Monica Vitti Movies
The high priestess of frosty sensuality, Italian actress Monica Vitti was trained at Rome's National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Upon her graduation, she immediately launched her professional stage career; in 1954, she made her first film, Ettore Scola's Ridere Ridere Ridere. Most of Vitti's late-'50s film appearances were inconsequential compared to her portrayal of the remote, "uninvolved" leading lady in Michelangelo Antonioni's prize-winning L'Avventura (1960). She also was featured in Antonioni's L'Eclise, La Notte, and Red Desert. Her one bid for Hollywood stardom was Modesty Blaise (1966), which though directed by Joseph Losey, was a significant critical disappointment. Aside from her appearance in Luis Buñuel's highly acclaimed Le Fantôme de la Liberté (1974), Vitti's subsequent film work has been relatively undistinguished and sporadic. In 1989, she starred in Scandalo Segreto, which she also scripted and directed. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1975
This satirical comedy recounts a tale of love across class boundaries; the twist is that here a middle-class juror, Gabriella Sansoni (Claudia Cardinale), learns about love from the testimony of Tina Candela (Monica Vitti), a woman on trial for murder. It seems that Tina has found ecstasy in a masochistic fashion by being slapped around by her beloved husband Gino (Giancarlo Giannini). She is so persuasive in this regard that Gabriella lays out a plan to receive similar treatment from her man, Andrea (Vittorio Gassman). ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Claudia Cardinale, Vittorio Gassman, (more)
Accattone , Pier Paolo Pasolini's first feature, is also his first semidocumentary study of "the little homelands": the small, often squalid cultural pockets in the remotest provinces of Italy. Using nonprofessional actors for his leading characters, Pasolini concentrates on Franco Citti, a rural pimp who falls in love with virtuous Franca Pasut. Having previously led an aimless existence, Citti takes a job-and, it is implied, a bath--in hopes of impressing his new girl. It isn't long, however, before Citti gives up both job and Pasut, degenerating into a life of violent crime. As was the case with most of his subsequent films, Pasolini both directed and wrote Accattone, adapting the screenplay from his own novel ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Citti, Silvana Corsini, (more)
- 1965
In this comedy anthology, the sex-capades of several Italian couples are chronicled. In "The Scandal," a dull and insensitive husband is unaware that his lonely wife has been flirting with a young buck at a vacation resort. When the husband finally finds out, he gets jealous and the marriage is renewed. In "Sin in the Afternoon," a movie producer is frustrated because his wife refuses to touch him, and so he winds up picking up a comely woman off the street and taking her to a motel. "The Victim" chronicles the relationship between an insanely jealousy woman and her beleaguered husband, whom she drives away. She, seeking revenge, begins an affair with his best friend. In the final episode, "Modern People," a deeply indebted cheese maker is given the option of paying the debt in cash or allowing the debtor an evening of lovemaking with his gorgeous wife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nino Manfredi, Fulvia Franco, (more)
- 1969
This romantic situation comedy finds Giovanni (Alberto Sordi) extremely jealous when his wife Raffaella (Monica Vitti) admits her infatuation over their handsome neighbor Valerio (Silvano Tranquilli). Giovanni spies on his wife and recruits their 10-year-old son in an effort to stop his wife's good-neighbor policy. Giovanni's once liberal and progressive outlook changes drastically with his wife's candid revelation. The two eventually consider a temporary separation after a series of incidents which seem to prove their incompatibility. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Monica Vitti, (more)
Inside jokes about the film industry dominate this slight tale of ambition and romance at the Cannes Film Festival. Keith Carradine plays a first-time director who has sunk two years and all his money into a movie about the execution of murderer Gary Gilmore. With his last bit of cash, he flies himself and his picture to Cannes, but the film is seized by French customs. The wife of an Italian producer (Monica Vitti) helps him retrieve his work, and the two become embroiled in a passionate, yet ultimately ill-fated, affair. Carradine gets the first-time, self-important director mostly right, but the movie is so specific to the film industry that viewers may lose interest. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Keith Carradine, Monica Vitti, (more)
- 1965
