documentary: Deceit. Visconti’s Conversation Piece
On October 3rd Caterina d’Amico, daughter of Suso Cecchi D’Amico, will discuss her mother’s work at the Embassy of Italy.
The evening will continue with the screening of the documentary “Deceit. Visconti’s Conversation Piece” (Italy, 2013 – 39 min.) by Ferdinando Cito Filomarino. (more info)
In the history of cinema, Suso Cecchi d’Amico (1914 – 2010) remains the most memorable of all Italian screenwriters. Collaborating with the postwar directors Antonioni, De Sica, Monicelli, Rosi, and Visconti, among others, she was a master of the elegant screenplay and left her mark on many iconic classics, from Bicycle Thieves (1948) to The Leopard (1963).
She consulted with Hollywood as well, even adding her touch to Roman Holiday. Two films Cecchi d’Amico created for actress Anna Magnani and her friend Luchino Visconti’s underappreciated masterwork Conversation Piece honor Suso Cecchi d’Amico on her one-hundredth birthday.
This homage to Suso Cecchi D’Amico will continue at the McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery on October 4th and October 11th with the screening of Angelina, Bellissima and Conversation Piece. (Movies screening info)
National Gallery page: click here
IN COLLABORATION WITH
RSVP – October 3rd event at the Embassy of Italy
Please click on “Make a Reservation” by October 3, 2014 at 2 PM
Reservations are available until we reach
capacity or by the above date/time (whichever comes
first)
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PHOTO ID REQUIRED
LOCATION
Embassy of Italy – Auditorium
3000 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington, DC 20008
FILM SCREENINGS (October 4th and 11th)
LOCATION:
National Portrait Gallery
8th and F Sts NW – Washington, DC 20001
NO TICKET OR RESERVATIONS REQUIRED
First-come, first-serve until theater is full.
Angelina – October 4 at 2:00PM
@ McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery
Introduced by Caterina Cecchi d’Amico
Director Luigi Zampa and close friends Suso Cecchi d’Amico and Piero Tellini collaborated on a spirited script for force-of-nature actress Anna Magnani. Inspired by a simple newspaper item — “poor working-class woman with five children leads angryvprotest against speculators and black marketeers” — Angelina makes a compelling moral statement about Italian society during the postwar period, blending comedy and melodrama with neorealistic touches. (Luigi Zampa, 1947, 92 minutes)
Bellissima – October 4 at 4:30PM
@ McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery
Introduced by Caterina Cecchi d’Amico
The ersatz glamour of the Italian movie industry is contrasted with the life of a working-class tenement in Visconti’s Bellissima, another powerful vehicle for the operatic Anna Magnani, scripted by Cecchi d’Amico and Visconti from a story by Cesare Zavattini. Magnani, as an overly ambitious stage mother, enrolls her young daughter in a Cinecittà talent competition — pinning all her maternal hopes on this one chance to fulfill her own vanished dreams. (Luchino Visconti, 1952, 115 minutes)
Conversation Piece – October 11 at 4:00PM
@ McEvoy Auditorium, National Portrait Gallery
One of the last screenplays Cecchi d’Amico cowrote for Luchino Visconti is an intriguing character study, inspired in part by friend Mario Praz’s survey of the group portrait in art. A cultured, aging professor (Burt Lancaster), living alone in his Roman apartment surrounded by his collections, is forced to confront a chic and self-indulgent marchesa (Silvana Mangano) who, with her family and younger lover, rents his upstairs flat and literally wreaks havoc on his life of quiet contemplation. (Gruppo di famiglia in un interno, Luchino Visconti, 1974, 126 minutes)
DOCUMENTARY INFO
Deceit. Visconti’s Conversation Piece
This refined documentary is a musing journey through the genesis, production and life of “Conversation Piece” by Luchino Visconti, highlighted by encounters with other filmmakers like Bernardo Bertolucci , collaborators like Suso Cecchi d’Amico ,Piero Tosi, friends and actors like Silvana Mangano, Helmut Berger, and Liliana Cavani contribute with their vivid testimonies and recollections of the making of this film. “Conversation Piece” , of course, is unmistakably Viscontian, but curiously set in contemporary times, it encompasses the vision of the great director at the end of his life.
The fundamental question is: why did Luchino Visconti decide to do “Conversation Piece”? How has the idea of the project modified during the writing and production of the film? With what collaborators ( Tosi, d’Amico , Lancaster ) and why? The intention is to analyze the way in which this work was created and developed , reverberating in the political sense, the meaning of death and love. And, of course , a radical and ancient sense of cinema.
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