January 13th 2007 Hands Over the City (Francesco Rosi 1963)  Rosi's next film tackled the burning contemporary issue of the rampant building speculation which had already devastated many of Italy's urban centres in the wake of the so-called "economic miracle". After the titles, which appear over a wide helicopter view of wall-to-wall high-rise buildings characterising the Naples of the "economic miracle", the film begins with what seems to be documentary footage of the catastrophic collapse of a multi-storey building.An official inquest into responsibility for the collapse and the ensuing deaths, which seems to lie clearly at the feet of right-wing politician and entrepreneur, Edoardo Nottola (played with an extraordinary intensity by Rod Steiger), is soon blocked as a result of complex political machinations and the ferocious power struggle which is going on in the city Council on the eve of an election. As the film proceeds, the Council chamber comes to resemble a Roman arena as the political factions tear into each other, with Rosi's camera documenting their heaving bodies and contorted faces with unflinching accuracy.  Spectacular as these scenes are, however, the real genius of the film lies less in its pitiless critical realism than in the way it documents and uncovers the more subtle negotiations of power engaged in by the political and financial players of the city of Naples. PLUS John Henry and the Inky-Poo (George Pal 1946) The film is a version of the nineteenth century American folk myth John Henry, about the steel-driving man who wants to prove he can drive in railroad spikes faster than the machine that's come to replace him.  George Pal is best known as the producer and sometimes director of science fiction films such as War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. However, before he moved into live action effects films he had a long career in animation directing and producing his Puppetoon films. Born in Hungary in 1908, he began animating in Budapest, went on to UFA in Berlin, then to Holland after Hitler came to power, where he made films for Philips and Horlicks amongst others, and finally on to Hollywood.  February 10th 2007 The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci 1970) The following notes have been adapted from an article by Bilge Ebiri: The Conformist tells the tale of Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a young man in Mussolini's Italy desperate to create the illusion of "normality" by rejecting his past, which includes a homosexual incident and a murder in his youth, and joining the Fascist Party, which entrusts him to locate his old Professor in Paris and assassinate him. Clerici, who has also embraced marriage as part of his attempt to conform to society's expectations, travels to Paris, only to fall in love with the Professor's bisexual wife. Bertolucci begins the film with Clerici waiting in a hotel room in Paris for the phone call that will whisk him away to the Professor's assassination. The past then begins to play out while Clerici rides in his car, chatting with his fascist bodyguard. Even the flashbacks themselves have flashbacks - a visit to a priest on the eve of his engagement leads to a memory of the homosexual encounter where Bertolucci locates Clerici's psychosis.  POSTER BY POLISH DESIGNER JAN MLODOZENIEC. What distinguishes The Conformist's structure from other works that rely on framing devices is Bertolucci's avoidance of standard cinematic grammar, shirking dissolves, track-ins, voiceovers and other motifs that traditionally indicate a flashback is about to occur. It certainly works to keep the audience from settling into a conventional story but the film's style, both in movement and design, also symbolises the rise and fall of Fascism. Just as Clerici's attempts to order his life according to society's harsh rules lead to his eventual disintegration, so too do Fascism's attempts at regimentation and authoritarianism lead to anarchy and chaos. The early parts of the film, full of the clean, imposing spaces of Mussolini's Italy, are directed with a highly orderly aesthetic - symmetrical compositions, lateral, precise tracking shots, and very tight, controlled movements by the actors, particularly Trintignant. The later parts are draped in shadows, or shot through with unflatteringly harsh lights, working to create a sense of violent social turmoil. The scene where the Professor and his wife are murdered is full of rough, handheld camerawork and jump cuts. The finale, set in a dark, dank prostitute-riddled corner of the Colosseum on the night of Il Duce's fall, with distracting searchlights and other odd lighting effects, is a far cry from the cleanly lit, orderly spaces of the earlier scenes. The mixture of homosexual and heterosexual hustlers (among them the gay chauffeur Marcello thought he had killed as a child), the disorderly political protesters, the collapsing symbols of fascism's fall, all create the sense that the protagonist has wound up in a world where everything he sought to suppress has come out of hiding and into full view. PLUS The Hand (Jirí Trnka 1965) This film, a powerful tale of an artist living under totalitarianism, was Czech animator Jirí Trnka's last film. In 1970 it was supressed by the Czech communist government. 
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Rosi and Bertolucci