Four different facets of love Italian-style provide the basis of this episodic film. The vignettes are "The Phone," about a woman so busy talking on the phone that she fails to notice that her husband is having sex with a neighbor; "Treatise on Eugenics," the chronicle of a Swedish girl's search for the perfect sire; "The Soup," about a wife's attempts to get rid of her husband's corpse; and "Monsignor Cupid," which follows the attempts of a concierge to seduce a handsome young man. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Virna Lisi, Nino Manfredi, (more)
- 1987
Survey of the history of Italian cinema, featuring clips from such classics as "Open City," "8-1/2," and "Seven Beauties," and interviews with illustrious stars and filmmakers, including Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Toto, Monica Vitti, Anna Magnani, Vittorio DeSica, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Roberto Rossellini. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- 1977
A biker chick and her housewife friend go out & about. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- 1963
Director Jacques Baratier's Sweet and Sour is an independently produced project with a surprising amount of European movie-industry input. Guy Bedos, a Brando wannabe, plays one of several young French cineastes who take to the streets to make improvisational movies. The "cinema verite" quality of the film is somewhat undercut by the presence of major stars: Anna Karina, Simone Signoret, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Monica Vitti, Claude Brasseur, and many others. After several "spontaneous" vignettes -- a street tennis game, a striptease lesson, a West Side Story style gang rumble -- Guy Bedos announces he will go to Hollywood to film the life of Voltaire. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Guy Bedos, Sophie Daumier, (more)
- 1970
- R
The Pizza Triangle is a freewheeling satire of Italian mores, hilarious despite its outwardly morbid plotline. The murder of flower girl Monica Vitti triggers a long flashback involving Vitti, middle-aged Communist bricklayer Marcello Mastrioanni, and young pizza chef Giancarlo Giannini. The married Mastrioanni falls in love with Vitti, but Giannini gets in the way. A fight results, after which the girl is hospitalized. Declaring a truce, the three lovers move in together, allowing Vitti tie to decide whom she loves best. The subsequent discord nearly results in the girl's suicide; she moves out and takes up with butcher Hercules Cortes, but returns to Gianinni when he attempts suicide. The now unemployed and unmarried Mastrioanni shows up, and when Vitti refuses again to commit herself to any one man, another fight results--this time ending in Vitti's death. Also released as A Drama of Jealousy and Jealousy Italian Style, The Pizza Triangle was originally shown in Italy as Dramma della Gelosia--Tutti i Particolari in Cronaca. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni, (more)
- 1983
This is an off-beat story about a ménage à trois that is really a marriage between the traditional two, with one a little schizoid, adding up to three. Laura (Monica Vitti) has been married for 22 years to Giovanni (Jean Luc Bideau) and now his behavior seems to imply that she has a competitor whose name is Veronica. Laura is upset until she realizes that Veronica is about as real as the Easter bunny, and so she gets her husband into a clinic for treatment, and when he is released, Laura has to go along with the fake "Veronica," even setting the table for three instead of two. Unwilling to end her marriage because her husband his this unusual problem, Laura keeps on catering to his fantasy, hoping he will come out of it. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Jean-Luc Bideau, (more)
- 1964
The Flying Saucer is an irreverent satire of the worldwide fascination in space travel in the early 1960s. Alberto Sordi plays four roles in this slight tale of an invasion from Mars. The Martians decide to kidnap several "typical" Earthlings to help them understand our curious planet. The subjects are maddening enough to send the Martians hurtling off the planet as fast as their fat little pods will carry them. Flying Saucer gets off to a good start with a phony newsreel, wherein several interviewees offer the most fatuous opinions ever put on film; the rest of the film isn't able to match this opening, but there are isolated belly laughs along the way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Monica Vitti, (more)
- 1980
One of director Michelangelo Antonioni's more obscure works from the 1980s, this psychological period piece reunites the filmmaker with one of his favorite performers, Monica Vitti. Shot on video and based upon the play The Eagle Has Two Heads (Jean Cocteau made his own film version of the work in 1947), the film casts Vitti as a queen who squares off against an anarchist poet who has come to her castle to kill her. Due to his remarkable resemblance to the long-dead king of the land, the queen falls in love with the dissident. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Franco Branciaroli, (more)
- 1981
