Nina - Just a matter of time
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Nina - Just a matter of time Just a matter of time Nina |
| Original title | Nina / A Matter of Time |
| Country of production | United States , Italy |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1976 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Vincente Minnelli |
| script | John Gay |
| production |
Jack H. Skirball J. Edmund Grainger |
| music |
Nino Oliviero songs: Fred Ebb , John Kander , George Gershwin and BG DeSylva |
| camera | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| cut | Peter Taylor |
| occupation | |
| |
Nina - Just a Matter of Time is a 1975 American-Italian drama directed by Vincente Minnelli starring Ingrid Bergman , Liza Minnelli , Charles Boyer and Isabella Rossellini . The story is based on a novel by Maurice Druon .
action
Rome, mid-1950s. Here the story begins with a press conference, at which scenes from the new film with the great cinema idol Nina are presented. On the way to the conference, Nina looks into a decorative, small mirror and sees the decades go by, since her arrival in Rome decades ago. At the time, she was a 19-year-old housekeeper who had no idea where her path would lead. At that time, her cousin Valentina had also found her the position of maid in a run-down hotel.
The actual film begins: Thanks to her work, young Nina gets to know the old, ailing and rather eccentric Countess Sanziani, once the darling of the upper-class societies in Europe. The Contessa is married, but has become very estranged from her husband over the decades. When he comes to visit, an old argument breaks out again. Exasperated and angry, Count Sanziani leaves the hotel and explains to the manager that he does not want to be informed if something should happen to his wife (by which he presumably means her death). After a conversation with Nina, the countess decides to take care of the young, inexperienced thing and wants to raise her up to be a well-bred and smart young lady of society, as did Prof. Higgins with the flower girl Eliza in "Pygmalion". Nina is concerned about a birthmark on her forehead, but the Contessa assures her that one day important men will be eager to press their lips on this mark. One evening the Contessa calls Nina into her room and shows her a scarlet Indian robe, a saree that an Indian ambassador had once given her. She insists that Nina put this sari on in front of her. Nina doesn't know why, but she obeys, knowing instinctively that the countess means well for her and that the protection of this elderly lady can only help her.
Contessa Sanziani then cuts Nina's long hair and makes up her face in such a way that the inconspicuous girl becomes a true beauty, ready to be "discovered" by the world. Nina enthuses to the countess that she would like to be like her, but she refuses and says that this is a foolish wish. And yet Nina loses herself in her dream world and world of thoughts in this very environment in which Nina is a great lady of the world and which takes place in noble casinos and Venetian palaces. Once she has perceived the possibilities of a completely different life, Nina begins to explore this completely new world in Rome on a day off, until she grows the desire to become part of this life that the Countess seems to be paving the way for her. While Nina is doing a job on behalf of the Countess, the old lady suffers a nervous breakdown. Contessa Sanziani now begins to keep the whole hotel busy with her constant moaning, whereupon the annoyed manager makes it clear to her that she is leaving her accommodation as soon as possible, especially since a mountain of debts from unpaid bills has piled up. Nina wants to help her generous inspirer and patron and asks another hotel guest, the screenwriter Mario, for advice. She shows him several shares in the Countess's possession and hopes that Mario can determine their current value. But he obviously has a grudge against the Contessa and says that these papers are no longer worthwhile and that he has no sympathy for the Sanziani. Nina leaves Mario's room upset.
Nina then visits a bank with the securities and hears that Mario was correct in his assessment. Most of the certificates are worthless, but one of the Bank of Congo still brings in enough money for the sale that you can use it to pay the Contessa's outstanding hotel bills, which Nina finally does. On the same day, Nina goes to a restaurant to pick up the Contessa's dinner. A film director named Antonio Vicari sees her in the restaurant and asks Mario, who is writing a script for him, to introduce the young woman to him. This paved Nina's way into the film world, because Vicari offers Nina to make test shots with her in front of the camera to see if she is a suitable film actress. Before Nina goes to the film studio for this reason, she has to discover that the Contessa has surprisingly checked out of the hotel in order to locate an ex-lover, the noble Gabriele d'Orazio. Contessa Sanziani is no longer perfectly clear in her head when she inadvertently crosses a street. She is hit by a car. Unconscious, the Sanziani is driven to a hospital.
