Gabriele Ferzetti Movies

Actor Oliver Parker made his directorial debut with this adaptation of the tragic play by William Shakespeare that abridges the original text by half and ups the quotient of sex and violence. Laurence Fishburne stars as the Moorish general Othello, who returns a hero after crushing an invasion attempt by the Turkish army near Cyprus. Pledged to marry the lovely Desdemona (Irene Jacob), Othello ignores the advice of his intended's father, who tells him that she may have a deceptive nature. Othello's aide Iago (Kenneth Branagh), jealous over the elevation of his rival, Cassio (Nathaniel Parker, the director's real-life brother) to lieutenant, begins scheming to make Othello believe that Desdemona and Cassio are carrying on an affair. On the slimmest of evidence, Iago manages to manipulate Othello's suspicious, distrustful nature. Played previously in black face on film by actors Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier, Parker's production of Othello (1995) was the first major cinematic production to cast an African-American in the title role. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide

Giulia E Guilia, also released as Julia and Julia, is an unusual, interesting film by director Peter Del Monte, a nightmare vision of a world where nothing can be counted on and where truth is relative. The plot unfolds as a series of surprises, the first surprise being central to the entire plot. The story begins on Julia's (Kathleen Turner) wedding day when she is to be married to her Paolo (Gabriel Byrne). After the wedding, Julia and her new husband are involved in a car accident. From then on, the construction of the story, both clever and perverse, defies explanation, with an inner logic of its own. Julia finds that she can be sure of nothing nor can the viewer. This is both the strength and basic flaw of the movie. The movie will fascinate some viewers while confusing others. Nevertheless, the movie is a superb directorial achievement by Monte, making his English language debut. It should also be noted that this is the first feature shot entirely in high definition television technique and then transferred to film, with generally excellent results. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide

Originally made for television and then released theatrically, this 2 1/2-hour engrossing drama handles the subject of a group of mentally disturbed patients turned out of institutions that have been closed by the government, and left to fend for themselves in a large apartment building. The heroine Carlotta (Carlotta Wittig) is the woman who volunteers to work with them, partly out of a desire to escape her stultifying existence with an ambitious, career-oriented husband and to forget her problems at work. From that point onward, Carlotta's handling of her charges opens up her eyes and humanity. At the same time, the ex-patients in the building come to grips with a reality they can only partly capture. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

