Aldo fabrizi vittorio gassman biography

1973 Italian film

La Tosca (also known as Tosca) is a 1973 Italian comedy drama film written and directed by Luigi Magni. It is loosely based on the drama with the same name by Victorien Sardou, reinterpreted in an ironic-grotesque style.

Plot

Rome, 14 June 1800. Napoleon's army threatens to conquer Italy, including the Papal States. Rome is reeking with corruption, especially among the clergy, determined to retain their privileges based on the exploitation of the poor.

The fugitive patriot Cesare Angelotti, escaped from Castel Sant'Angelo, is sheltered by painter Mario Cavaradossi. Baron Scarpia, regent of the Pontifical Police, hunts him down by luring Floria Tosca, Cavaradossi's mistress, into thinking that her lover is cheating on her. The woman, trailed by Scarpia, heads for Cavaradossi's house, hoping to catch him in the act, but finds him in Angelotti's company. Realizing she's been deceived, Tosca tries her best to save her lover, but it is too late. Scarpia reaches the house and surprises Angelotti, who commits suicide rather than being taken in.

Scarpia then arrests the painter for high treason. Lusting after Tosca, the baron blackmails her: he will have the painter freed if she yields to his sexual advances. She accepts, whereupon he makes a show of ordering his minions to have the painter shot with blanks. The letter of safe conduct written, Scarpia is then stabbed by Tosca, who then bolts off to Castel Sant'Angelo to be reunited with her lover. However, Cavaradossi is executed for real, and Tosca, in despair, throws herself off the ramparts of the castle.

Life in Rome continues seemingly unchanged, with the clergy oblivious to the new times looming, and the changes about to overtake the world.

Cast

References

ITALIAN AND CINEMA

Home | Italian and cinema

Monicelli and Scola: a changing Italy

"Monicelli and Scola: a changing Italy" is the title of Lis Film Week 2025. The films we will analyse are Mario Monicelli's La ragazza con la pistola (1968) and Ettore Scola's C'eravamo tanto amati (1974), both amusing and at the same time merciless frescoes of a mutating Italy.

The plot of C'eravamo tanto amati, a biographical tale of four friends, individual and choral at the same time, set in a Rome with a strong identity, covers a time span from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1970s; in this sense, it is as if it contained the single adventure of the protagonist of La ragazza con la pistola, a young woman, a typical girl from the backward Sicily of the time, who at the end of the 1960s leaves her homeland to pursue a very particular private revenge in a country as modern and open as the United Kingdom.

These two personal stories, so well embedded in a common history, that of our society, are told by the two famous directors with very different tools and languages. Scola's perspective is poetic and poignant, sweet and bitter, very lucid yet full of enchantment, while Monicelli's is disenchanted and cynical, sharp and sarcastic, mocking and therefore strongly ironic.

Two masters of Italian cinema, therefore, but also actors and actresses who have made the history of our cinema such as Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi, Aldo Fabrizi and many others. In particular, these two films will be an opportunity to get to know the two great leading actresses: Stefania Sandrelli and Monica Vitti, multi-award-winning artists with amazing careers.

Let's end with a question: can we consider C'eravamo tanto amati and La ragazza con la pistola two examples of Italian-style comedy? Among other considerations, we will try also to answer this question in our course - after all it was Monicelli himself who gave the definition of this

During World War II, Antonio (Nino Manfredi), Gianni (Vittorio Gassman) and Nicola (Stefania Sandrelli) are activists fighting for Italy's liberation from Nazi occupation. When the war ends and their ideals must change, the three men take different life paths. Antonio and Nicola incorporate their beliefs into adulthood, whereas Gianni takes a more affluent job as a lawyer's assistant. When the group reunites after several decades, their discourse unearths hostility and unsettling realizations.

Festivals & awards

Piazza Grande Locarno 1975