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THE BEAUTY OF EUROPEAN FILMS
Majo Aguilar in Conversation with Erica Biazzi of 6os Cinephilie on her natal Italy and the films of the old continent
México City, April 19th 2022
The true magic of classic European films were that they were completely the opposite of what American big-budget productions were: Simple and realistic.
Instead of watching Lucille Ball covered in rhinestones and feathers surrounded by a crowd of dancers singing a love song in the most spectacular and produced set, European filmmakers presented a more straightforward version of life on screen. From existential questioning films like Pierrot Le Fou (1965) by Nouvelle Vague icon Jean-Luc Godard to social criticism and representation pieces like Boccaccio 70 (1962) by neorealism dream team, formed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Vittorio De Sica, Europe created some of the most important and stunning films from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, always distinguished by their particular vision of life, outstanding stories, iconic actresses and beautiful visuals capable of making all viewers feel like they were in a dream from which they will never want to wake up. Today I have the greatest pleasure of being joined by Erica Biazzi, a 23-year-old literature student from Cremona, Italy, whose love for European classics not only led her to open a successful film Instagram account, 60s.cinephilie but also made us become friends.
So Erica, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Sure. So I am 23, I live in a small town in Northern Italy, I just got my bachelor's degree in literature and my passion for cinema…you know, it’s weird because it started when I was like eighteen when I started to shoot short films with my friends for Clematis Productions, and I really didn’t know much about cinema history and classics. I had seen Pulp Fiction (1994) and stuff like that. Then I saw 5000 Days of Summer and I fell in love with it, it was my favourite film for a while and I still love it, but I really started to learn about cinema when I had a cinema history course at university and I was very reluctant towards old films like silent movies and I never really learned about it before. But, when I discovered the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague), that was it. My professor showed us in class this very small sequence of the first Antoine Duhamel film where he is talking to a psychologist and the camera is only on him, and she [the professor] was explaining to us the technique used by Francoise Truffault. At that moment I really started to see the craft behind that film in particular. I was really fascinated by the French New Wave, it was our sort of meet-cute, and then I learnt about Godard and the first film I watched by him was Breathless (1960), then I saw a clip of Anna Karina dancing in Une Femme est Une Femme (1961) and when I learned more I started approaching 60s films in general and tried to learn as much as I could about filmmaking, then I created my cinema Instagram account, and that makes me really happy.
What’s your most beautiful memory of any European film?
It’s hard to choose. I think the most special memory I have is when I first watched Pierrot Le Fou, it was during the 2020 lockdown and I was watching a lot of series and films, but they weren't necessarily good films, so I watched it because I had the chance and it turned into this magical experience when you watch a film for the first time that’s gonna change your life. I had experienced that before with 5000 Days of Summer, because it was a kind of narrative structure that I had never seen before, and then Pierrot Le Fou was everything I could ask for in a movie. The colour palette is beautiful and Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina’s performances were great, and I liked it most because it makes a critique to capitalism and bourgeoisie, it’s really poetic in a way and at the same time it’s real. Watching that and having the comfort of finding something that beautiful was a very special experience.
I watched most of my favourite European films during the lockdown, so it’s not the same feeling as going to the cinema. But maybe one experience at the cinema with one of these movies is when I went to see La Nuit Americaine (1973) in a small theatre in the historical centre of my hometown. The memories are different, I really loved Pierrot Le Fou but watching that was very special because it was the first film I ever saw by Francois Truffault and I watched it at a historical theatre.
Can you name some of your favourite movies from this period? (the mid-50s to early 70s)
Once again, Pierrot Le Fou. To me it’s the best film by Godard, and I know it’s kind of controversial, there’s people who agree and who don’t, but to me, that film is peak Godard, because the structure is really challenging, it’s different, you know, Godard from the early 1960s to 1967 was different, it was before he made weird political stuff, I respect that, but I don’t really enjoy it that much. His early works are more fun to watch, he kind of lost that spark later. There’s this 2019 film with Louis Garrel as well.
Where he played Godard?
