retreat he had visited with his wife. The film, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, captured the tune-in/drop-out, free-love ethos of a rebellious America; it became a blockbuster hit (its US$30million gross equates to US$188million today), wowed critics (the esteemed Pauline Kael called it, “…the liveliest American comedy so far this year…”) and earned 4 Oscar nominations.

Blume in Love (1973) and Harry & Tonto (1974)
The enormous success of his debut gave Mazursky creative freedom, which he frittered away with the bizarre 1970 oddity, Alex in Wonderland (“…self-indulgent emptiness,” said critic Vincent Canby). After a sabbatical in Europe, he returned with two small-scale but insightful works that would re-establish his reputation. Blume in Love, starring George Segal, put a human face on the scourge of Me Generation America, the divorce lawyer, earning Mazursky a WGA nomination; and, Harry and Tonto, the touching story of a displaced old man (Oscar-winner Art Carney), his cat, Tonto and the road-trip they undertake to discover a country that casts aside its elderly in the name of progress.

An Unmarried Woman (1978)
Hitting cinemas with its themes of gender role redefinition and personal freedom at a time when American women were most vocal in the loud, proud fight for equality and independence, Mazursky had his biggest commercial hit ever with An Unmarried Woman. Starring Jill Clayburgh in an iconic, Oscar-nominated performance, the story of Erica and the reclamation of her spirit after her well-to-do Upper East Side marriage crumbles, became a social phenomenon.  Roger Ebert called it, “…one of the funniest, truest, sometimes most heartbreaking movies I've ever seen.”

Moscow on the Hudson (1984) and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
His ambition went unrewarded when follow-up projects Willie & Phil (1980) and Tempest (1982) tanked, but the country was reshaping itself. Gone was the ‘personal improvement’ mantra of the 1970s, replaced by the Reagan-era ‘red, white and blue’ patriotism that frowned on foreign influence and celebrated gaudy monuments to wealth. Mazursky refocussed his satirical eye accordingly - Moscow on the Hudson (1984) gave Robin Williams his best role in years, as the Russian musician finding the new America not the land of opportunity he was promised; and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), the smash-hit satire about life amongst LA’s vacuous elite, which rejuvenated the careers of Nick Nolte, Bette Midler and Richard Dreyfuss.

Enemies: A Love Story (1989)
Mazursky’s last truly memorable work was his sweet, ‘romantic love triangle’ comedy drama Enemies: A Love Story, adapted from Isaac Bashevis Singer’s novel by the director and journeyman writer Roger L Simon (The Big Fix, 1978; Bustin’ Loose, 1981). The film failed to click with audiences, but the aging auteur’s love letter to the New York of his boyhood was one of his most critically acclaimed films (Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers said, “This is a stunning film, richly detailed and brilliantly acted”), earning Oscar nominations for the adapted screenplay and leading ladies Lena Olin and Anjelica Huston.

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL: THE CINEMA OF CINEMA

Festival director Nashen Moodley assumed the role in 2013 and immediately set about expanding the reach and appeal of the Sydney Film Festival programme. But he also knows that the Harbour City cinephiles, who make up the core audience, have to be satisfied too. So SFF2014 presents a wide range of films on films; works that capture the scale and scope of cinema. SCREEN-SPACE looks at the features, documentaries and shorts that turn the camera on the industry itself…

LIFE ITSELF (USA; 118 mins; Dir: Steve James):
Hoop Dreams director Steve James' study of the life and work of the late, great film critic Roger Ebert (pictured, above) beautifully balances its tone between eulogistic reverence and celebratory joie de vivre. Featuring admirers such as Martin Scorsese, Errol Morris and Werner Herzog; the title is taken from his bestselling memoir, a reworking of his famous quote, “The only thing I love more than movies is…”.

THE LAST IMPRESARIO (Australia; 85 mins; Dir: Gracie Otto)
The wildly charismatic producer Michael White is not a household name, but many of his films are instantly recognizable (among them, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore’s The Hound of The Baskervilles, White Mischief and Nuns on the Run). Director Gracie Otto (pictured, right; Otto with White at the London premiere of the film) retraces the life of a man that became one of the most sought-after A-list raconteurs and confidant to the stars all over the world in her giddy tribute film.  

