The Female of the Species
In my quest to watch the 1,000 greatest movies of all time (as compiled by They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? and referenced previously on this site) I’ve joined a DVD rental by mail service, and have found it to be a reliable source of all those tricky foreign language titles that appear to be shown so rarely on telly. When mine wife hasn’t got the latest series of Spooks listed on ‘High Priority,’ I’m enjoying, nay appreciating a steady stream of the best of world cinema, along with the occasional American classic that I haven’t got around to watching previously.
This week, the person who does the distributing at LOVEFiLM must have taken pity on me, and dispatched movies that star two of celluloid’s most impossibly beautiful women. Both are good films, fully deserving of their places on the list, not to mention their status as icons of 1960s cinema. But crikey, their leading ladies are lovely in a way that today’s ‘FHM Top 100′ types can only dream of capturing.
First up, an obvious choice for me, and a surprise that I haven’t seen it before. Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (number 80 in the list) doesn’t quite edge out The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as my favourite spag west, but it remains an excellent three hours, and shows what Il Buono misses in the comely shape of Claudia Cardinale. ‘CC’ plays Jill McBane, a former prostitute who is on her way to Flagstone in order to catch up with her groom. Only he’s killed moments before her arrival, shot by bad men in the employ of railroaders. Most people might be expected to turn tail without giving the matter much thought, but not Jill. She’s made of stronger stuff, and winds up recruiting Charles Bronson and Jason Robards to help her exact some form of revenge. The main object of her venom is a ruthless assassin named Frank, played by Henry Fonda. It’s unusual to see this archetypal good guy become someone so hopelessly wrong, yet Fonda seems to relish his work, chewing every scene with triumphant malice. Elsewhere, Bronson’s mysterious Harmonica is a fine replacement for Leone’s usual favourite, Clint Eastwood. Not only does he have the kind of face that looks like it belongs squarely on the frontier, he can play Ennio Morricone clips on his mouth organ, and has some ‘previous’ with Frank that motivates him.
OUATITW moves at a stately pace. The first ten minutes does little more than track a crew of desperadoes as they idle at a train station, waiting for the Express to pull in. It shouldn’t work, yet as ever with Leone it tells us more about the type of people who occupy this world than an expositional slice of dialogue ever could. There’s the usual bravura choreography to savour - the tracking shot that introduces Flagstone is unforgettable. As ever, Leone’s in love with those midwestern expanses that are logged so methodically by his camera.
But Cardinale is equal to any of these elements. Full-bodied, husky voiced, and possessing eyes so wide that they inspired several fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, Jill explodes into Flagstone, adding glamour and passion where once there was only business and death. Realising she is up against considerable odds, she uses everything at her disposal to stay alive and restore some justice. In one scene, she’s caught by Frank, and wriggles out of certain death by sleeping with him, using her body to blunt his barbed, spiteful comments about her dead husband.
Hers is a genuinely excellent performance in a movie that’s blessed roundly with fine acting. The eyes have it, constantly expressive, and never better shot than through a lace canopy.
The other film was La Dolce Vita (no. 23), an Italian classic from 1960. It tells the story of Marcello, a journalist based in Rome who spends his time lushing it up with his glitterati mates and bedding just about any woman in sight. It sounds great, the ’sweet life’ indeed, but as the booze-soaked episodes progress, you start to realise that his is an empty existence, one in which his soul plays no part. His antics range from the banal - Marcello’s endless fights with his long-suffering girlfriend - to the terrible. His friend Steiner, who he believes to be a rennaissance man with a real handle on life, turns out to be quite the opposite. Tragically, as Marcello tries to catch up with Steiner’s wife, they’re hounded by paparazzi photographers, the same celeb spotters he normally works with and encourages.
Perhaps overlong (it clocks in at little under three hours) and indulgent, ‘Dolce’ nevertheless has a lot of wise things to impart. It also has Anita Ekberg, who pops up in an early scene to enchant our hero. Her character, actress Sylvia, is good-natured and fun loving, but Marcello idealises her into a goddess, a vision she assists when she takes a dip in the Trevi fountain. One of cinema’s most iconic images, it isn’t hard to see why it’s captured the imagination. Ekberg, a model who was voted Miss Sweden before moving into the film industry, is unimaginably lovely - blond, charming, and possessing the kind of shape that ought to hold the copyright on ‘hourglass figure,’ it’s just a shame she isn’t in the picture for very long.
Marcello’s shaky grip on life slides out of control more than once. By the end of the movie, he’s nursing one dog of a hangover and collapsing on a beach, gutted at what he’s become. Waved at by an innocent girl he met earlier in the story, he makes his one good decision and doesn’t join her. Whether through shame, self-pity or a singly noble wish not to corrupt her, he’s led off to be with his soulless friends, presumably to stay on his empty rollercoaster ride.
La Dolce Vita is a film I probably wouldn’t have watched if not for its presence on the list. I’m glad I have. There aren’t many movies that could take on this subject quite so impassionately, letting its audience work out the message for themselves. It reminded me of Trainspotting, of all things, showing what’s so appealing about Marcello’s adventures before peering into the dark side.