I would second "It Started in Naples," (1960, Italian title: La baia di Napoli) mentioned by jaknjul above. Despite the title, I believe there are only two brief scenes shot in Naples; rather, most of the film is is shot in Capri. The hard-driven lifestyle of the quinessential "ugly American, played by Clark Gable, is contrasted with the easy carefree life enjoyed by locals on the island, including Sophia Loren's character and her young nephew. (At least that's how things are portrayed in the movie). It is goofy in parts, but really, would you not want to watch Sophia Loren sing and dance?

Another movie featuring Capri -- almost contemporaneous, yet completely opposite in style and theme -- is "Contempt" by Jean-Luc Godard (1963, French title Le Mepris). This is a dark movie about the breakdown of a relationship, the last part of which takes place in Capri. (I believe the first part is shot on the outskirts of Rome, but I am not sure). In contrast to the bucolic Capri depicted in "It Started in Naples," this movie shows Capri as the playground of the rich and would-be famous. Part of it is shot in a very modern private villa, (the Villa Malaparte) that you can see on a boat tour of the island.

We watched both of these movies prior to our recent trip to Capri, and they were a great introduction to the beauty of the island. We enjoyed walking around during our trip and picking out places we had seen in the films -- I would definitely recommend this as a pre-vacation excercise to anyone . . .

quote:
Originally posted by SL Jones:
I love the subtitled Italian film "Bread and Tulips". I was lucky enough to stumble across it on Netflix.

Linda

I LOVE this movie. Have seen it twice and I hardly ever watch movies twice. Don't watch a lot of movies in general so if I watch one twice it means a lot! This one is a bit disjointed at the beginning but the 2nd half of it is marvelous. Just LOVE the line: "sono venuto a reclamare la tua mamma"
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Sorry, I don't know how to 'quote' previous posts, so I just copy/pasted.

I just wanted to second (third?) the vote for "Bread and Tulips", set almost entirely in Venice. I LOVED this film so much, I have lost count of how many times I've seen it. I bought the dvd in Italy and often bring it out again when I want to re-live Venice. A beautiful love story, with more than a few good comical touches, excellent acting and some beautiful Venice scenes.

I also loved "Il POstino"

Is there a list for movies set in France on this website? I found a bunch of threads, but was wondering about a list.

Loved "Enchanted April" too!

Jim

My heart is filled with lust. With AFI in DC you can see these movies in their restored, uncut, correct dimensions. Here in the hinterland it's a trip to LA for us.

Obsession - one of Brian de Palma's first directorial efforts (he also wrote the screenplay). This is where De Palma "announced" his intention to become the next Hitchcock. Gorgeous camera work, suspenseful story. Although it is predominantly shot in New Orleans the scenes in Venice are memorable.

Another great suspense story "Don't Look Now" with Donald Sutherland directed by Nicholas Roeg in a dark Venetian landscape. DH loves it, I have problems with all of Roeg's films.

Light in the Piazza - Yvette Mimeux, Olivia de Haviland, George Hamilton. Extremely silly story line, Mimeux plays a brain damaged blonde (no blonde jokes here), George Hamilton plays a tanned (what else) vaporous italian playboy who meets and falls in love with Mimeux. Olivia de Haviland had fallen on hard times and did the movie for the $$. Great scenes of Italy.


And finally the scenes shot in Florence from Hannibal. To me Florence is a city of light - actually THE city of light. This is the birth place of the renaissance and it is directly due to the magical light in the city. Somehow Ridley Scott manages to suck all the light out of Florence to show the darkness of Hannibal. I still believed it was shot on a soundstage until last year when we spent 2 drizzly days in Florence. Wonder how long Scott sat and waited for drizzle when shooting?

quote:

With AFI in DC you can see these movies in their restored, uncut, correct dimensions

Actually AFI is the not the principal venue for Italian films (although they did have a wonderful Troisi retrospective last year).

The "jewel in the crown" for seeing film treasures (including many Italian films) on a big screen is the National Gallery of Art Film Series. Usually at least tangentially connected to a show being exhibited in the Gallery, the NGA film series is incomparable for providing a steady diet of wonderful movies in a comfortable auditorium every weekend.....and for free.

Here's a link to the current schedule.

http://www.nga.gov/programs/film.shtm

I add my voice to the chorus for The Best of Youth. In SF, it was shown in two three hour sittings. You could have heard a pin drop. There was no advertising for it, all word of mouth. And I do want to get it on DVD. I also want to add Mediteraneo. It is a gentle film about a small group of Italian soldiers who are sent to take a Greek Island during WW2 and end up getting stranded there. They soon forget about the war and become absorbed into the local culture. Beautiful photography and pacing. The anti-war message comes through.

There is another lovely movie, whose name I forget, about a courtesan in Venice. It was recommended on this board a couple of years ago. Gorgeous photography and a real sense of Venice.

Oh this is so fun!! I must add my 2 cents too, for the movie, already mentioned, Cinema Paradiso(Directors Cut) What a wonderful movie, I have watched it 3 times. Think I should just purchase it. I have made a list of all the movies I want to see, from all the reviews on here. Netflex is going to be very busy !!

quote:

There is another lovely movie, whose name I forget, about a courtesan in Venice. It was recommended on this board a couple of years ago. Gorgeous photography and a real sense of Venice.

Linda, are you referring to Dangerous Beauty? It is one of my favorite films!

I know someone else has already mentioned it, but I only just recently watched Cinema Paradiso and absolutely loved it. It might be a tad too sentimental for some, but I didn't mind at all. One thing I will say is that I watched it on DVD, which contained the extended director's cut, and I didn't like that version so much. It incorporated several scenes that explained what happened to Salvatore's lost love, Elena, and in the process of this explanation, I felt the movie lost a bit of its initial direction. There really was no need to explain Elena's disappearance, other than to satisfy the curiosity of some filmgoers who absolutely needed to know what happened. If you haven't seen this film yet, I'd suggest watching the edited theatrical version over the director's cut.

