PAOLO IL CALDO

Italy, 1973, 120 minutes, Colour.
Adriana Asti, Giancarlo Giannini, Lionel Stander, Femi Benussi, Vittorio Caprioli, Rossano Podesta, Gastone Moschin, Ornella Muti, Ricardo Cucciola.
Directed by Marco Vicario.

Paolo il Caldo has all the elements of a farcical sex comedy Italian style and it capitalises on these. However, with its setting of the 1930s and later decades, it has comment on the Italian wealthy classes and their standards and behaviour within a changing political climate. They seem to be very little touched, however, by the political changes in Italy. The film focuses on Paolo and makes him the representative of the Italian male attitudes. Giancarlo Giannini, in one of his earliest roles, is very good at exemplifying this symbolic role. He was to move into the many Lina Wertmuller films and give more subtle studies of variations on this theme. The film is colourful and with Giannini's performance has some depth to its comedy and farce tones. A strong supporting Italian cast and comedian Lionel Stander also give strength to the film. It is particularly geared to the sensibilities of an Italian audience but is of interest to an international audience.

1. Entertaining? Impact for an Italian audience? Non-Italians?

2. The genre of the film: anecdote, sex farce, comedy, history, interpretation of Italian society? The blend of comedy and farce, satire, moralising? What was the audience left with at the end in terms of understanding, emotional response?

3. A Giancarlo Giannini vehicle? His style, presence, personality? Symbolising the Italian male? Sicilian background, short, dominant, self-centred? The background of upbringing, tradition, wealth, politics, society? The focus on relationships with women, sexuality? As a mans of presenting the Italian male?

4. The recreation of period, Italian and Sicilian background, manners and society? The basic musical theme and the variations in the way that it was presented?

5. The prologue and its tone? The boys and their urinating, the immediate preoccupation with sex, their discussion? The severe reaction of the chemist and his protecting his niece? The mocking of the puritanical response? The reaction of Edmondo and his laughing? The clash with the Baron and his family? Edmondo and his destruction of the pharmacy? The grudges that the grandfather held? The revelation of the family, especially at meals: the grandfather and his shouting and domination, Edmondo and his way of the world, the contrast Michele and his seriousness? Michele's wife? The boys? Lucia? Her liaison with the grandfather and the boys looking? Paolo's infatuation with her? The relationship, the discovery by the grandfather, the farcical aspects of his forbidding the relationship and sending her away? The importance of this prologue for establishing the themes of the Italian family, sexuality, jealousy? The futility of empty sex relationships?

6. The theme of sexuality, the importance of Michele's story and explanation on his deathbed? Was his interpretation of sexuality correct? Instinctive, male dominance, the place of the female? Paolo within this background? The farcical aspects, humour? Paolo and his preoccupation, talk. using women, the contrast with the ideal woman as the pharmacist's niece, the range of women he encountered into middle age, his wife as a new ideal? The finale and his reflection on the significance of his relationships. his needs, his weeping? seeing the image of all the women that he had encountered? His hopes from his wife and her rejection of him? His weakness in returning to the prostitutes?

7. Giannini's interpretation of Paolo? The influence of his grandfather, of his uncle? His response to his father? The deathbed scene and his inability to stop the shouting and the crowd rushing in? The pathos of his father's life and death? His imitating the ways of his grandfather and Edmondo? His reaction to seeing his mother and her sensuality.. hearing Edmondo go in to his mother? His inability to escape from the patterns of this way of life?

8. His friendship with Vincenzo, their sexual rivalry? Rome, Vincenzo's writing and later exposing the relationships? The various girls that they encountered ?the blonde girl who chose Vincenzo, Paolo's return to her? The importance of these liaisons? The contrast always with the pharmacist's niece?

9. The impact of his father's death, his mother's liaison with Edmondo? His decision to go to Rome?

10. The build up of Rome, his arrival, Piazza Navona and his apartment? Setting up with his mistress and the idyllic relationship, the conventional scenes of lyrical romance? Her girlfriend and the incident at the restaurant table and the jealousy? The liaison of his mistress with the policeman and their breaking up? The possibility of love and a permanent relationship?

11. Paolo's growing older? His liaison with various women e.g. the Count and his wife, their lovemaking behind the artist's screen at the party? The jealousy of the husband later and his telephone calls and pursuit of Paolo, the farce of his heart attack?

12. The contrast with Vincenzo and his success and his writing and exposing the stories?

13. The political background and its not really touching the characters? Their response to the fascist situation, to the war period, to the Christian Democrats? Their behaviour remaining the same no matter who was in power?

14. The build up to the climax and Paolo trying to cope? The telephone calls and the threat of the husband coming to him, the warning about the articles, the wife and her unhappiness? The importance of his memory of the girl who was the seamstress whom he met at the time when his trousers were sewed up? The girl that he was anticipating? Her coming to him? Wish fulfilment and lack of fulfilment?

15. His return to Sicily, the death of his mother and the funeral? The encounter with his ideal woman's daughter and proposing to her? Her awareness of this and going to him? The futility of their marriage? The clash? His visiting the prostitutes and not wanting them, his inability to communicate this to his wife, her departure?

16. The significance of his self-awareness and his inability to act on it? The return to the Colosseum, the man in drag, the prostitute waiting for him? The significance of this after seeing all the women as he drover past?

17. What was Paolo left with in his middle age? Lack of fulfilment, disillusionment? The comments ultimately on the Italian male? An allegory of Italy in the 20th. century?