The title of this movie raises an issue that is never really met head-on in the story, instead, the focus seems to be on a meandering sub-plot. The Pope (Terence Stamp) was once Father Andreani, a teacher of Father Bruno Martello (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) when Father Bruno was studying at the Catholic University. As Father Andreani rises up the hierarchy until the cardinals choose him from among their ranks to be the Supreme Pontiff, Father Bruno errs by breaking his celibacy vows with a gorgeous terrorist and heads in the opposite direction -- actually, to India where he is given a magical mixture that induces a transcendental state, and apparently changes his politics as well. Once back in Italy, he is convinced by opposition bishops to murder the Pope -- but the ex-Father Bruno has his own devious plot in mind. Little does the Pope know what is in store for him, as the altered-consciousness of his old student fixates on a little bit of the mind-bending mixture that he has reserved for very special occasions. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Marshall McLuhan's statement that the "media is the message" might well be amended by this film to say the "media creates the message." When two prisoners escape from jail and hole up in the apartment of a well-off yet middle-class family -- now held hostage -- the more forward of the two escapees calls the local television station, requesting that they broadcast his demand for a plane to get himself and his cohort out of the country. Once this concession to the power of the televised media is given, the rest follows logically behind. In essence, the television director brings his crew in to film the entire hostage crisis, but hardly satisfied with real-life drama as it unfolds, he proceeds to "direct" the drama for the camera crew, at one point even handing a gun back to the crook so his film coverage will not be interrupted. When a doctor (the apartment owner) removes a bullet from a guard whom the convicts brought with them, the director has him put the bullet back in so it can be filmed as it is taken out -- the world of "instant replay" taking on a reality that overcomes all logic. Needless to say, even when the convicts manage to escape from the building, the television crew is the first to catch up with them, recording every movement "live." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Saverio is a young man with ambitions different from those of his father. Unfortunately, his father is a disciplinarian and a school educator who insists that his son should follow in his own footsteps. When the boy misses an examination which would qualify him for a teaching post, the pair have a long-delayed confrontation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this Italian thriller, a woman is tormented by morbid premonitions heralding the deaths of people she knows. As she tries to understand the terrifying phenomenon, she remembers her childhood when her mother jumped off a cliff and seemingly died. As the visions continue, she not only sees her own upcoming death, she also gains insight into the truth about her mother's demise. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Singer and actress Liza Minnelli teamed up with her father, legendary director Vincente Minnelli, to make this evocative drama. Nina (Liza Minnelli) is a popular film star who, in the midst of a press conference, finds herself remembering her life before her big break, when she worked as a chambermaid at an Italian hotel which had seen better days. In the course of her duties, Nina meets Countessa Sanziani (Ingrid Bergman), an aging and eccentric woman who regales Nina with tales of her glamorous younger days. As the Countessa tells her more stories of her days of wealth and adventure, Nina imagines herself living out the same exciting stories, and soon the Countessa encourages her to find the courage to live out her own dreams. A Matter Of Time also featured another family team-up; Ingrid Bergman's daughter Isabella Rossellini has a small part as a nun attending to the ailing Countessa. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Actor Maximillian Schell functioned as coproducer and director of End of the Game. Conversely, director Martin Ritt is the leading actor in this existentialist crime story. Ritt plays Hans Barlach, a Swiss police inspector who has spent 30 years trying to pin the murder of the woman he loved on Richard Gastmann, an "untouchable" industrialist (Robert Shaw). When Barlach's assistant Donald Sutherland is killed while trying to get the goods on Gastmann, the inspector puts idealistic detective Walter Tschantz (Jon Voight) on the case. Jacqueline Bisset costars as Anna Crawley Sutherland's girl friend, who attempts to solve the case on her own. Author Friedrich Durrenmatt, long fascinated with the intangible aspects of Guilt and Innocence, wrote the novel (The Judge and His Hangman) upon which End of the Game is based. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Max (Dirk Bogarde) is a discreet, unassuming night porter working in a posh hotel in Vienna in 1957, tending to the guests' needs, from cold water to a bed-warming gigolo. Then Lucia (Charlotte Rampling) arrives at the hotel, on the arm of her husband, an American composer, and Max's past comes flooding back to him. It turns out Max was an S.S. officer at a Nazi concentration camp where Lucia was a beautiful young prisoner. She became, in effect, Max's sexual slave. Now, years later, their reunion shatters both of their lives. Lucia stays in Vienna after her husband travels on, in order to see Max, and they find themselves caught up in a renewal of their former sadomasochistic relationship. Max has an upcoming show trial for his war crimes. His former S.S. comrades have been carefully destroying documents and "filing away" witnesses to clear all their names, and, while Max tries to keep Lucia's existence a secret from them, they eventually find out about her. They consider her a threat, and they urge Max to turn her over to them. He quits his job, and he and Lucia hide out in his apartment, while his former friends keep watch. Liliana Cavani (Ripley's Game) co-wrote and directed this controversial film, Il Portiere di Notte, which she reportedly based partly on her own interviews with a Holocaust survivor. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

In this Italian effort (spoken English is obviously dubbed) a dentist is seduced by his daughter and her girl friend. ~ All Movie Guide

Alec Guinness plays against stereotype, imbuing his Adolf Hitler with an introverted solemnity in Ennio De Concini's Hitler: The Last Ten Days. Set almost entirely inside Hitler's Berlin bunker, the film chronicles the dying days of the Third Reich as the Allied armies close in on Berlin. Guinness's Hitler is an enclosed depressive who sinks slowly into madness, depression, and ultimately suicide as his 1,000-Year Reich collapses around him. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide

In this French philosophical drama, Agis (Georges Moustaki) is a professor of philosophy who seeks to live the peace and love he talks about. He leaves his wife and child and moves into a poor section of the Arab quarter with two disciples. One of them is a school dropout, the other an Arab poet who is also a drug pusher. The professor strangles a prostitute for no reason that he can determine, except that on that day he had no drugs. A policeman catches up to him and is preparing to bring him in, but the professor manages to convert him to his philosophy. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide