lThe film festival, which starts on August 30, turns 80 years old. During which he disturbed conscience, violated taboos, shocked the world. Like in these 10 films
The first film festival in the world – because it was Venice – has over 18,000 films in its history, along which the story of ideas, customs, politics and all the flames of rebellion that helped change the world unfolds. As the critic Tullio Kesic said, these 18,000 names made Venice a place “with great potential for utopia.” In anticipation of the opening of the 80th issue, from August 30 to September 9, we bring you 10 films that “shook the world”.
1934: Ecstasy, the first fully nude body
At the third Venice Film Festival, it was already a collective shock. IN ecstasy Czechoslovak director Gustav Mahati the first full nudity was staged. To show my ivory body in the distance, really reflected in the water, was Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, the future Hedy Lamarr. The actress knew Mussolini through her husband, and it was thanks to the Duce that the film received permission to be shown at the Lido. The very young Michelangelo Antonioni wrote: “That evening one could hear the breathing of very attentive spectators and a shiver running through the stalls.”
1954: Meaning, the title speaks for itself
In 1954 luxurious Meaning From Luchino Visconti it seemed intended for Leone, but was surpassed by Renato Castellani’s Romeo and Juliet: certainly not the most famous author of the time. Yet it was clear. The married Countess Livia Serpieri herself, seized with an irresistible passion for the Austrian army lieutenant Franz Mahler, who would use her, betray her, humiliate her uncontrollably, was red-hot material: the untidy room of their secret meetings, the brutal final clash forced Serpieri to sister Madame Bovary. With one difference: instead of punishing herself for excessive love, she took revenge by sending her loved one to death. This time the woman reacted. Much better to give the Lion to the childish Juliet. You never know that some inattentive person could draw inspiration from the Countess!
1967: Pretty Afternoon, Wife Perversions
Under the wind of the 68th, despite the obscene subject Beautiful in the afternoon, Luis Buñuel won the Golden Lion, and Catherine Deneuve went down in history. Severina, a sophisticated bourgeois wife who worked as a prostitute in brothels after dinner, left a deep mark. There was neither a woman nor a man who would not be interested in what is contained in a box offered by an obese oriental buyer as an erotic game to a smug blond lady …
1968: Theorem, obscenity trial
It was necessary Pier Paolo Pasolini With Theorem, the story of a quiet middle-class family sexually appalled by the arrival of a stranger to stop the noise. A few days after the Venetian screening, the film was seized by the prosecutor’s office of Rome “for obscenity and various scenes of carnal, lustful and voluptuous embraces.” Both the director and the producer were acquitted by the court of Venice, at the place of the trial. In an interview on French television, Pasolini said: “Mine, as the name suggests, was a demonstration in spite of the crisis of the bourgeois family.”
1972: Salome, and immediately rebelled
Never before has there been such a popular uprising as the uprising for Salome From Carmelo Bene. On the evening of the show, a crowded hall rebelled against the director, who later said: “In the Palazzo del Cinema, stuffed with more than three thousand animals, an incredible thing happened. The Venetians in tailcoats spat on me, I blessed them and they got even angrier. I escaped the lynching thanks to the human barrier of the cops, this time on my side.” Salome, her dance and sexual practices with the severed head of the Baptist, plus the vampire Jesus, were considered an unforgivable outrage.
1982: Querelle de Brest gay taboo
German director Rainer Fassbinder he disappeared for only 2 months, but his Querelle de Brest created such a media hype that director kermesse was forced to issue a statement in defense of the decision to enter the film in the competition. Sailor Kerel’s wanderings around the notorious Brest clubs and his cheerful meetings infuriated sane people. Homosexual sex was still taboo.
1999: Eyes Wide Shut, Tom, Nicole and the Swamps of Desire
Arthur Schnitzler’s version of “Double Dream”, signed Stanley Kubrick it made everyone freeze, because under the lens of the recently deceased director’s entomologist, there was the sexual dynamics of the golden couple of Hollywood: beautiful, on the crest of a wave, apparently deeply in love. Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise arrived in Venice for the presentation Eyes wide shut, a film with a high erotic slant that explores the swamps of desire and betrayal. Full nakedness from the back, a confession with a joint, a terrible orgy in the castle, the final phrase: “Let’s fuck, let’s fuck.” They’ve been married since 1990: “Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to handle the pressure of the film,” Tom said. He spoke too soon: they divorced less than two years later.
2005: Brookback Mountain Cowboy Love
Golden Lion, 3 Oscars and an avalanche of prizes for a masterpiece from Ang Lee Brokeback Mountainbased on a story by Annie Proulx. Times have changed and the story of two cowboys having sex in a tent and kissing behind the walls is no longer a big scandal. But what worries the conscience a little is the realization that this connection is true love. In addition to wives, children, work and other things. Feelings began to flow.
2011: Shame, obsession with sex
Alienating New York, extreme loneliness and illusory freedom. director Steve McQueen hit hard Shame, telling the story of Brandon trapped in compulsive, self-consuming sex. Brandon masturbated in front of any porn image, he fucked all of them, he compulsively seduced. But what struck me was the mirror that the film placed in front of him. To what level of self-destructive indifference can we go? Michael Fassbender won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor.
2019: Chiara Ferragni – Unpublished, is this a movie?
The most talked about movie of 2019 was Chiara Ferragni – unpublisheddocument Elisa Amoruso which caused the ire of moviegoers. How? An influencer, although the most famous digital entrepreneur of our time, a guest of a glorious biennale? But are they crazy? When will she ever become an artist? However, the return of the image of Venice 76 was, for good or for worse, very high. And while the movie theaters of the “Third World” remained half-empty, even the harshest and purest critics allowed themselves to stand in long lines to see the dock fashionista. The girl was right. Was it a miracle?