L’ASSOLUTO NATURALE (SHE AND HE)

Italy, 1969, 90 minutes, Colour.
Laurence Harvey, Sylva Koscina, Felicity Mason, Isa Miranda.
Directed by Mauro Bolognini.

She and He is a two-hander film, based on a play called The Natural Absolute. It has a portrait of a man, played by Laurence Harvey, and his relationships with women. It has a portrait of a woman, played by Sylva Koscina, who balances the portrait of the man.

The film was directed by Mauro Bolognini who had directed a number of realistic films in Italy in the 1950s and 60s, like Il Bell’ Antonio. However, during the 1970s he made a number of beautiful Italian melodramas, set in the past: Down the Ancient Staircase, The Ferramonti Inheritance, Metello.

1. The total impact of the film? The work of this Italian direrctor? The criticisms against its being confined to two characters, the blend of realism and symbolism? For whom was the film made? Italian audiences, non-Italian?

2. The focus of the title on masculine feminine and the interrelationships? Love and confict? Passion and love, passion and hatred, passion and death? The implications of the anonymous man and woman in the modern world? The title of the original play was The Natural Absolute: meaning, implications?

3. The focus on cinema techniques for communicating themes of masculine/feminine? The long credits with the focus on statuary, poses, love? The use of colour, music? The blending of old world and new? Hotels and wealth, garages and ordinary people? The rogue, homes? The cemetery? The blending of fast and slow paces?

4. The focus on male/female relationships, psychology, sexuality? Appearances and reality? Ideal or non-ideal? The focus on understanding masculinity in itself? Femininity?

5. The relationship of male and female? The nature of attraction? Influence? Infatuation? Love and intuition? Surface attraction and behaviour? Love, possession? The effect of mutual change or not? Who remains absolute, who influences the other? The relationships as satisfying, the longing for more? Violent and destructive, constructive? How well were these aspects illustrated by particular incidents?

6. The film was based on a play. Was this evident? An atmosphere of contrivance in dialogue and situation? The speaking of the dialogue in English in an Italian film? The way that it was spoken, uttered, declaimed? Laurence Harvey's rhetorical style? The devices of drama distancing the audience, involving them? How much alienation of the audience, how much invitation to insight?

7. The portrait of he, his role in the cemetery, photography and the elusive woman, romanticising the woman, idealising her, infatuation, love? The motivation for following? Giving to her but not changing
and being unwilling to change even though demands ware made? The variety of incidents and his response? The portrait as a character, as a type? Insight into man?

8. The portrait of she: in the cemetery, leading him on? Her possessions in the car, the teasing at the car wash? Her leading him on in the driving fast, the supermarket? The road, the garage, taunting to jealousy with the other men? The hotels? How ideal was she, real? Possessing him? Interested in practicalities? Her domination? Did she change? could she change?

9. The gradual development of the relationship and the interplay between the two especially in the love sequences: nature of passion, dominance, transience and permanence?

10. The emphasis on soliliquies on the part of the man, the background her family, his jealous watching? Ultimately leading to death?

11. She and her relationship with others e.g. at the swim, family, the buildup to her destructive power?

12. The sequences in the car, the importance of the crash?

13. The representation of the family and the matriarchal system? The symbol and the meaning of the silkworm parable and reality?

14. The buildup to she destroying him? The visualising this on the road? Her passing by, his remaining dead?

15. How pessimistic a portrait of human nature, of human relationships? A pessimistic outlook on the possibility of masculine/feminine love and hate?