With a fervent yearning for respectability and enough money to buy herself a brand-new life in Rome, the uninhibited, fearless, determined former streetwalker Mamma Roma renounces her ignominious past to reunite with her loafing 16-year-old son Ettore. Free at last from her disgusting pimp and ex-lover Carmine, Roma is bent on making an honest living running a humble vegetable stall, but a malicious extortion scheme and the equally insidious menace of exposure threaten to put an end to her zealous aspirations for a decent bourgeois existence. For his own sake, Ettore must be spared the violence of the adult world; nevertheless, can a lone single mother protect her only son from the same snares that wounded her youth?

Captured French Resistance fighter Lieutenant Fontaine awaits a certain death sentence for espionage in a stark Nazi prison in Lyon, France. Facing malnourishment and paralyzing fear, he must plot an extraordinary escape, complicated by the questions of whom to trust, and what lies beyond the small portion of the prison they are housed in.

In a seedy section of Rome, Vittorio Cataldi--"Accattone" ("beggar") to those who know him--lives off the avails of prostitution, Maddalena being his only girl. He is married to Ascenza with who he has young son Iaio, but he does not live with them, provide for them, or play any important role in their lives (they live with her father and brother). He generally hangs out with his similarly-slack friends, playing cards and drinking. His income source is threatened when Maddalena is hit by a motorcyclist, then beaten by rivals of his, which leads to her being arrested and jailed for a year. Largely because of Iaio, Accattone contemplates going straight and getting a real job. Then he meets Stella, an innocent young woman who has had a hard life, but is not as naive as she first appears. Accattone falls in love with her, but as the thought of working a steady job now becomes abhorrent, contemplates pimping for Stella. As Accattone and Stella's relationship progresses, Accattone's past might come back to haunt him.

The power and fortune of the Von Essenbeck family remained intact even when Germany lost World War I, and during the depression that followed. Now it's 1934, and the baron has summoned his family to a dinner that also brings a cousin rising in the Nazi party to the great house accompanied by a rising manager at the baron's company. Two little girls recite poetry in the parlor and then play hide-and-seek with their cousin Martin (Helmut Berger). Suddenly there is a scream. The baron has been shot with their father's gun and the father flees the country.

In this adaptation of the Thomas Mann novel, avant-garde composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Sir Dirk Bogarde) travels to a Venetian seaside resort seeking repose after a period of artistic and personal stress. But he finds no peace there, for he soon develops a troubling attraction to Tadzio (Björn Andrésen), an adolescent on vacation with his family. The boy embodies an ideal of beauty that Aschenbach has long sought and he becomes infatuated. However, the onset of a deadly pestilence threatens them physically and represents the corruption that compromises and threatens all ideals.

In the 1860s, a dying aristocracy struggles to maintain itself against a harsh Sicilian landscape. The film traces with a slow and deliberate rhythm the waning of the noble home of Fabrizio Corbero, Prince of Salina (the Leopard) and the corresponding rise to eminence of the enormously wealthy ex-peasant Don Calogero Sedara. The prince himself refuses to take active steps to halt the decline of his personal fortunes or help build a new Sicily, but his nephew Tancredi, Prince of Falconeri, swims with the tide and assures his own position by marrying Don Calogero's beautiful daughter Angelica. The climatic scene is the sumptuous 40-minute ball in which Tancredi introduces Angelica to society.

Marcello is in the compartment of an Italian train, facing forward, when the mineral water of the woman seated across from him starts falling toward him. He catches the bottle and makes eye contact, then follows her when she leaves the compartment. For a few moments she finds him attractive too. Then suddenly she gets off the train and starts walking through a field. Marcello follows her, loses her, and finds himself in a large hotel surrounded by women. A feminist conference is taking place and he tries to escape.

One year in a small northern Italian coastal town in the late 1930s is presented. The slightly off-kilter cast of characters are affected by time and location, the social mores dictated largely by Catholicism, and the national fervor surrounding Il Duce aka

Juliet lives in a beautiful house by the ocean. Her sisters, and especially her mother, overshadow her with their beauty. She is spiritual, superstitious, and naive. Soon after she visits a psychic seer who tells her that she must follow the sex trade in order to be happy, she meets her eccentric, sexy neighbour Suzy, who appears to be a high-class prostitute and encourages Juliet into sexual acts which make her guilty and nervous. On a rare night that sees her husband at home, she awakens to hear him talking to another woman on the phone. He calls out the name "Gabriella" in his sleep, then lies when she she questions him, but she finds out who Gabriella is and fears her husband will leave her. Then she starts having visions who accuse and terrorize her. The pinnacle of the visions comes at the end where it is implied she realizes she would be better off without her husband and is ultimately emotionally emancipated.

