Over the last five decades, Vittorio Taviani (b. 1929) and his brother Paolo (b. 1931) have created films that explore but challenge their
native Italy. The brothers have probed political commitments, class
relations, emigration, family and fate in prize-winning features whose
subjects range from 18th century aristocrats to their restaging of
Shakespeare in a contemporary maximum-security prison, Caesar Must Die.
Their carefully-reconstructed scenarios have included the harsh poverty
of Sardinia, war-torn landscapes of Tuscany and the new world of Los
Angeles; they have drawn on sources as diverse as Pirandello, Tolstoy,
Goethe, Shakespeare and autobiographical memories. Thus, they have
created a cinematic universe that enriches perspectives established by
diverse masters of Italian cinema like De Sica, Fellini, Visconti, and
Antonioni, yet with their own, very different vision.
Initially attracted to journalism, the brothers were drawn into
film by documentarian Joris Ivens with the 1960 production L’Italia non è
un paese povero (Italy is not a Poor Country). Two early films here,
St. Michael Had a Rooster (1972) and Allonsanfan (1974), chart these
social themes as they explore mirroring historical images of radical
politics and human commitment.
Padre, Padrone brought the Tavianis international renown. It
presents the near surreal harshness of a boy forced by his father into
the isolated life of a shepherd. An epilogue by the actual shepherd
turned linguist reminds us that reality and stories are never so far
apart for the Tavianis, whether in reconstructions of Napoleonic Italy
or fables of World War II. Indeed, realism includes the fantastic, as in
Good Morning, Babylon, where two earlier Italian brothers, immigrants
in America, enter the heady universe of D.W. Griffith’s 1916 epic,
Intolerance as well as World War I.
The Tavianis also imbue their films with literature. The
enigmatic Luigi Pirandello is a favorite source, represented in two
works in this program, Kaos and You Laugh. Yet, the brothers have also
reframed foreign classics as insightful commentaries on Italian life,
whether Shakespeare, Tolstoy (Night Sun) or Goethe, whose chemical
theories provide notions of love to The Elective Affinities.
Over time, the Tavianis themselves have come to embody Italian
history and time themselves, from postwar Italy on the verge of global
boom while torn by class and region, to a nation looking for identity
and purpose in the past to contemporary Italy imprisoned by power and
corruption. In this program, 40 years of films allow spectators to share
this dialogue through unforgettable images, sounds and characters.
Programme
St. Michael Had a Rooster (San Michele aveva un gallo)
AllonsanfanPadre PadroneThe Night of San Lorenzo (La notte di San Lorenzo)KaosGood Morning, BabylonNight Sun (Il sole anche di notte)
FiorileElective Affinities (Le affinita’ elettive)You Laugh (Tu ridi)