Erotica (1962)

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Movie
German title Erotica
Original title L'amore difficile
Country of production Italy ,
Germany
original language Italian
Publishing year 1962
length 121 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Alberto Bonucci (episode: "The husband") ,
Luciano Lucignani (episode: "The house friend") ,
Nino Manfredi (episode: "The soldier") ,
Sergio Sollima (episode: "The bachelor")
script Italo Calvino ,
Fabio Carpi ,
Sandro Continenza ,
Renato Mainardi ,
Nino Manfredi ,
Alberto Moravia ,
Giuseppe Orlandini ,
Ercole Patti ,
Guglielmo Santangelo ,
Ettore Scola ,
Mario Soldati
production Achille Piazzi
music Piero Umiliani
camera Carlo Carlini ,
Erico Menczer
cut Eraldo Da Roma
occupation

The bachelor

The house friend

The husband

The soldier

synchronization

Erotica , in the original L'amore difficile (in German: The Difficult Love), is a four-part, Italian-German episode film from 1962 on the subject of "Difficulties in love affairs", in which Italian screen greats such as Nino Manfredi , Vittorio Gassman and Enrico Maria Salerno German-speaking stars Nadja Tiller , Lilli Palmer and Bernhard Wicki also took part. Each half-hour story is based on the literary foundations of Alberto Moravias ("The House Friend"), Ercole Pattis ("The Bachelor"), Italo Calvinos ("The Soldier") and Mario Soldatis ("The Husband").

action

The bachelor (Originally: Le donne )

Bachelor Antonio, a middle-aged man with an intellectual aura who thinks he is irresistible, is woken up late in the morning by his housewife. He quickly pays her wages to get rid of her as he still has to prepare for some early afternoon conquests. His first girl is Valeria, who wants to go to the sea with him, which actually doesn't fit into his plans. The second wife is Bruna, who shows up at his home. He called her believing that she only wanted to go to bed with him because he was so great. But she sets the rules and makes it clear to him that this affair is just a kind of goodbye sex, because she will get married in two days. The self-appointed engraver ultimately fails because of the self-determined women of the modern age, whom he believed he had controlled and mastered up to now. This day, which began for Antonio with a disappointment and a refused kiss, ends for him with a juicy slap in the face ...

The house friend (Originally: L'avaro )

Lawyer Tullio Monari is the epitome of the mentally emptied, affluent citizen who only aims at prosperity and success and avaricious would-be seducer. His values ​​are based only on superficiality and sensual pleasure. On behalf of his client de Gasperi, he is supposed to sue an insurance company. When he meets his wife Elena, he carefully weighs up the possibilities for starting an affair. On the one hand, he pretends to be a vain daredevil and conqueror, but then ultimately turns out to be not brave enough to respond appropriately to the advances in question by Elenas, whose marriage has become fragile. When Avocato Tullio realizes that his client is not only addicted to gambling, but also de facto broke, the whole affair no longer makes sense to the lawyer, and he ends it before the whole Amour fou could cost him very dearly ...

The husband (Originally: Le serpente )

Hans and Hilde Brenner, a German couple from Cologne in "their prime", are on a trip to Italy and want to spend a vacation in Sicily with their car . While Professor Brenner is particularly enthusiastic about the ancient excavation sites, his neglected wife gives herself more and more to her erotic needs in the form of fantasies. During a night drive to a remote area, Brenner's car promptly breaks down. Suddenly a small truck with two young Italians approaches and offers to help. Since the truck drivers only have one space left, they take Hilde with them to fetch the towing service. She squeezes between the two men in the cab. But Hilde's desire for much more remains disappointed, her imagination does not become reality. From this disappointment grows anger that culminates in the frustrated wife claiming that she was raped by the two men. Only now does Hans wake up and understand what is going on in his wife ...

The soldier (Originally: L'avventura di un soldato )

A simple soldier is sitting in his compartment and is dawning. The heat is enormous, he is barely capable of sensible perceptions. When a young, attractive woman climbs into his compartment, he suddenly wakes up. She wears black and leaves the man in uniform with the impression that she is widowed. The lady sits down right next to the soldier, which the soldier takes as a sign that he is supposed to hook up with the supposed widow. It is very difficult for him to evade their effect. When he touches her seemingly by chance and she neither flinches back nor complains about his approach, he becomes more courageous and hesitantly begins to seduce the beautiful woman in black piece by piece. Soon he becomes bolder in his approach, until finally the widow's little daughter appears and both of them leave the compartment. In the end, the soldier stands alone on the tracks of a desolate small town train station while the widow takes off on the train ...

Production notes

Erotica was shot over several months of 1962 and premiered in late December of the same year. The German premiere took place on August 6, 1963 in Berlin's Gloria Palast .

useful information

Erotica was created as a result of the great commercial success of the also four-part film anthology Boccaccio 70 , which was shot in 1961 in the previous year. Both films heralded the popular genre of erotic episode films in Italy in the 1960s.

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Tullio Monari Vittorio Gassman Helmo Kindermann
Hilde Brenner Lilli Palmer herself
Elena de Gasperi Nadja Tiller herself
Antonio Enrico Maria Salerno Horst Naumann
Valeria Catherine Spaak Margot Leonard

Reviews

Der Spiegel particularly praised the director and leading actor of the “Soldat” episode, Nino Manfredi - “The last episode alone, which takes place entirely in a slow train compartment, proves cinematic inventiveness” - and called him “the only original talent among the four debutants”.

Also , the time set primarily Manfredi power out: "Him alone by the four debutants have to remember."

The lexicon of international films saw the four short films as “unbalanced in form and content.” The episode “The Bachelor” was scolded as the weakest, “full of platitudes and personalities”, while the episode “The Husband” was “remarkable for its tactful interpretation of the two main actors ”. In the episode “The Soldier” the lexicon saw “an amusing test of talent” that exuded the erotic charm of Max Ophül .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. the sources give different dates: December 24th as well as December 29th, 1962
  2. Erotica in the German synchronous card index
  3. ^ "Erotica" in Der Spiegel, issue 35/1963
  4. ^ "Erotica" in Die Zeit of August 30, 1963
  5. Erotica. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used