In addition to the pan-European festival announced the day before, Venice this year displays the Stars and Stripes in seven films out of twenty-three in competition, and thus America is the most represented country, followed only by Italy with six films. Here are the magnificent seven from this 80th edition: Origin by Ava DuVernay; “Killer” by David Fincher; Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla; Bradley Cooper Master; Ferrari by Michael Mann; Poor creatures! Yorgos Lanthimos and, finally, “Memory” by Michael Franco. Topics ranging from racism to crime, from Elvis Presley to Leonard Bernstein, from the Ferrari legend to Yorgos Lanthimos’ restless Bella Baxter.
Origins by Ava DuVernay, the first African-American director to compete in Venice, explores racism in the States and the origins of injustice against African Americans. As the title suggests, David Fincher’s The Killer is about a professional assassin (Michael Fassbender), a man with a lonely, cold, and meticulous personality. But at some point, something breaks in him and his coldness seems to fail. Then there’s the long-awaited Priscilla by Sofia Coppola, an adaptation of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley’s autobiographical book Elvis and Me, published in 1985.
More music, but a completely different genre, in and with Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, a biopic about Leonard Bernstein, an American composer and conductor, the son of Polish Jews who emigrated to America, and a true music prodigy.
Controversy over a prosthetic nose that Cooper allegedly used to better reproduce the stereotype of a Jew. The myth of the red horse’s father is at the center of the film Ferrari, directed by Michael Mann and set in the summer of 1957. In Power Creature! sulphurous Yorgos Lanthimos instead has the story of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a modern woman with a very natural sexuality for her time. Finally, Michel Franco’s Reminiscence tells the story of a couple in love trying to build a relationship while facing trauma and dementia.
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