The test recordings with Nina do not show the desired success, whereupon Mario sits down again with Nina and soon the conversation turns to the Countess, about whose death on installments Nina does not yet know anything. A great passion flares up in Nina's eyes - precisely the passion that Mario and Vicari so far sorely missed during the recordings. Vicari is now sure that Nina should definitely play the lead role in his next film. Scarcely had a contract signed, Nina immediately went to look for her mentor and found Countess Sanziani in the Catholic hospital to which she was admitted. There a very young sister named Pia takes care of the moribund lady. When Nina is led to the bed of the Contessa, she has just passed away. As a souvenir, Nina takes a magnificently designed little mirror from the Countess, which appeared briefly at the beginning of the story, and leaves the hospital.
Back to the present of 1954. Nina has become a veritable film star in the past few decades and is now going to the press conference. As she gets out of her limousine, a girl rushes over to her and says that she wants to be just like Nina when she grows up. History seems to repeat itself ...
Production notes
Nina - Just A Matter of Time was filmed in Venice and Rome from February 1975 and premiered in New York on October 7, 1976. The German premiere of the film, which was never shown in cinemas in this country, took place on May 19, 1990 on television on RTLplus.
Nina was Minnelli's last production. The director later distanced himself from the cut version shown but not approved by him. This was barely more than an hour and a half long, while the filmed original length was 165 minutes. The production cost was around five million dollars.
Nina was de facto a collaboration between two legendary film families: director Vincente Minnelli and leading actress Liza Minnelli, who also performed the Gershwin song Do It Again , were father and daughter. Leading actress Ingrid Bergman and Isabella Rossellini , who made her film debut here, mother and daughter. Co-star Charles Boyer, on the other hand, was more than three decades earlier, as in this film, Bergman's film and spouse (but also her opponent) in the Hollywood thriller Lady Alquist's House , which earned the Swede her first of three Oscars .
The film constructions come from John Moore and Veniero Colasanti. Samuel Z. Arkoff and Giulio Sbarigia were the production managers.
Main actor Boyer as well as the Italian 1940s and 1950s star Amedeo Nazzari played their last film roles here.
Reviews
The reviews of the film were consistently disastrous.
Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times : “The film is full of glittery costumes and spectacular props. The performers are talented, intelligent people who have adopted the naive gestures from an outdated showbiz tradition, and although everything was expensive, the whole thing comes across as strong as trinkets. […] The film gives you the feeling of an operetta from which the music has been removed. Even the acting is accordingly. "
"Depressing lard [...] director Minnelli's worst film."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called Nina “a pretty big disappointment as a film, but as an opportunity for daydreaming it was done quite nicely. Once you've put the plot aside, "continues Ebert," we have the opportunity to ponder Ingrid Bergman at the age of 60. And thinking about Ingrid Bergman at any age is, I have to admit, a pleasant way of spending time. "
“A lying story at the level of a woman's novel, which cannot be saved even by the actors. Completely superfluous: the songs by Liza Minnelli, which do not fit into the dramaturgical concept at all. "
In Time magazine sneered Jay Cocks , the film enables the public to observe "an embarrassing occasion. A group of talented people that work so far below their talent that everything has the schwummerige appearance of a huge monkey circus (...) The film would work can take a lot of effort and a little magic, but something has gone hugely wrong. (...) The film is incoherent, maudlin, hysterical, and the actors, who may have anticipated the catastrophe, are pushing ahead with a painful, overwhelming desperation. (...) ) A Matter of Time doesn't look like a Minnelli movie at all. Its meticulous craftsmanship… is nowhere to be seen. "
“Endless, even in its abridged version, this pathetic fantasy is a tribute to his misplaced daughter by a director who never makes much sense of a plot he tackles. You have to see it to believe it. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ Other sources even report over three hours
- ^ Samuel Z. Arkoff, Richard Turbo: Flying Through Hollywood By the Seat of My Pants. Birch Lane Press. 1992. p. 221. ISBN 1-55972-107-3 .
- ^ The New York Times, October 8, 1976
- ↑ Chicago Sun-Times, October 15, 1976
- ↑ Nina - Just a matter of time. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed December 1, 2018 .
- ↑ Cinema: A Lapse of Memory, in: Time Magazine, November 8, 1976
Web links
- Nina - Just a matter of time in the Internet Movie Database (English)