Italian Capriccio (1961)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Italian capriccio |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1961 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Glauco Pellegrini |
| script |
Ugo Pirro Liana Ferri Glauco Pellegrini |
| production | DEFA |
| music | Günter Kochan |
| camera | Helmut Bergmann |
| cut | Christa Wernicke |
| occupation | |
| |
Italian Capriccio is a DEFA German feature film by Italian director Glauco Pellegrini from 1961.
action
This is an attempt at a biography of the great Italian comedy writer Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793). The film begins when Carlo Goldoni was still a student in Rimini and during a performance at the theater there stands out because he is the only spectator unable to laugh at the play. When the main actor and principal Antonio Sacchi confronts him about this, Goldoni offers him to write a better piece. But that only earned him a laugh, but to his delight, he was hired as a basket carrier for the upcoming move of the theater troupe. On the ship he discovers Teodora Ricci in a basket, who wants to work as an actress in the company, but her father refuses to allow this. He hides her for the promise of four kisses, but her father finds her and Goldoni dismisses her for it.
A few years later, Goldoni now has a law practice in Genoa , but his real passion is still the theater. Here he meets Teodora Ricci again, who wants to sue her principal Medebac. But Medebac is already sitting in his law firm and wants Goldoni to be a lawyer on the same matter. Goldoni is still infatuated with Teodora, so the theater director has no chance. Goldoni wins the trial, but when he wants to collect his fee, the four kisses that were not received at the time, he finds Teodora undressed in bed with a man. Now Goldoni realizes that he only gets into trouble when he meets theater people and he decides to forget the theater, but Medebac persuades him to continue writing plays for the theater.
Goldoni, meanwhile married to Nicoletta, the daughter of his former neighbor, arrives in his favorite city Venice and he writes plays in which the common people play the leading role, which is a scandal for the nobility. The ideas for his comedies come from the conversations of the Venetians, which he overhears on the street and in the coffee houses until late at night. His first play at the theater in Venice is called The Cunning Widow and after initial problems with the actors who do not understand his ideas about the theater, it was a stunning success at the premiere. Only the rich residents of the city see a problem in the performance and Abate Chiari already has an idea how to act against such newfangled things. He had the text stolen for one night, copied it and rewrote it in such a way that the original was ridiculed. Teodora Ricci, of all people, is supposed to play the leading role, but she refuses. However, this is the reason for her to see Carlo Goldoni again. In the meantime, Goldoni's wife ensures that the new piece is removed from the program due to allegations of plagiarism .
The next comedy Goldoni's The Happy Heiress is really a failure, in which his opponents are not entirely uninvolved. One of the bitter enemies is Count Carlo Gozzi, who vehemently opposes Goldoni's renewal of the theater and wants to found a new theater himself, which is why he becomes its competitor. The famous ensemble of Antonio Sacchi arrives in Venice to perform Gozzi fairy tales in the San Samuele theater, and the fight between Gozzi and Goldoni begins. His new piece Das Kaffeehaus will again be a great success, because the audience will recognize themselves in it. When Don Marzio hears that an unmistakable copy of himself is on the stage, he wants to hold the author accountable. But he is not in the theater after the performance, but as his servant Arlecchino reveals, with Teodora Ricci. Nicoletta Goldoni, who is just coming on stage to congratulate her husband, has to listen to this revelation to her horror.
Carlo Gozzi and Antonio Sacchi meet by chance in a café and are amazed at the presence of the other, whom they suspect to be with Teodora Ricci at the same time. But she is in intimate togetherness with Goldoni in her rooms, where they are surprised. Goldoni manages to escape. But he has to leave his shoes behind, which in turn are found by Gozzi and Sacchi. They wonder who could be Teodora's other lover. Goldoni has meanwhile arrived at home and finds his wife packing her suitcase because she wants to leave him. However, he manages to talk her out of it. While Don Marzio reveals to Count Gozzi that the shoes found at Teodora belong to Carlo Goldoni, Prima donna Teodora terminates her contract with Antonio Sacchi in order to play in the new play Goldoni's Mirandolina in the Medebacs theater. When Nicoletta found out about it, she suspected something bad, so Goldoni promised her to withdraw the piece. He goes straight to the theater. Here he sees Teodora rehearsing and is immediately overwhelmed by her again. She answers his request not to play Mirandolina with a kiss.
The first volume with the comedies Goldoni and Nicoletta is published in a print shop in Venice, and according to the owner of the printer, it deserves to be the first to own this book with her husband's works. While she is still happy about it, Goldoni enters the print shop with Teodora, so that Nicoletta can escape to the next room just in time. But the senior director of the Italian comedy in Paris is introduced to Carlo Goldoni on this occasion. He is so deeply rooted in Venice that he does not want to accept the offer to come to Paris. This is where chance comes into play. The theater director Medebac comes in and tells him that there will be no more theater in Venice for the next season where he could perform his plays. That convinced him to move to the Comédie Italienne in 1762 . In a final conversation Teodorea tries to persuade her lover to stay in Venice, while Goldoni asks her again to come to Paris with him. But she emphasizes once again that as an actress, she cannot belong to just one person and wants to be there for many. The farewell to Goldoni during Carnival in the streets of Venice turned into a triumphal procession for him. Nicoletta is already waiting on the ship to take him to Paris.
production
The Italian director received this order from DEFA at the request of the Italian Communist Party , since as a member of this party he no longer received any orders in Italy. This elaborate and expensive costume film, made only in the studio, with more than 1000 participants, exceeded the shooting time several times.
The music was played by the DEFA Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Karl-Ernst Sasse . The dubbing direction was in the hands of Johannes Knittel , while Manfred Fritzsche was responsible for the dramaturgy .
Italian Capriccio was shot on Agfa- Color and was premiered on June 10, 1961 at the 3rd Workers' Festival of the GDR in Magdeburg. The festive premiere in the presence of the filmmakers at the general start in the cinemas of the GDR took place on July 27, 1961 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin .
The first broadcast in the 1st program of the German television station took place on August 27, 1962.
criticism
MJ wrote in the Berliner Zeitung that you shouldn't go into this film unprepared, otherwise you won't understand it. The external form of freely designing episodes from Goldoni's life in the manner of one of his comedies does not work in its realization as an unmistakable, inorganic mixture of slapstick, masked trains and sentimental love stories.
Helmut Ullrich von der Neue Zeit also found that the film cannot be understood without prior knowledge. But he points out that the film might be even more unsatisfactory with some knowledge.
The lexicon of international films described the film as a low-level slap by an Italian guest director recommended by the Italian Communist Party to DEFA about the comedy writer Carlo Goldoni. Instead of honoring the great comedy poet with wit and esprit, the film indulges in cramped antics and loud confusion. He is also completely helpless dramaturgically.
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 277 .
Web links
- Italian Capriccio in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Italian capriccio at filmportal.de
- Italian Capriccio at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ New Germany of June 11, 1961; P. 4
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of July 27, 1961; P. 8
- ^ Berliner Zeitung of August 1, 1961; P. 6
- ↑ Neue Zeit from August 4, 1961; P. 4
- ↑ Italian Capriccio. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed May 28, 2018 .