In this light comedy based on a play by Aldo de Benedetti from the 1950s, Princess Lucia (Monica Vitti) is miffed that her husband, Prince Giulio (Philippe Leroy is single-mindedly focused on his race horses to the point that he is ignoring her. She decides to find out if he really does love her by convincing her bodyguard to pose as her lover - if her husband gets jealous, then he must care a little anyway. This seems like a fine plan until her bodyguard's girlfriend shows up unexpectedly, creating a few tight situations. Prince Giulio finally sees green through his equine-induced haze, and now all the Princess has to do is straighten out any misunderstandings. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Diego Abatantuono, (more)
- 1982
Fabio Bonetti (Alberto Sordi) is a normal bank employee, enjoying the security of a peaceful home with a loving wife and pretty teenage daughter -- until he comes across some film surreptitiously taken by a private investigator that reveals his wife Flavia (Monica Vitti) in a whole new light. The Super-8 clips were taken by mistake -- the private eye thought he was filming the society woman who lives above the Bonetti family -- but they change Fabio completely. Each day he learns a little more -- first, he sees that his wife drinks when no one is around, secondly, he discovers that his daughter sometimes gets high on heroin, and that Flavia was able to save her from a descent into prostitution. Next, he learns that his doctor had (mistakenly, it turns out) told Flavia that Fabio only had a few months to live, and as a final blow, he sees that his wife strayed from her years of fidelity once -- and only once -- and that brings him to the brink of suicide. As time goes by, Fabio not only comes to care for his wife more deeply, he has to consider how he should bridge the gap that has grown between them -- and whether or not he should confront her with the truth. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Alberto Sordi, Monica Vitti, (more)
- 1975
The English-language title for the Italian L'Anatra All'arancia was Duck in Orange Sauce. Though Ugo (Ugo Tognazzi) is comfortably married to Lisa (Monica Vitti), he nonetheless takes up with pretty (and fetchingly underdressed) American Patty (Barbara Bouchet). In retalitaiton, Lisa begins an affair with French count Jean Claude (John Richardson), arousing Ugo's jealousy. At his request, the four members of this romantic quadrangle repair to a summer house to come to a "civilized understanding"--which erupts into something out of the Keystone Kops. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Ugo Tognazzi, (more)
This ground-breaking film won a Special Jury Prize at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and established its director, Michelangelo Antonioni, as a major international talent. The plot concerns a yachting trip by a small group of jaded socialites, including Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), an aging architect who sold out for easy money long ago, his mistress Anna (Lea Massari), and her friend Claudia (Monica Vitti), who doesn't fit in with the wealthy jet-setters' dissolute ethics. When Anna disappears during a tour of a volcanic island, Claudia initially blames Sandro's emotionally barren behavior toward her. As they search the island, however, Claudia and Sandro grow closer and -- when it is apparent that Anna is gone forever -- become lovers. Unfortunately, Sandro cannot find anything decent inside himself and betrays Claudia with a local prostitute. Caught in the act, Sandro has a heartrending breakdown on a desolate beach, but Claudia silently forgives him. L'avventura caught many audiences who were expecting a mystery by surprise; as in La notte (1961), The Eclipse (1962), and Red Desert (1964), Antonioni is interested less in developing a logical story than in exploring states of feeling and breakdowns in human connection. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Gabriele Ferzetti, Monica Vitti, (more)
In this challenging drama by Michelangelo Antonioni, his characteristic long, significant periods of silence punctuate the message that people just cannot seem to communicate with each other. Capping off Antonioni's previous two films (L'avventura and La Notte) in much the same style, this tale involves a woman, Vittoria (Monica Vitti), who has just suffered the break-up of an imperfect relationship with a staunch intellectual (Francisco Rabal). Piero (Alain Delon), a stockbroker, casts his romantic gaze in Vittoria's direction and the woman gradually relents and they begin a tentative affair. There is much to appreciate in this man who is not overly intellectual and is blessedly free of complications, and the same can be said of Vittoria. Yet their innermost fears play upon both of them in ways that go against an honest expression of their love -- and against a lasting relationship. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Alain Delon, (more)
- 1968