Also, another movie I didn't see on the Italy movie list was Fellini's Le Notti di Cabiria, or Nights of Cabiria. This is arguably my favorite Fellini film, about a luckless prostitute on the streets of Rome. Parts of it are heartbreaking, other parts of it are simply charming, and Giulietta Masina, in my opinion, steals the show, especially with that final knowing glance at the very end of the movie.

Oh, and I also just recently watched Il Postino for the first time, and I loved that one too. God, Italian film is so wonderful!

EDIT:
My mistake. Nights of Cabiria is on the list; it's just not under the section dedicated to Fellini.

quote:

Linda, are you referring to Dangerous Beauty? It is one of my favorite films!

That's the film. I just couldn't remember the title.

quote:

Originally posted by Rome Addict:
I am talking about Sergio Leone and spaghetti westerns. A Fistful of Dollars, A few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. We think of them as american but watch them carefully. They are very italian in everything from the editing to the iconography.

The same could be said about a number of American (or British) movies set in Italy. Some are really excellent movies, like An Enchanted April, some are crappy. They are still not Italian films. They are rather films (again, some excellent!) that describe the reaction of Americans or British (and so on!) to Italy as they perceive it, filtered through their (your!) culture and prejudices (good and bad ones). They are hommages to Italy. One of such hommages is Avanti! with Jack Lemmon.

Just watched Bread and Tulips last night. What a delightful movie. I can see myself wanting to watch that on again. So glad I can rent them so fast and get the nest one by mail. On to my next one on my list.

Did anyone mention I Cento Passi One Hundred steps?
Same director I think, as Best of Youth, and same cute actor.
Excellent.

There is "A Good Woman" which was filmed on the Amalfi Coast

I Cento Passi is a bit moe than an excellent film with a good director and a cute actor. It's a chunk of the history of Modern Italy. Peppino Impastato (check also this website in Italian), the main character, was born from a mafioso family in Cinisi, 100 steps away from the house of mafia boss Tano Badalamenti, from whom his father worked. He ran from home for his political ideas and his radical opposition to mafia, and set up a small radio in Cinisi, with the help of some friends who shared his ideas. He was nominated for a seat in the city council by small left-winf party Democrazia Proletaria but, a few daus before the elections, he was found dead on the railway line. He had been killed by a bomb placed under his car and post-mortem. left on the tracks. His death was nevertheless listed as suicide, at first. Despite his death, he as elected in the city council, his seat taken by another member of the same party. Only a couple of yars ago the Mafia responsibilityies in his homicide have finally been assessed by a tribunal. After his death, his mother, Ms Felicia Bartolotta Impastato, broke with her husband and took up Peppino's fight against mafia. Umberto Santino and Anna Puglisi founded Centro Impastato, a documentation center on mafia. If you liked I Cento Passi, consider supporting their activities.

Triumph of Love: Ben Kingsley and Fiona Shaw, filmed in Tuscany (Lucca area during 1999-2000) Released in 2001 and did not get very good reviews. Being a farce, and given today's more jaded audiences, I am not surprised it only got a star or two in any review. Mostly "garden" scenes.

Saw the two stars in the Jolly Restaurant outside Lucca during 2000 (apparently studying script in the corner) and Kingsley actually passed me the olive oil from the credenza on his way by our table. My comment was..."Ghandi!" ...he smiled, put a finger to his lips to shush me, and went on his way.

The title of this thread is Movies Set in Italy. I am presuming this covers ancient Rome?
I saw Quo Vadis move as a child. When I was researching the Appian Way, I was surprised that there was a church Quo Vadis where Jesus supposedly appeared to St Peter on the Appian Way, and this wasn't some Hollywood made up thing.
More Ancient Rome Movies Ben Hur (with those chariot races on the Circus Maximus), Spartacus with Kirk Douglas (all those crucified bodies along the Appian Way), Gladiator with Russell Crowe (with the Emperor Commodus in the Flavian Amphitheatre/Colosseum).

Watched Agata and the Storm last night.

[It is directed by Silvio Soldini, the director of Bread and Tulips. Licia Maglietta, the same lead actress from Bread and Tulips, also stars in this film and is nothing less than entirely luminous. You just can't your eyes off of her. She is sexy, provocative and yet innocent all at once. She makes her character utterly enchanting]from Teachick

Sorry, don't know how to add a quote, but I so agree with you. she was wonderful in her role. She is so natural, and of course very beautiful. Thank you for the great review, i enjoyed the movie very much.

Just saw "Best of Youth," noticed this thread, went on to report it, and of course you are all already all over it. I have been away too long.
The mother blew me away--who is that actress? Off to IMDB. Is it Adriana Asti? The scene where she drops the books tore my heart out, also later in Sicily.

Don't know if this has made it on but Scorsese's "Mia Viaggio" has a wonderful read of especially Rossellini's war trilogy. He doesn't do Stromboli which has to be one of my all-time favorites.

No-one has yet recommended one of my all-time favourite films, "Don't Look Now" set in Venice and starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland.This is a genuinely disturbing film and contains one of the most erotic scenes in any film anywhere!
The film was shot on location in Venice and uses the misty calles to great effect. Some scenes were also shot in San Niccolo dei Mendicoli, which was being restored at the time.
I would highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't seen it: but you'll look over your shoulder next time you're in Venice!
On the same theme, Bertolucci's atmospheric and elegaic "Death in Venice" was shot in Venice and on the Lido. This film is slow-moving and elegant, and always beautiful to look at. Dirk Bogarde, Mahler and Venice...what more could you ask for?