LOVE AND ANARCHY/ FILM D’AMORE E D’ANARCHIA, OVVERO ‘STAMATTINA ALLE 10 NELLA VIA DEI FIORI NELLA NOTA CASA DI TOLERANZA…’

Italy, 1973, 120 minutes, Colour.
Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Eros Pagni, Pina Cei.
Directed by Lina Wertmuller.

Italian writer-director Lina Wertmuller had a very successful career from the early 1960s for forty years. The 1970s were her heyday for international popularity with a string of successes including: Mimi the Metalworker, Love and Anarchy, All Screwed Up, Swept Away (which was remade unsuccessfully by Guy Ritchie with his wife Madonna), Seven Beauties (which was Oscar-nominated), A Nightful of Rain and Blood Feud. Her films after 1980s received attention only in Italy.

Love and Anarchy is set in the 1930s and focuses on her regular star Giancarlo Giannini as a young man from the country who comes to Rome to assassinate Mussolini. He finds himself with accommodation in a brothel, aided by Salome (Mariangela Melato, who also appeared in a number of Wertmuller films). However, he becomes infatuated with one of the prostitutes in the brothel – with risks to his mission of assassination.

The film is entertaining, interesting, amusing as well as having its serious undertones. It is typical of the style of film-making which succeeded the neo-realists (and Wertmuller had worked with Fellini in such films as 8½), a mixture of realism, fantasy and social concern.

1. The film as one of the earliest examples of Lena Wertmuller's writing and direction? Giancarlo Giannini and his work for this director? The beginning of a substantial body of Italian films with social implications? Interest, enjoyment. message?

2. The film as a portrait of Italy and Italians? The social strata with which it concerned itself, the various individuals as seen within this environment? The focus on small and oppressed people? The contrast with these people and the imposition of tyrants? Small farmers. prostitutes? The contrast with the picture of the police? The sketch of the bourgeoisie - generally looking on, accepting authority? Where did audience sympathies lie? How much insight into society did the film offer? How much impulse for change?

3. The significance of the title? The opposites of the two ideas? Their combination? As embodied in Tunin? His anarchical background? His introduction to the brothel? The change in him and the experience of love? Salome as embodying both love and anarchy? Tripolina as not understanding anarchy but the catalyst for love? The effect of Tunin's experience with her, loving her, experiencing joy? The comment on anarchy and anarchists at the beginning of the film and their help for Mussolini? The clash of Mussolini with anarchists? The clash of love and anarchy within Tunin at the end, his sense of failure, the anarchy dominating, it leading to his death? His willingness to subjugate his love to his mission?

4. Themes of assassination - the initial assassin and his being killed, Tunin inheriting the mission? Audience sympathy towards an assassination attempt on Mussolini? The significance of the final scene of Enrico and his abhorrence of assassins and their violence and yet the memory of their martyrdom once the violence is forgotten and their cause only remembered?

5. The significance of Mussolini and his all pervading presence? The significance of the collage and the zooms on his face and Its significance at the beginning? The importance of the prologue describing Italy in the twenties? The importance of the small prologue of the boy on the pot and his mother's explanation of anarchy and telling him to keep quiet? Mussolini's presence in Italy, his influence on the lives of the main characters, his hold on the country? The fascist atmosphere, the police and the official. the fascist personnel? Mussolini methods as portrayed destroying Tunin at the end - police, torture, cover-ups, death?

6. Audience interest in and response to the fascism of Mussolini and Italy? His achievement in Italy, his hold over the people, tyranny? How was this seen throughout the film? The importance of the official and his going to the brothel and connection with Salome and Tripolina, Tunin's presence at their outings? That fascism was to be destroyed? An anarchy to destroy this? Was the film making any parallels with later decades?

7. The significance of the short sequence with the boy and his mother, the transition to Tunin - the presumption that he was the boy? The arrival of the assassin and his sudden death? The close-up of Tunin's blank face and yet his acceptance of the mission and so much going on behind the blank face?

8. Giancarlo Giannini’s portrait of Tunin? His appearance, hair, freckles, face, beard? The importance of his protruding eyes? Suggestions of some kind of madness? His slowness and bluntness of speech? His shyness and yet his violent mission and his beliefs? His encounter with the people at the brothel, Salome? The change with Tripolina and the humanizing of him at least to some extent? His consciousness of his mission, his observing the fascist official, his practising shooting with the pistol, at the fair grounds and his shooting practice?

9. The film's blend of human interest and political background? The long times given to both - satisfyingly interwoven by the end? Tunin in both these areas of his life? How did he change? The importance of the long sequence of his visit, the ladies at the brothel turning him away? Salome rescuing him? Her talking an a prostitute and as an anarchist? Sexual relationship? His eating? Relationship to the staff of the brothel and observing and not observing their way of life? His visit to the site with the official? The change with Tripolina And the gentleness of their love? An experience of joy, of being loved? The build-up to the final evening where Tripolina decides not to wake him, where Salome after the fight with Tripolina decides the same? Their protectiveness and its rebounding on him and his decision to be killed?

10. The crisis at the end and the blend of joy and fear? The two women and their decision whether they should let him go or not? The result in Tunin's mind, confusion, going berserk? His shooting the police. the people standing by and watching. the shouting of the prostitutes? His being beaten, the horror of the interrogation and the smooth talk, the deadliness of the torture? The cover-up? The importance of the bashing in the cell and his becoming a martyr? Obliterating his memory if possible?

11. The portrait of Salome and her liveliness at the brothel, yet her understanding of the situation, her political attitudes, confreres? Her memories of the man she loved and his death? her style in getting information from the officials? Her way of behaviour within the brothel? Her love for Tunin, her standing back for Tripolina, the final fight in the morning, the accusation of jealousy, her loving him and her grief at his death?

12. The contrast with Tripolina as the attractive young prostitute? Fascinated by Tunin? The growth in love, the tenderness of their sequences together, the bonds between them? Her decision not to wake him, her fight with Salome, her grief at the end?

13. The portrait of the fascist official. his visit to the brothel. his relationship with the women, his boasting about fascist achievement, his praise for Mussolini and its irony for his audience? His later cruelty?

14. Comment on the detail with which the film presented the brothel, the comradeship of the women, the details of their way of life, the lining up for their clients and enticing them? The various personalities of the women there, sane and insane, the Madam in charge, the administrator?

15. The film was generally confined to a small world within the brothel? How did this alter the audience view of the outside world? The sudden intrusion of the police and their deaths, the crowds watching in the street? Highlighting the film's focus on the torturers and their cruelty?

16. Tunin seemed mad in his way. The prostitutes lived in their own Sub-culture with their own contact with the real world. They could. be said to be ill and Tunin insane. However, Tunin in his condemnation of fascism had more insight than the bourgeois people in the general population. The film questions who is sane and who is not, who is right and who is wrong?