Yes! I do recommend it. Some critics have said that it is shallow, but it depends on which lens you are watching it with. I think it’s good because it captures Godard’s crisis after his early films and his relationship with his second wife, which was very messed up, she was so much younger than him so the power dynamic was, you know, weird. It was a very interesting crisis… but going back to what we were saying! Ok, Pierrot Le Fou is my favourite one, and I’m obsessed with Anna Karina.
You made me obsessed with her as well! I’ve seen you posting a lot about her on your account, she was so charismatic!
Exactly! My goal is to make everyone obsessed with her, she directed two films that are impossible to find, one was on YouTube for a while but it was taken down due to copyright. She painted and wrote books, but she said that people had a hard time seeing her as something else rather than an actress and Godard’s muse despite having an amazing career. It is a true shame that she doesn't have a book or a film about her already, and the problem is that many people believe that Stacy Martin’s character in the Godard film is her, but it's not! It’s Anne Wiazemsky, but I don’t think we speak about Anna Karina enough, she’s the face of the French New Wave, she and Jean-Pierre Léaud are the it people of the movement, so my goal is to make people get to know her and share a lot of media because she was a great actress, she had a very wide range that is not even shown in Godard’s films, but you can see it in The Nun (1966), that’s based on “La Religieuse," a book by Denis Diderot, but the origin of my obsession with nun stories happened because of a very important book in Italian literature published in 1827 written by Alessandro Manzoni.
Your account is called 60s.cinephilie, what aspects of the 60s interest you the most besides films?
I’m fascinated by fashion, of course, the trends were beautiful, I even have a Pinterest board of style inspiration. I find myself looking back to the clothes’ cut and colour palette, they are not quite preppy since the theme is very lively and colourful, but the concept is very interesting. Also, I’m a hardcore feminist so I’m drawn to the role of women and what happened in 1968, the liberation of many taboo topics and the student rebellion. I like the Italian 60s because they were a really interesting decade for my country. I don’t know if it’s an international thing when I talk about the 60s boom…
I guess it is. At least student rebellions also happened in my country in 1968.
Yes! The 60s were the decade where the economic situation in Italy got better, a sector of people got very rich so I find it fascinating how that is represented in films like La Dolce Vita (1960) because right after World War II people were miserable and got affected, and after that, there was this giant wealth that opened opportunities and created cultural phenomenons, but many people who got wealthy eventually didn’t know what to do with that wealth and La Dolce Vita portrays that very well because it shows how one can get lost into that. People that are supposed to be “culturally more advanced” than you don’t really know what to do either. Overall, the 60s are a cheerful decade but at the same time present this existential crisis and sort of a void, that is very well portrayed in Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte (1961), and actually in his whole Decadence trilogy. They show how people can make things, art, and movies, but it shows how they don’t know how to value anything anymore. The 60s are a transition decade, and it was definitely the time to be in Italy.
"The 60s were the decade where the economic situation in Italy got better, a sector of people got very rich so I find it fascinating how that is represented in films like La Dolce Vita (1960). Many people who got wealthy eventually didn’t know what to do with that wealth and La Dolce Vita portrays that very well because it shows how one can get lost into that."
To you, what are the biggest differences between Italian and French filmmaking? Because both are fantastic, but I’m sure there might be huge differences.
That’s a tough question. Italians and French have always had beef. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because the food is sometimes compared but believe me, it’s not the same, a lot less cheesy. If I had to compare the main directors of the 60s, I would say the way the films are coloured changes, the colour palettes vary a lot- French cinema tends to be saturated with colour and have very specific tones, Truffault and Godard work specifically with white, red and blue, but Eric Rohmer has very light and beautiful films. But for example, let’s take Amarcord (1973) by Federico Fellini, each character has a specific colour, and he works with more earthy tones. Besides that, I think the most notable contrast between classic Italian and French films is simply their vibe, French are just so existential and dramatic, sometimes even sad, and Italians are comedic but not necessarily in a politically correct way, they are grotesque too. When the French discuss the void of existence they make it poetic and tend to turn melancholic while sad Italian films are very direct in your face. Bicycle Thieves (1948) by Vittorio De Sica and Accattone (1961) by Pier Paolo Pasolini are really sad films but they talk of the grotesque in a way, they have less poetic aspects of sadness and they touch on the struggles of poverty and the perspective of the rich. Class is a really important topic in those films, and you can clearly see in the films of the 40s, 50s, 60s that directors talk of the issue of the social classes, that also happens in Il Gattopardo (1963) by Luchino Visconti.
