MORNING LIST
Accused (without proof!) Of being the mother of all vices, idleness reigns supreme in these times of pandemic. Constraint more often than chosen. Some filmmakers, such as Federico Fellini, Yves Robert and Joel Coen, have tried to film vacancy, the emptiness of a life without a project, assumed inactivity. Under their gaze, idleness finds a revolutionary charge as if doing nothing were an urgent demand for freedom.
“Les Vitelloni” (1953): the refusal of adulthood
Federico Fellini’s third feature film was undoubtedly the one in which a personal vision was affirmed for the first time through what appeared to be a vaguely autobiographical story, a way of staging the memories of a youth spent in a province which condemns you to boredom, unless you find, one day, the energy to leave it.
Alberto, Fausto, Leopoldo, Moraldo and Riccardo, the group of men that the film features, have long since moved away from the shores of youth without, however, accepting the passage to adulthood and the responsibilities it imposed. Work is obviously what they are going to try to avoid or, in any case, what they are going to postpone the inevitability of as much as possible. Leopoldo (Leopoldo Trieste) has always written plays that no one reads. As for Alberto (Alberto Sordi), it is on the money earned by his sister that he counts to play races.
Labor catches up with Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), however, forced to marry a young girl pregnant with his works. From then on, under the benevolent but firm pressure of his in-laws, he found himself hired as a salesman in a pious object shop.
The relationship with the work of these large and childish idlers is synthesized by this sequence during which Alberto, from a car, calls out loudly – Lavoratori! (“Workers”!) – a group of roadmenders before giving them a masterful arm of honor. Jean-Francois Rauger
“Les Vitelloni”, Italian film by Federico Fellini. With Franco Fabrizi, Alberto Sordi, Franco Interlenghi (1 h 49) on LaCinetek, CanalVOD.
“Alexander the Blessed” (1968): between two worlds
Perhaps we should slip this debonair and wobbly film among the feature films heralding the events of May 68? Yves Robert (1920-2002), its director, humanist filmmaker, probably never thought of joining this club of visionaries.
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