At National Portrait Gallery – McEvoy Auditorium
Marco Bellocchio is probably best known in North America for his singular early works like Fists in the Pocket (I pugni in tasca), a 1965 film that heralded the student rebellions of the late 1960s. As an artist, Bellocchio embraces polarizing themes of politics and philosophy, death and psychoanalysis, but his true forte has always been his critiques of society’s entrenched institutions from the church to the military, and political systems of every stripe.
This series is presented by the National Gallery of Art through the cooperation of Luce Cinecittà, Rome, and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Washington, and in association with the American Film Institute Silver Theatre and the National Portrait Gallery.
Films are in Italian with English subtitles.
National Gallery of Art page: click here
IN COLLABORATION WITH
LOCATION
McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery
8th and F Sts NW
Washington, DC 20001
NO TICKET OR RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
First-come, first-serve until theater is full.
SCHEDULE
Fists in the Pocket –
November 1 at 4:30PM
Introduced by Frank Tomasulo
Fifty years on, Bellocchio’s provocative, low-budget, first featureremains one of the great, if grotesque, domestic dramasof cinema. Fists in the Pocket is set in the claustrophobic household of a blind widow and her four grown children (three are epileptics). The family negotiates their life together in picturesque seclusion, until one son (Lou Castel) decides he must save his “normal” brother from the rest of the family. “The style dictated itself as I was shooting, and I simply wanted to convey my own love-hate feelings about life as effectively as I could.” (1965, 105 minutes)
China is Near preceded by Let’s Discuss – November 22 at 2:00PM
China is Near, a beautiful black-and-white follow-up to Fists in the Pocket, is both a biting satire of the bourgeoisie and leftist politics and a clever comedy of manners, as a pair of working-class lovers schemes to marry into the same rich family. “It’s possible that La Cina è vicina . . . is still Bellocchio’s best film” — Jonathan Rosenbaum. (1967, 110 minutes) (unconfirmed)
In Let’s Discuss (Discutiamo, discutiamo, an episode from the anthology film Amore e rabbia), a group of students invades a classroom spouting Maoist slogans. Bellocchio himself, as the professor, urges the police to beat up the rebels. (1969, 24 minutes)
The Conviction – November 22 at 5:00PM
An architect and his student, seemingly trapped in a gallery after hours, are aroused by the art that surrounds them. “It is no accident that they look at Apollo and Daphne,” wrote Bellocchio. At the trial that follows (the student accuses the architect of rape), a complex psychodrama unfolds involving the protagonists and the prosecutor. Bellocchi’s psychiatrist, Massimo Fagioli, contributed to the script and his theories of desire inform the film’s dialogue. (La condanna, 1991, 90 minutes)
Vacation in Val Trebbia – November 29 at 2:30PM
A simulated home movie featuring the extended Bellocchio family in their native province of Piacenza provides an interesting glimpse into the Italian director’s private life. (1980, 52 minutes)
Sorelle Mai – November 29 at 4:00PM
Shooting on his home turf (the village of Bobbio in the province of Piacenza) over the course of ten years, Bellocchio composes a family saga in a diary-like fashion, casting several family members, including his daughter, wife, and son. “Sorelle Mai is a demanding film, with an experimental edge, and it’s full of quirks and fascinating digressions, all delivered in a visual style that looks ‘home movie’ and deceptively simple, but is actually a supreme example of cinematic sophistication and personal filmmaking” — Peter Galvin. (2011, 110 minutes)
The Eyes, the Mouth – December 13 at 2:30PM
“Seventeen years after Fists in the Pocket, Bellocchio reunited with his first lead actor Lou Castel, for a follow-up study of class and family relations. Castel plays an actor, a fading icon of the 1960s, who returns to his provincial hometown to attend the funeral of his twin brother. He finds himself drawn to his dead brother’s fiancée (Angela Molina), a working-class immigrant from Latin America, even as he blames her for his brother’s death” — Museum of Modern Art (1982, 101 minutes)
The Seagull – December 13 at 5:00PM
This rarely seen adaptation of Chekhov’s 1895 play was produced for Italian television in the 1970s. Bellocchio’s typically unconventional approach and careful staging earned kudos from press and public, and managed to transcend normal limitations of filmed theater as it dramatized the conflicts among four of Chekhov’s most intriguing characters — writer Trigorin, the ingénue Nina, fading actress Irina Arkadina, and her son, the playwright Konstantin. (Il gabbiano, 1977, 132 minutes)
The Prince of Homburg – January 10, 2015 at 2:30PM
In Bellocchio’s adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s 1809 The Prince of Homburg, a Prussian officer is tricked during the course of a complex dream on the night before a key battle, causing him to misjudge the timing of his attack. Even so, all is not lost. “The prince’s struggle between his love of life and the military codes of heroism is gorgeously expressed through Kleist’s rich language and Bellocchio’s ability to hold us at the threshold between dream and reality” — Museum of Modern Art. (Il Principe di Homburg, 1997, 85 minutes)
The Butterfly’s Dream – January 10, 2015 at 4:30PM
Massimo, a young classical actor, will speak only when performing on stage. His family speculates that his motive for this vow of silence in private life must be Massimo’s rebellion against his mother, a writer. One day a director spots Massimo in The Prince of Homburg and decides to offer him a part, but the only way he can do that is to convince the mother to write a play about Massimo’s life. (Il sogno della farfalla, 1994, 112 minutes)
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