ABUSE OF WEAKNESS (France, Belgium, Germany; 104 mins; Dir: Catherine Breillat)
Writer/director Catherine Breillat, most famous for sexually confronting explorations of gender politics such as Romance, An Old Mistress and Anatomy of Hell, recounts the true story of that moment when she let an ex-con into her life to star in a project, only to be fleeced and left close to bankruptcy. Isabelle Huppert stars as the director, who adapts her autobiographical tale with trademark frankness.

DOUBLE PLAY: JAMES BENNING AND RICHARD LINKLATER (France, Portugal, USA; 70 mins; Dir: Gabe Klinger) Director Gabe Klinger and his subject James Benning (both guests of the Fest) team with iconic maverick director Richard Linklater (whose Boyhood screens at SFF) for this relaxed profile of two iconoclastic talents who also happen to be friends. Bonding over their love of film, baseball and Americana, Benning and Linklater riff together frankly in this casual but deceptively insightful talk-piece.

THE GOLD SPINNERS (Estonia; 72 mins; Dirs: Hardi Volmer, Klur Aarma)
Throughout the 1960’s, Eesti Reklaamfilm was one of the most prolific film production facilities in the USSR. It was run by one Peedu Ojamaa,  a vibrant personality with a head for business and a heart for ‘making the sale.’ In the late 60’s, the Kremlin hired Ojamaa to create a series of commercials in which Soviet life was sold with all the integrity one would expect from the world of advertising. The Gold Spinners brings the hilarious realities of 50 year-old Soviet spruikers to Sydney audiences.

JODOROWSKY’S DUNE (USA, France; 88 mins; Dir: Frank Pavich)
It is considered one of the great missed opportunities in modern cinema; the pairing of surrealist maverick filmmaker, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the vast vision of author Frank Herbert’s immense sci-fi novel, Dune. Filmmaker Frank Pavich pieces together, with the help of such luminaries as Moebius, Dan O’Bannon, the late H.R. Giger and Jodorowsky himself, a version of what may have eventuated if this insanely ambitious collaboration had materialised.

A STORY OF CHILDREN AND FILM (UK; 101 mins; Dir: Mark Cousins)
Mark Cousins’ ongoing obsession with the world of cinema (he compiled the landmark 2011 series, The Story of Film: An Odyssey) focusses in on the depiction of children onscreen in his latest work. The ultimate clip montage reworked into a moving, funny tribute to child actors, A Story of Children and Film sources 53 films from 28 countries, from much-loved classics (ET The Extra-Terrestrial; The 400 Blows) to barely-seen revelations (the Iranian tearjerker, The Boot; Astrid Henning-Jensen’s Palu Alone in the World).

SUPERMENSCH: THE LEGEND OF SHEP GORDON (USA; 85 mins; Mike Myers)
Comedy superstar Mike Myers (Wayne’s World, Austin Powers) makes his directorial debut with this biographical profile of one of Hollywood’s most charismatic talent agents, the legendary Shep Gordon (pictured, right; with the director at the Toronto premiere). Packed with superstar cameos and recollections from his most famous clients, Myers paints a portrait of a man who weaved a personal seam of integrity and vitality in a world of joyous hedonism and A-list indulgence.

JUNKED (Australia; 11 mins; Dir: Gus Berger)
In 2008, director Gus Berger (pictured, left) captured the formation of a British music mivement with his lauded doco, Duke Vin and the Birth of Ska. With Junked, it is the sad demise of traditional 35mm film projection at the iconic George Revival Cinema in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda that Berger’s camera captures with insight, affection and melancholy. One of Australia's great revival picture palaces held out in the face of the digital incursion into the exhibition sector; the Melbourne-based filmmaker was there as the reels of film unspolled.

Session information and ticket sales for all the screenings can be found at the Sydney Film Festival website here.

SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL: 'WOW MOMENTS' IN THE 2014 PROGRAM

The SOR crowd at the launch of the 2014 Sydney Film Festival (SFF) program were suitably impressed this years statistics – 183 titles from 47 countries, 15 world premieres and 122 Australian premieres amongst them. There was almost a sense of relief when the announcement came that high-profile titles such as David Michod’s The Rover, Dreamworks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon 2, Richard Linklater’s Boyhood and The Dardennes Brother’s Two Days One Night would screen, many direct from The Croisette. But what were the real gems, some hidden deep within the program, that suggests the 61^st edition of SFF is every true cinephile’s dream…?