That’s one of my absolute favourites. It wasn't the film that made me fall in love with Italian classics, but it certainly became important to me. When it comes to visuals, I was speechless, no Hollywood production could have ever done something as beautiful as Il Gattopardo. Visconti is one of my favourites hands down.
Oh really? He's great. He comes from a really wealthy family, they are not “old money," they are “ancient money." I believe his family were nobles from centuries ago. And he didn’t know what to do exactly so his family supported him, they were like “Oh yes, go do your films. You do you." So in his films you can see the upper class reflected, he also made adaptations of books that are very important for Italian literature like La Terra Trema (1948), and he kept adapting the fundamentals of Italian literature, mostly the ones that had not been adapted. For me it’s a little difficult to enjoy his films, they are very well made but I am a literature student, so I tend to make a lot of comparisons, but he is very faithful in his adaptations, and I like how he always gets the mood and the feeling of the book, and what I like the most when I’m watching an adaptation is when the director gets the vibe of the book, you can make changes from the history because they are very different mediums, independent from each other, but if they get the core of the book that’s it for me. He read the books, he liked them, and he got them, he’s got the sensitivity. Sort of the same happens with Antonioni and Blow Up (1966), the visuals are amazing.
I completely agree with you when you say that Italian cinema revolves around classes, and for me one of the best and most important movies that discuss this is Boccaccio 70 (1962), that’s this film that was directed by the all-Italian dream team of directors, Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio De Sica, and the best part is that each one of them prints their essence on each part of the movie, and they all represent a different class. Visconti is always representing the wealthy class, but I just find that he represents it in a very clever way because his stories always show them in decadence, he's like “yes, they are wealthy, but they got problems," and it’s not like a fairytale.
I’ve been wanting to watch it for a long time but I just haven’t for some reason, but I’m really interested actually. I don’t know how much [Giovanni] Boccaccio is discussed in the film, he was a medieval Italian writer who wrote a very important poetry book named Decameron, that means the ten days, and it’s basically about the tales told by a group of young people that escape a pandemic and stay in a villa outside Florence. So I will definitely watch it.
"French cinema tends to be saturated with colour and have very specific tones, Truffault and Godard work specifically with white, red and blue, but Eric Rohmer has very light and beautiful films. But for example, let’s take Amarcord (1973) by Federico Fellini, each character has a specific colour, and he works with more earthy tones. Besides that, I think the most notable contrast between classic Italian and French films is simply their vibe, French are just so existential and dramatic, sometimes even sad, and Italians are comedic but not necessarily in a politically correct way, they are grotesque too. When the French discuss the void of existence they make it poetic and tend to turn melancholic while sad Italian films are very direct in your face."
Who are your favourite women of this period? Because it would be impossible to talk about cinema without women. How do you think their influence is still being carried on?
My favourite woman from the 60s is Agnès Varda, the director. I love her, I even have a T-Shirt with her face. I love her, she’s one of my favourite directors ever. I think it’s important to discuss her work because it made a difference between the two sides of the French New Wave. I don´t know if it’s common knowledge that there are two sides of the Nouvelle Vague, it’s even written in film history books, but there’s “the left side" and "the right side." I don’t remember which directors belong to which side, but Agnes Varda is the complete opposite of Truffaut and Godard because of her documentary style. I really like her documentaries, her documentary about Jane Birkin-
Sorry to interrupt, but Jane Birkin is my favourite in life. After my mother, the woman I look up to the most is Jane Birkin, and I’m not joking, she’s genuinely my all time favourite.
