SEVEN BEAUTIES
Italy, 1975, 115 Minutes, Colour.
Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, Shirley Stoler, Elena Flore.
Directed by Lina Wertmuller.
Writer-director, Lina Wertmuller, established an international reputation with several hard-hitting social satires on Italy, especially with actor Giancarlo. Here they work on an ambitious project that is full of ambiguity - period black comedy of Pasqualino Seven Beauties, a pretentious little man of 30s Naples, interspersed with the grimmest concentration camp degradation portrayed seriously and as parody simultaneously. It is a hilariously sour look at modern man - with sympathy for his victimisaiton but pessimism about his ultimate worth and the fickle cruelty of his conduct. A mixture of brilliance, bad taste and sharp comment on the weaknesses of human nature.
1. The impact and reputation of Lina Wertmuller's films? Their direct style, political content and comment, the understanding of Italy and Italians? The acclaim her films have won, especially this one?
2. The importance of the technical qualities of the film: the prologue and the long collage of fascist images, the mocking of Mussolini and Hitler? The realities of bombing and war suffering? The counterpoint of the musical commentary? The litany of those involvedf escaping. uncommitted? The irony of the '0 yeah' response? The quality of the colour photography, the German exteriors and interiors? Light and shadow? The contrast with Naples and its flavour? The range of the musical score and its comment? Italian style jaunty melodlesf serious melodies, opera background, Wagner for the massacre by the Nazis etc.?
3. Audience involvement in the structure of the film: the prologue and its flavouring the whole film, Pasqualino and his being lost in Germany, the flashbacks and their insertion into the German story, the counter-point of Germany and Italy, pre-war, involvement in the war? The finale in Naples after all that Pasqualino had been through?
4. The title of the film? The slaying of seven beauties and what it implies? A ladies' man, the nun also with the seven sisters? The Italian title and its focus on Pasqualino's name and therefore the more personal highlighting of him as a character? The quality of Glancarlo Glannini's performance? Personal presence, style, embodying the Italian male? How much sympathy for him in Germany, in the concentration camp, his behaviour in Naples, his crime, the killing, the rape? The little nun plunged into a wider world and becoming victim, trying to conquer it? How wise was he at the end? The importance of the finale with the long look from the screen and his transfixing the audience?
5. The film's comment on fascism - Italian style with Mussolini, the contrast with German Imperial Fascism? The comparisons and contrasts? The range of cruelties? The Comimndant of the concentration camp as embodying German fascism? The contrast with Pasqualino with fascism on a small scale? Yet the inevitable cruelty? The murders and the Mafia-style of the spivs of Naples contrasting with the Nazis and the slaughter of so many innocents - to the accompaniment of Wagner's music? The importance of the Commandant and her comments on the master race and the survival of the Italians? The judgement that Italy was not as bad as Germany?
6. Audience response to Germany and Hitler? The prologue.. the war destruction? The immersion of Pasqualino in the forestf the beauty of Germany and the Rhine? Yet it still being enemy territory? The stealing of the food and the woman at the piano with her singing and her clothing, the old lady in the kitchen? The Italian communicating and stealing? The contrast with the horror of the mass slaughter and the graves? Pasqualino and his escaping, Francesco and his conscience of not protesting? The arrest, the transition to the camp, the portrayal of the assemblies, the naked men, the rows and the silent line-up, the humiliated men with their heads down and bowed, the piles of dead, the victimes who were shot, the open common sewer, the starvation, the firt of the cells, the cruelty of the beatings, the numbers of men so humiliated? The visual portrait of inhumanity and audience response, compassion, understanding?
7. The Commandant and her associates? The fact that she was a woman, her size, in person, cruel? Her impassive face? Pasqualino's attraction and its manifestation? Her attitude towards sexuality, satisfaction? Her giving food to him to prepare him for intercourse, then using him after exhausting him? Inflating him and then ordering him to kill? The parallels with the Commandant and Hitler, Pasqualino and Mussolini as the puppet of Hitler?
8. The personality of the Commandant - as a woman, her masculine behaviour, attitude towards sexuality, her yawning, exhausting Pasqualino? Her moving imperviously back to her command?
9. The portrait of Pasqualino and audience understanding of him? Seeing him as an Italian involved in the war,*a prisoner on the train, his escape, capacity for survival? His fake wound and his capacity for pretending? The encounter with Francesco and the contrast with their personalities? Francesco to be the victim? The experience of the camp, hungry, lost and humiliated, yet his native shrewdness and his memory of his mother's advice? Surviving despite the ugliness? His forcing himself to attraction and flirting, his whistling and singing for the Commandant? His lies and her seeing through them? His exhausting himself? The reprieve with food and the reaction of his friends - the left- winter and his protest, Francesco and his accusation of betrayal? His being used for death purposes? His selection of the victims? His being asked to shoot his friend? The crisis of conscience, the plea from Francesco to avoid the humiliation of defecating? Wanting his friend to kill him? (and the transition to the finale in Naples in the light of this experience?).
10. What happened to Pasqualino? The Italian spive with the suavity of Naples, the strutting Italian male, sense of honour, being caught up in the real world, its being also an unreal world, being used and outsmarted? A strange type of innocence being used? How much wisdom at the end? Hope for the future, resignation, acceptance of the failures of others? His sad eyes looking at the audience?
11. The placing of the first flashback in the story, in the forest? The contrast with Naples, its look, music, the music hall and the men watching Concetta and the other women dancing? The overtones of Fellini grotesque, the clowns and amusement? The dance and the earthiness of the song? Concetta and her size, age and ugliness, masquerading as beautiful? The reaction of the men? Pasqualino's arriving and his cigarette, appearance, light and shadow, his abuse and imposing standards on Concetta? His place in the family, the sweat factory and stuffing of the mattresses, working with the cousins? The women waiting on him? His advice to his family? His connections with the Mafia, the walk about town and women admiring him, his strutting attitude and pride? The tip-off about the brothel and his humiliation of Concetta? The fight? Illustrating as his name Seven Beauties?
12. The memories of his mother and her advice about women, as a child, the boys watching the sexuality of the woman? The influence in his attitude towards the Commandant?
13. The flashback to his family, the girls, the challenging of the pimp, the shooting and the accidental shooting? The disposing of the body on advice, the chase? Sense of honour? His being in prison, the importance of the rape and its significance, his being straight-jacketed? The symbolism of Italy and the way that Italy carried on prior to the war, its imprisonment and being used by Fascists?
14. His innocent sweetheart and her love? His mother and sisters and sweetheart becoming prostitutes? His attitude towards them after his guilt? His acceptance of her and the possibilities of the future?
15. Pasqualino as sobered by his experience - the understanding of post-war Italy and its possibilities?
16. The importance of Francesco and his place in the prison, the left-winger and his speeches, his defiance, his unwillingness to live and his drowing himself in the sewer? The significance of this protest?
17. The visual images and the overtones of portraits of the war, the concentration camps, the groups of men and their tableaux, the hanged men? And the contrast with the tableaux of Naples and the sweat factory and the dummies etc.? Subtlety, symbol?
18. The depth of the film and its insight into characters, Europe, war, human torture and torment? The involvement of ordinary people in these experiences and their effect?
