THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA
US, 1954, 128 minutes, Colour.
Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring, Valentina Cortese, Rossano Brazzi, Elizabeth Sellars.
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
The Barefoot Contessa was written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Mankiewicz had had a successful career as a writer in Hollywood, culminating in Oscars for his work in All About Eve. He was to continue making films during the 1950s like Julius Caesar and Guys and Dolls. During the 1960s he spent a great deal of time and effort on Cleopatra with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.
The film has a Hollywood and film-making background. Mankiewicz had already treated themes of the American theatre in All About Eve. Humphrey Bogart portrays a down-and-out director who is asked by a millionaire to write and direct a film. He goes to Spain to find the actress Maria Vargas, played by Ava Gardner, to star in the film. The film shows the rapport between the writer and the actor but also shows the entanglements with two millionaires, one played by Marius Goring, the other a count played by Rossano Brazzi.
The standout in performance was Edmond O’Brien? as a press agent, winning an Oscar and Golden Globe as best supporting actor. Mankiewicz was nominated for both Oscar and Golden Globe and Writers’ Guild award for his screenplay.
Humphrey Bogart was coming to the end of his career. He had a very good year in 1954 with the release of both The Caine Mutiny and Sabrina. However, he was to contract cancer and made only four more films before his death in January 1967.
1. The main interest and application of this kind of film? Some consider it a classic. It was considered by many as very silly on its first release. Which opinion is more accurate?
2. The flashback structure and its importance for audience involvement and the distancing of the audience from the plot and values? for the development of Maria's character?
3. The values of the locations, the atmosphere of Hollywood, colour, how authentic did this world seem? How unreal?
4. The title? Maria's good and bad aspects, her initial independence from the film maker, (her talent as a dancer sufficiently communicated) her love relationships, ambitions, shrewdness in her American dealings, ultimate success? How interesting the tracing the successful part of her career?
5. How much of her life and ambitions were fantasy, dreams, fairy stories, the continual reference to Cinderella, Vincenzo as a prince charming?
6. Moving through the details of the Cinderella story, did the film have pathos? Cinderella in Barcelona, her parents, the murder of her mother, her father at the trial, her testimony and public opinion?
7. How much did she achieve in Hollywood? How deep was this achievement, how superficial? Hollywood's admiration of her, as a headline and a fashion?
8. The importance of her falling in love? The importance of her marriage, its relationship to her fantasies and stories?
9. How dramatic and real was her crisis? The impact of the truth? Her decision about a child? The irony of her love, of her death?
10. How important was mood for the film, the elegy of her funeral in the rain, the atmosphere of death? The irony of the audience’s lack of knowledge of how Maria died? Satisfaction when the truth was finally known?
11. The presentation of Harry as a sensible man, the irony of his career, his a drinking and failures, his failed marriages? Being put in the position of a 'yes man', becoming her friend and support, his relationship with Jerry? His being present at Maria's wedding? His warning to Lorenzo? The fact that Maria told him the truth? How real and interesting a character?
12. Muldoon and his values? the 'yes men', the commercial talk and the pressurising? His reaction to the trial and the publicity? His disillusionment with his own self and his job? The scene of his manoeuvring to change his job, his success? How interesting an exploration of a press agent?
13. The irony of the presentation of the producer, his wealth and arrogance? His succeeding, Harry's explanation of his background? The sequence of humiliation and losing out to Muldoon and Maria?
14. The presentation of wealth in Bravano? The cynical judgments in the film about the wealthy?
15. How sympathetic were Vincenzo and Eleanora? Vincenzo as a prince charming? The urbane Italian count? Why did he not tell the truth to Maria before the wedding? How reasonable the irrational shooting of her?
16. The themes of the film: human nature, the reality of fairy stories, success and ambitions? The contrast of the European and American themes? The insight in the film being about film making, stories, truth and fiction?