This romantic and sometimes ribald historical farce finds nobleman Guerrando (Tony Curtis) knighted in the days before the Crusades. He inherits a castle, tax-collecting rights, first choice of all the fair young maidens of the region, and a draft notice from the King. Boccadoro (Monica Vitti) is the liberal-minded forest woman who catches the eye of the young nobleman. Courtship, love and marriage follows, but the wedding night is interrupted by a call to arms. Guerrando and Boccadoro are unable to consummate the marriage, and a chastity belt is used to insure her virginal status. The young bride follows her husband's troop at a distance hoping to get her hand on the coveted key to the lock. Comedy ensues as the key changes hands several times before Guerrando ultimately regains possession and is able to unlock the passions of his love-starved wife. This overlong film can best described as a punchline in search of a joke. One gets the feeling that the producers had wanted to title the film A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Crusades. As it stood, On My Way to the Crusades, I Met a Girl Who... was too unwieldy for most theater marquees, necessitating the film's title-change to The Chastity Belt. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Curtis, Monica Vitti, (more)
La Notte is another of Michelangelo Antonioni's cinematic interrupted journeys. Just as no one solved the central mystery in Antonioni's L'Avventura, neither does anyone truly enjoy the literary party that is La Notte's centerpiece. The party is being thrown to celebrate the publication of author Marcello Mastrioanni's new novel. But before he even reaches the door of the house, Mastrioanni's evening is ruined when his wife Jeanne Moreau announces suddenly she is disgusted with him--this reaction evidently triggered by an earlier visit to a dying friend. Moreau skips out on the party to wander the streets, searching for...for what? Meanwhile, Mastrioanni tries to inaugurate an empty affair with Monica Vitti, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. The very elements that drive Mastrioanni and Moreau apart at the beginning of the film reunite them at the end. Maybe. L'Avventura and La Notte were the first two chapters in Antonioni's "barreness and alienation" trilogy; the third, L'Eclisse, was released two years later. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, (more)
- 1971
This highly symbolic and enigmatic political drama by Hungarian director Miklos Jancso was produced by a consortium from Italy, France and West Germany. This film is considered to be an homage to Antonioni as it uses his favorite leading actress (Monica Vitti) and his cameraman Carlo di Palma. This film was made during a time when Jancso was not allowed to make films in his native Hungary. In the middle of the crowd, while covering an Italian political protest by leftists, The Journalist (Monica Vitti), a pacifist, finds herself surrounded by a quite different group of people who jostle her, remove her recording equipment from her and set her car on fire. She complains to the police about this. However, when the police bring one of the young men before her for her to identify him, she says he is not one of her attackers. This leads to her having a romantic relationship with the young man. The group, and the young man, are young Italian neo-fascists, and the young man has been given the job of assassinating a leftist. He is too gentle to do this, and his group kills him right before The Journalist's eyes. She goes to the police again, but they begin to believe that she is insane, even when she is forced to kill her boyfriend's assailants right there in the police station. She is formally declared mad, and is taken off. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1968
This wry comedy finds the beautiful Assunta (Monica Vitti) being kidnapped by Vincento (Carlo Giuffre) and taken to his remote home in the country. He plans to "dishonor her" and by doing so, win her hand in marriage. In a hilarious turn of events, Assunta willingly gives in to the amorous advances of Vincento. Finding him to her liking, the innocent girl suddenly turns into an insatiable sex fiend who causes the exhausted abductor to flee for his life. Assunta escapes, but the taunting of the local villagers causes her to leave and pursue the fleeing Vincento. She tracks him down to Britain and sheds her country-girl image for a mod makeover in order to fit into the blue-blooded London society. She plans to murder Vincento until she meets a divorced physician. She and Dr. Osborne (Stanley Baker) fall for each other, and the jilted Assunta is content to slap Vincento rather than shoot him to death. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Monica Vitti, Stanley Baker, (more)
- 1978
In this political drama, the dirty undercover machinations behind the international arms trade are exposed when Angela (Monica Vitti) unsuspectingly accepts some documents from a friend. She becomes the object of a hunt by French government forces, headed by Leroi (Jean Yanne).The government feels that it is vitally necessary that the public not get wind of the truly distasteful aspects of this large international industry. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Yanne, Monica Vitti, (more)
