LETTERE DI UNA NOVIZIA (THE NOVICE)
France/Italy, 1960, 82 minutes, Black and white.
Pascale Petit, Jean- Paul Belmondo, Lilla Brignone, Massimo Girotti.
Directed by Alberto Lattuada.
The Novice is a popular story about a young nun and her past. The film opens with nuns taking their vows – and it would seem that Rita is unwilling to make her profession. She talks with the priest (Massimo Girotti) and the film offers a flashback, to her relationship with her rather promiscuous mother, to a young man who it emerges is also in a relationship with the mother.
The film is a mixture of the serious and the sensational, especially in comparison with other films about nuns at this time like The Nun’s Story or Conspiracy of Hearts.
Alberto Lattuada was a director of a great number of popular Italian films, including Anna, also the story of a nun who has a past, with Silvana Mangano. Pascale Petit is the nun. Jean- Paul Belmondo, popular at this time in films by Jean- Luc Godard and emerging as a comic action actor in the films of Philippe de Broca.
1. A French- Italian production? Italian perspectives? Social, religious? The 1950s?
2. The black and white photography, the mood, the use of light and shadow, the world of the convent, the countryside, the musical score?
3. The plausibility of the plot, the credibility of the characters? Continental drama and melodrama?
4. The structure of the film: the profession, Paul, Rita and the talk, the flashbacks, Rita’s version, Elise’s version, leaving the convent, relationships? The overall effect on Rita’s character? The Rashomon type of story, listening to and looking at different versions, the audience having to make up its mind about the truth?
5. The world of the convent, very proper, the priest’s sermon, the vows, Rita fainting, the role of the superior? The nature of the novitiate? The cloister and its spirituality? The hothouse?
6. The chaplain and his naivety? Paul and the liturgy? The confession, the torment, the prospect of the contemplative life?
7. The character of Julian, as a playboy, his lively style, relationships with women, playing off the women against each other? With the mother? With Rita? Death?
8. Rita, young, her relationship with her mother? Her father and his wealth? The effect? Touches of madness, jealousy? Innocence? The affair, death, going to the convent? Truth and lies? The end?
9. The portrait of the mother, her relationship to her husband, death, her relationship to her daughter, love or not? Promiscuity? The relationship with Julian? The visit? The encounter with Paul? The consequences?
10. A film of passion – and melodrama?
