Divorce in Italian

Movie
German title	Divorce in Italian
Original title	Divorzio all'italiana
Country of production	Italy
original language	Italian
Publishing year	1961
length	105 minutes
Age rating	FSK 18
Rod
Director	Pietro Germi
script	Ennio De Concini
production	Franco Cristaldi
music	Carlo Rustichelli
camera	Leonida Barboni ; Carlo Di Palma
cut	Roberto Cinquini
occupation
	Marcello Mastroianni : Ferdinando Cefalù; Daniela Rocca : Rosalia; Stefania Sandrelli : convent student Angela; Leopoldo Trieste : painter and lover of the Baroness Rosalia; Angela Cardile : Agnese; Odoardo Spadaro : Don Gaetano Cefalù; Margherita Girelli : Sisina; Lando Buzzanca : Rosario Mulè; Pietro Tordi : Di Marzi Lawyer; Ugo Torrente : Don Calogero;

Divorce in Italian is a 1961 film by director Pietro Germi set in Sicily .

action

The Sicilian baron Ferdinando Cefalù (in a prime role: Marcello Mastroianni ) is tired of his wife. He longs to win his sixteen-year-old cousin Angela (fifteen-year-old Stefania Sandrelli ) as a lover. In his fantasy he has already killed his wife several times; a divorce is impossible according to the Italian marriage law of the time.

Through a newspaper report, according to which a jealous murder was punished mildly in this case, the baron got the idea to drive his wife into the arms of a lover - which finally succeeds: his wife runs away with the painter who is painting the ceiling frescoes to restore his palazzo. He travels after the couple and is surprised to find the painter's wife, who has just shot her husband. He then shoots his wife, for which he has to go to prison for 18 months. After serving his sentence, he is finally free for Angela, who, however, will cheat on him with a young sailor on his honeymoon (according to the final shot of the film).

background

Behind the facade of the comedy hides a bitter satire on the Italian marriage law of the time. The possibility of divorce was only introduced in Italy in 1970, before a marriage could not be divorced in principle. A divorce was not only opposed to social constraints, as today's viewer of the film might assume, but a divorce was actually legally impossible. The stinging criticism of the film was well understood by both the audience at the time and the church.

Reviews

“The inventiveness of the script is admirable,” said Moviemaster . The death of Rosalia is thought of and then visualized in "countless different ways [...] - Ferdinando hardly reads z. B. about space travel in the newspaper, the viewer sees Rosalia shot to the moon with a rocket ”. For the lexicon of international film , divorce in Italian was an “amusing comedy with black humor, routinely put into the picture as a pamphlet against the Italian marriage and criminal legislation of the time”.

Awards

The film won an Oscar for " Best Original Screenplay " in 1963 , and Marcello Mastroianni and Pietro Germi were also nominated. Marcello Mastroianni and the film as “Best Foreign Language Film” also won a Golden Globe Award in 1963 . At the Cannes Film Festival in 1962, the film received the award for best comedy. Marcello Mastroianni also received the British Academy Film Award in 1964 in the category “ Best Foreign Actor ” .

Web links

Divorce Italian Style in the Internet Movie Database (English)
www.moviemaster.de

Individual evidence

[1] Archives Moviemaster

[2] Divorce in Italian. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .