Totò and Pasolini, photo via Wikimedia Commons March 5, 1922 - Pier Paolo Pasolini: "I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief." Pasolini has the dubious distinction of being one of only three great filmmakers that I can recall who … [Read more...]
#ArtDept: Considering Caravaggio on His Birthday
September 29, 1571- Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio The Husband and I have a fervent fondness for this painter. We stood in awe before his frescoes in the Palazzo Ducale in Venice and his paintings at the Uffizi Museum in Florence and The Metropolitan Museum … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Filmmaker, Federico Fellini
Photo via YouTube January 29, 1920– Federico Fellini: "Life is a combination of magic and pasta." He is one of the few directors with his name as part of the title of his films (apologies to Lee Daniels): Fellini Satyricon, Fellini … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Sophia Loren
Italiano Wikimedia- catturato personalmente dall’autore sotto indicato, public domain September 20, 1934 - Sophia Loren: "Sex Appeal is Fifty Percent What You've Got and Fifty Percent What People Think You've Got." She is Italy's Greatest Cinema Icon, an eternal Diva, … [Read more...]
#BornThisDay: Fashion Icon, Elsa Schiaparelli
Screen-grab from Chanel vs Schiaparelli (2014) via YouTube September 10, 1890 - Elsa Schiaparelli: "Shocking Pink? I invented it." Oh, to be born in Rome, then die in Paris, and in between be one of the two most prominent figures in fashion between the two World Wars, … [Read more...]
#RIP: Filmmaker, Bernardo Bertolucci
How very peculiar to lose two important, influential filmmakers on the same weekend, first Nicolas Roeg and now Bernardo Bertolucci, one so very English and one so essentially Italian. Yikes, they say death comes in threes. Bertolucci was a director with a painterly eye and a … [Read more...]