BIGSCREEN SOCCER

With the greatest event on the international sports calendar, The World Cup, only weeks away, it should come as no surprise that SFF 2014 catches a little football fever. French sporty splatter-pic Goal of the Dead mashes zombie-apocalypse tropes with Euro-soccer action; Romanian director Corneliu Porumboui commentates uncut footage of a snowbound 1988 game in the bracingly unique The Second Game; two football-mad nations, Italy and Argentina, co-produce Paolo Zucca’s monochromatic farce, The Referee; and, the documentary Next Goal Wins (pictured, above), which charts the resurrection of the Samoan national side after their record-breaking 31-0 loss to Australia in 2001.

THE FILMS OF ISAO TAKAHATA
The animation veteran never achieved the mainstream profile of his Ghibli Studios contemporary, Hiyao Miyazaki, but Isao Takahata (pictured, right) is just as revered in his homeland and amongst aficionados of Japanese cell-art. Arguably his greatest achievement, the heartbreaking survival story Grave of the Fireflies, will screen in the Salute to Studio Ghibli retrospective; his most recent work, the moving, majestic fable The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, will be a Special Presentation screening at the appropriately grand State Theatre.

JAMES BENNING: THE VISIONARY OUTSIDER
Existing in a rarefied cinematic ether full of visions that dance between mainstream film language and avant garde experimentalism, Milwaukee-born Benning is an enigma in international cinema. Nick Bradshaw in Sight and Sound magazine observed, “James Benning’s movies pose an idealistic challenge, a spur to unattainably pure observation.” For four decades, his works have explored the American geo-political landscape through the lens of a patriot, albeit one that questions the murky ethics and humanist impact of his society. “All my films,” he has said, “are an attempt to ask, how liberated am I? Where did I come from? How am I progressing?” Benning will attend, along with director Gabe Kinger, who will introduce his documentary Double Play, a ‘Dinner with Andre’-style pairing of Benning and Richard Linklater.

SNOWPIERCER
No great shock that Bong Joon-Ho’s action epic will play in competition; the director’s long history with SFF dates back to 2004’s Memories of Murder, and the critically-acclaimed film has been a smash-hit in his home market, South Korea. The surprise, and a very pleasant one, is that local distributor Roadshow Films (notorious for sending hard-to-market niche product straight to DVD) will screen the director’s cut ahead of a planned Australian theatrical season. Starring Chris Evans, the film has only just set a US release date of June 27 after a protracted edit-suite war with distributor Harvey ‘Scissorhands’ Weinstein.

THE iMOM
Imagine Spike Jonze Her by way of Chris Columbus’ Bicentennial Man and you have Ariel Martin’s The iMom, just one of the stand-out finalists of this years Dendy Short Film awards. Fresh off its feting at Flickerfest, Martin’s imaginative take on hi-tech parenting will compete with new works from such talents as Warwick Young (Stuffed), Dave Wade (Welcome to Iron Knob) and Jessica Harris (Crochet Noir).

EXHIBITION: ROSEBUD
Thanks largely to the boundless enthusiasm of organiser Mathieu Ravier, the Festival meeting spot The Hub has become a vibrant space in which patrons can unwind and engage in buff banter. In 2014, it welcomes photo-art exhibition Rosebud, from famed lensman Hugh Carpenter, so named after the (spoiler alert) sled in Welles’ Citizen Kane. His work captures celebrities with the one item in their possession that they believe helps define them or holds some significant meaning.

WILLOW CREEK
It runs a lean 78 minutes, utilises the increasingly tiresome ‘found footage’ device, stars no-name actors Alexie Gilmore (pictured right) and Bryce Johnson and riffs on the hoary old ‘Bigfoot’ legend; not to mention it is directed by that comic from Police Academy 2 with the shrill, barking voice, Bobcat Goldthwait. So why is Willow Creek shaping up as the giddy thrill-ride of the always popular Freak Me Out program strand? It has some competition, though – Jerome Sable’s blackly-funny musical theatre/slasher effort, Stage Fright; Japan/Indonesia co-production, Killers, from the twisted minds of The Mo Brothers; and, the long overdue snowbound-zombie sequel, Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead.

Full details of the Sydney Film Festival 2014 program and ticket sales can be found here.