You have to watch it! It is so beautiful. When I first watched it I thought it encapsulated the female gaze before it was even a thing. It is a way of narrating someone, but it’s not just filming her, because yes, they go to her house and stuff but in reality, it shows her dreams, her fantasies, her internal world. And that’s something you can see in Daisies (1966) by Věra Chytilová- Daisies is one of my absolute favourite films ever made, it’s part of the second new wave of Czechoslovak cinema, and to me, it’s one of the best movies ever made because it’s so surreal and, I wouldn’t call it empowering, but it can be.
And once again, I love Anna Karina. And it’s because of her that Godard’s first films are what they are, she influenced them. For example, Breathless is a beautiful movie and all, but Vivre Sa Vie (1962) and Le Petite Soldat (1963) are just different. I like to say that Une Femme est Une Femme (1961) is sort of a feminist film because of the way that Anna’s character takes the power back and the way she goes after the things she wants and she won’t take sh*t from anyone. And even though men try to sabotage her or take her to another path, she does not stop.
Now, this is the most basic, mainstream question you can ever ask an Italian, but here we go. If Italy has an icon, that’s Sofia Loren, How do you think this woman is seen abroad and how do you think she has influenced your national cinema? Because there is no more universal Italian than Sofia Loren
It’s funny that you ask me this because I, personally, am not a huge fan of hers. I obviously recognize her importance in cinema and that she’s an icon, it's not like I loathe her or whatever, but I’m not really a huge fan. And I think it’s because it’s different how she is seen here compared to how she is seen abroad, you know, Italy has a thing with gatekeeping national artists. I’ll give an example, I think everyone knows Maneskin.
"There’s this thing about Italy that it is not aware of its own worth, so Sofia Loren’s icon status is more of an international thing. But I think that she shaped the way Italian women are seen in the media, Luca Guadagnino had to go all the way outside Italy to make Call Me by Your Name...I think it’s really sad because you lose something along the way as an artist. But it’s very beautiful that they are widely recognized abroad and even awarded."
Of course! I love them
See, the thing is that they started in the X factor here in Italy in 2017 and it’s weird because, it’s obvious that they were very good and had a distinct personality, but when they went to Sanremo music festival I swear that nobody wanted them to win. I was shocked, everybody was sure they wouldn’t win, nobody was rooting for them, and obviously, they are famous now because they are beautiful and fun and make good music. Sort of the same happens with Sofia Loren, she became this Italian woman stereotype that shows that Italian women are “sensual” and that turned interesting for foreigners, but here everyone sees her just as an actress who did movies that did well and somehow ended up becoming an icon. There’s this thing about Italy that it is not aware of its own worth, so Sofia Loren’s icon status is more of an international thing. But I think that she shaped the way Italian women are seen in the media, Monica Bellucci for example, or Monica Vitti, who I believe is more liked here in Italy. Here you’re either very famous but hardcore criticized or you aren’t very praised but succeeded, just like Luca Guadagnino who had to go all the way outside Italy to make Call Me by Your Name, or Paolo Sorrentino who is now more known and has more fans, but they had to expand their horizon, they had to go all the way outside to be praised. And I think it’s really sad because you lose something along the way as an artist. But it’s very beautiful that they are widely recognized abroad and even awarded.
How do you view current European cinema?
If you ask any Italian, they are not pleased about national cinema today, but I think saying that national cinema nowadays is bad is not necessarily true. Mainstream cinema is not necessarily good, but there are some exceptions like Perfect Strangers (2016) by Paolo Genovese. There are good films by independent directors, the lesser-known filmmakers, I hope for the better films they make. In my case, I’m not a huge fan of Sorrentino, I think he is self absorbed in a way, I hope to be wrong about his new film which I haven’t watched by the way, but it’s giving me Fellini-but-he-is-not-but-he-romanticizes-his-own-life vibes, but I hope to be wrong. La Grande Belleza (2013) is a beautiful film but I don’t think it has that deepness it’s said to have, I mean sure the film is beautiful, but I don’t find it deep. He thinks he is deep, but he is not.
Ciao Erica, Grazie Mille!
Ciao!
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