Guido is a film director, trying to relax after his last big hit. He can't get a moment's peace, however, with the people who have worked with him in the past constantly looking for more work. He wrestles with his conscience, but is unable to come up with a new idea. While thinking, he starts to recall major happenings in his life, and all the women he has loved and left. An autobiographical film of Fellini, about the trials and tribulations of film making.

In 1959/1960 Rome, Marcello Rubini (Marcello Mastroianni) is a writer and journalist, the worst kind of journalist--a tabloid journalist. His job is to try to catch celebrities in compromising or embarrassing situations. He tends to get quite close to his subjects--especially when they're beautiful women. Two such subjects are local heiress Maddalena (Anouk Aimee), and Swedish superstar-actress Sylvia (Anita Ekberg), with both of whom he has affairs despite being engaged to Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), a clingy, insecure, nagging, melodramatic woman. Despite his extravagant, pleasure-filled lifestyle, he is wondering if maybe a simpler life wouldn't be better.

Practicing the world's oldest profession in the archaeological walk of Rome's Parco di Porta Capena, the trusting, stubbornly-optimistic streetwalker Cabiria refuses to lose faith in love. After escaping death by the skin of her teeth, the hurt and momentarily-disenchanted Cabiria continues to confront life with a mixture of naivete and arrogance. One evening she ventures into the elegant Via Veneto and gets picked up by suave film star Alberto Lazzari. Disappointment awaits once more, and as poor Cabiria prays to Virgin Mary for guidance and a blessing, the man of her prayers, Oscar D'Onofrio, barges into her life after a chance encounter at a vaudeville theatre. But do miracles happen?

Sad story of a waif, Gelsomina, who is sold by her mother to Zampano for 10,000 lire and a few kilos of food. Zampano is a traveling showman who exhibits feats of strength by breaking a chain wrapped around his chest. He performs in village squares and then passes the hat for whatever the normally small crowd is prepared to give. He teaches Gelsomina a drum roll as part of his introduction. He doesn't treat her well and when she tries to run away, he beats her. They eventually join a small traveling circus where they meet a tight-rope walker who convinces Gelsomina to question her choices.

Fausto Moretti seduces his friend Moraldo Rubini's sister Sandra and is forced to marry her After their honeymoon, he takes a job selling religious objects in a small shop. Marriage doesn't change him; he still goes with his friends to look for women. He even tries to seduce his boss' wife and gets fired. Sandra forgives everything he does. He and his friends of similar temperament are content to be idle, chase girls, and leave the job-hunting and work to others. After Fausto has spent one more night away from home with a girl, Sandra can no longer forgive and runs off with their child, and Fausto and his friends search all over for them, fearing the worst.

Demonatrix

Coby

whitneyabi

Fellini = fantasy/baroque, Pasolini = sexuality, Rossellini = war, Visconti = decadence/decline of nobility

Italian Neorealism

movie

Niko Aiello

I guess I’m more of an arthouse snob than I thought

1979 American war film directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Best of All Time

1987 American science fiction parody movie directed by Mel Brooks

Sci-Fi and/or Horror 

2014 film directed by John Michael McDonagh

Watchlist 2.0

Books to Read

1970s Italian crime/action films. Born out of the French gangster film resurgence of the late 1960s-1970s, as well as the cultural turmoil in Italy at the time. Violence, vigilantism, corruption, “greatness of the working class protagonist over the corrupt bureaucracy”

1973 poliziottesco film directed by Sergio Sollima

Poliziotteschi Films

Post-Colonialism, nostalgia, modernity and youth culture, and the ultimate cultural identity of Hong Kong

Hong Kong New Wave

German films, 1962 - 1982, born out of the Oberhausen Manifesto. Disillusionment with post-War Germany, rejection of mainstream German cinema and art, socially critical. Would go on to influence Italian Neorealism, Nouvelle Vague, and British New Wave

1979 film directed by Volker Schlöndorff

Neuer Deutscher Film

Italian Comedies from the 1950s to 1970s: lots of satire, lots of "socially taboo" subjects, usually to the background of the working class with some sprinkles of social criticism

Commedia all'italiana

All the references and recommendations from the Director’s Commentary of Hot Fuzz, as well as those from their conversation on the Empire Film Podcast