SEE Magazine
Copyright © 1998. All Rights Reserved.
ON SCREEN
BY ADRIAN LACKEYREVIEW
Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember
Directed and edited by Anna Maria Tato
Featuring Marcello MastroianniIf the name Marcello Mastroianni isn't a household word where you dwell, maybe your household should get out to see more Fellini and spend less time drinking bellinies at some trendoid club on Whyte Avenue.
With 170 films to his credit and an Oscar nomination for Dark Eyes in the mid-'80s, Mastroianni has earned his place on the podium where critics and cinephiles put the likes of Laurence Olivier, Humphrey Bogart or Spencer Tracy. With the possible exception of the late Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune (Seventh Samurai), Mastroianni is probably the most recognizable and beloved acting import. In Fellini's 8 1/2 - a film on my top-10 list of all time (and screw the AFI) - Mastroianni plays Guido, a film director given to fantasies of childhood and eroticism.
When Mastroianni picked up the Silver Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, Fellini - who was presenting - called Mastroianni his "alter ego." Nothing could be further from the truth; whereas Fellini was a talented egomaniac and shameless self-promoter, Mastroianni questioned the very notion of heroism and eschewed the "Latin lover" image given him by the world press after Fellini cast him in La Dolce Vita some 39 years ago. As Mastroianni pointed out, "I've played a cuckold and a pregnant man. Where did they get this 'Latin lover' label?" Indeed, the truth is, Mastroianni spent as much time being rejected by women as he did bedding them in the movies.
At the age of 72 and while working on Manoel de Oliveira's film Voyage to the Beginning of the World, Mastroianni must have known more about the voyage to the end of life, because he enlisted the help of writer/director Anna Maria Tato to put his memoirs on film just before his death.
I Remember opens with a five-minute monologue from Mastroianni's out-of-focus silhouette against a white wall. He lists off memories, in no chronological order, from the sublime to the ridiculous to the downright banal.
This may be the way our own personal memory banks work, but it doesn't necessarily make for good documentary film-making. The beginning, in fact, is the only time Tato shows her hand as director and it's unfortunate, as Mastroianni pretty much runs away with the film. I Remember skimps on film clips so the audience can't see what a good, unpompous actor Mastroianni truly was. Instead, viewers new to him will have to rely on second-hand accounts.
Not to say that I Remember is without merit. Heavens, no! There are lots of tasty morsels amongst the gristle. "Luck sustains life, not wisdom," Mastroianni paraphrases ancient Roman poet Ciciro, born 2,122 years earlier and a few feet from where Mastroianni sat. There's also a fascinating story of when Fellini cast Mastroianni in a film, but before Mastroianni would agree, he demanded to see a script. Instead, Fellini drew him a cartoon of a man with a 10-foot-long penis swimming in the ocean and having fat mermaids ogle him. Mastroianni, who seems to enjoy being humbled, agreed to do the film.
And I was stunned to hear that Mastroianni's favorite director to work for was Marco Ferreri (La Grande Bouffe) and not Vittorio De Sica (Marriage, Italian Style), Elio Petri (The Tenth Victim) or even Fellini himself.
More than anything else I Remember hammers home the existentialist point that the prime purpose in life is to create memories. Mastroianni recounts a scene from one of his favorite movies, Bladerunner (he's a huge sci-fi fan), and the anguish the replicants feel at not having authentic memories.
And the film does end with a dignified wallop.
I've always considered it unprofessional for critics to write about the film that could have been and not the film that is. Yet, I've never been more tempted to do so than right at this very moment.
Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember **1/2 (out of five)
(Or 8 1/2 out of 17, just to stay thematic . . .)
Screening Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 8 p.m. at Zeidler Hall in the Citadel Theatre, courtesy of the Metro Cinema Society.
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