by Marilyn Ferdinand
In the 1960s, the flower of Italian cinema finally came into full bloom on the international scene. Of course, Italian movie makers had been producing stellar work since at least the 1940s. But it was in 1960 that Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita created a worldwide sensation. Suddenly, Italian cinema was all the rage, with Fellini leading the charge and Marcello Mastrioanni, the star of La Dolce Vita, the very symbol of disaffection that would come to characterize that tumultuous decade.
There were fainter lights in the Italian sky whose work also received recognition at the time but who have faded with the years. One of them was Pietro Germi. A skilled screenwriter and veteran director, Germi originally conceived of Divorce, Italian Style (1961) as a tragedy, but the story’s possibilities pushed him and screenwriter Ennio De Concini to the extreme edges of comedy. So admired was the screenplay when it made the rounds that Mastrioanni, then a big star, agreed to do a screen test to win the part of murder-minded Baron Ferdinando “Fefe” Cefalú from Germi’s original choice, Anthony Quinn. The film that resulted is one of the funniest and biting I have ever seen, with a visual humor Billy Wilder would have envied.
Agrigento, Sicily is the setting for this burlesque—an important point because divorce was illegal there at this time. Fefe has been married for more than a decade to Rosalia (Daniela Rocco), a foolish middlebrow who has gotten on his very last nerve. Fefe and Rosalia live with Fefe’s parents in a wing of the Cefalú manor house—all that is left of the noble family’s fortune. In the opposite wing lives Fefe’s uncle, whose lovely 16-year-old daughter Angela (Stefania Sandrelli) has captured Fefe’s heart.
At first, it’s hard to see what Fefe dislikes so much about Rosalia. She’s affectionate, often wants to make love, and seems to have a bit of an intellect, though more of the pop-psych variety. Yet, once we see her anger at Fefe, it all becomes clear. A shrieking goes off in Fefe’s head, and we are treated to his fantasies of murder. These visual flights of fancy go beyond anything that could be described, so closely woven are they with the comic rhythm of the film. But each is perfectly timed, short and sweet, and accompanied by sublime looks on Mastrioanni’s face as he imagines the deed.
One day, Fefe approaches Angela in a moonlit garden, and she admits she has nursed a passion for him, too. (No matter that they are first cousins; this is the nobility!) From that moment on, he is determined to kill his wife. But he must find a way to do it that will ensure he won’t spend the rest of his life in prison. Recently, a woman received 7 years for murdering her husband, whom she had caught in the arms of another woman. Fefe reasons that if he can maneuver his wife into having an affair and degrade his honor sufficiently to require an honor killing to restore the family name, he could get a light sentence.
Fefe’s search for a suitable paramour for his wife is hilarious. He buys Rosalia a new dress and parades her through town during the customary evening strolls once popular in Italy. He hopes the usual tableau of searching male eyes will find her irresistible, as he did when he was young and foolish. While many admire her form, this is not a very efficient way to find her a lover. He thinks an artist would entice her, and singles out a singer in the church choir. During church, he remarks helpfully to Rosalia that the man has quite a lovely voice. She agrees with a giggle and then says, “Poor man.” She whispers into his ear, and the camera pans up to the man singing in the choir box. After church, a voiceover by Fefe confirms that this man was obviously not a suitable choice. This is the deadpan way we learn of the man’s “infirmity” as a castrato.
One day, a painter comes to town to do some work in the church. It turns out that he and Rosalia were lovers before the war. Fefe instantly commissions him to restore some frescoes in the Cefalú home, monitoring the two former lovers with a tape recorder to see how their renewed romance may be progressing. Eventually, Rosalia does run off with her lover, and the town watches as Fefe becomes more and more degraded. When he takes his evening stroll now, he is subjected to catcalls and urgings to avenge his honor and that of his family. His sister’s long-time fiance, who, in a running joke, Fefe constantly catches in compromising situations with his sister, breaks the engagement because of Fefe’s humiliation. Finally, mafia Don Calogero (Ugo Torrente) agrees to help find out where Rosalia is hiding so that Fefe can do the “right” thing—just what Fefe had been waiting for.
This film is a visual feast in which the actors inhabit their caricatures with relish. For example, Sandrelli knows exactly the type of vixen called for, and she puts on the best madonna/whore I’ve seen in quite a while. When Fefe’s lust is still in its undeclared state, he peers through a high window in the bathroom to watch Angela lounge on her bed across the courtyard, shutters thrown open and cover off in all her calculated innocence.
Rocco has the wide face and too wide smile of the stereotypical shallow wife. Everything about her is both fetching and grating. She plays Rosalia as a woman who is unaware of anything but her own narrow concerns. When she runs off with her lover, she doesn’t even have the sense to worry about their safety. She is the perfect buffoon.
Of course, the ultimate buffoon is Fefe himself. Mastrioanni plays him as a degenerated aristocrat, with shellacked hair, a foppish cigarette holder, and a peculiar mouth tic that eventually becomes very grating. He’s certainly ingenious about how to get what he wants, but he is as unreflexive and doltish as any of the other characters.
The rules of Sicilian life are very rigid, leaving little space for individuality. Germi capitalized on this rigidity to lampoon both the code of honor and the roles into which bourgeois Italians eagerly throw themselves. Germi references Mastrioanni’s triumph in La Dolce Vita by showing the fictional opening of the Fellini film in Agrigento. With its expert direction, dead-on casting, and inventive cinematography Divorce, Italian Style stands alongside this Fellini milestone as one of the gems of Italian cinema.
How Divorce, Italian Style made the Top 100:
Tony d’Ambra No. 9
Marilyn Ferdinand No. 14
John Greco No. 24
Frank Aida No. 53
Bill Riley No. 60
Marilyn, a very funny film that establishes a broad, farcical tone right off and maintains it for the rest of the movie, something that strikes me as very hard to do successfully. I especially liked your comment about the “dead-on casting.” That’s certainly one of the things that makes this film so enjoyable. All three principals are marvelous in their roles. Mastroianni being so familiar and playing so against his image and looking so different from the way he normally did is unforgettable–the oiled hair, heavy lidded expressions, and shabby aristocratic accessories. The film has a unique atmosphere that is a result not only of the cultural mores it explores and satirizes, but also of the look of the settings–the buildings and landscapes where it takes place.
This looks like a terrific film! Thanks for recommending.
Hey Marilyn. Nice exposition.
As my vote indicates Divorce Italian Style is one of my favorite comedie all’italiana, though I did rank Germi’s later Seduced and Abandoned higher.
My late father was Sicilian – he was born on the Isle of Lipari off Messina. He would have considered Divorce Italian Style a buffonata – buffoonery if you will, but it loses a lot in the translation – and this would not have been really complimentary. Sicilians are a proud people and with cause, with their land’s connection with Ancient Greece, and as the birth-place of the Robin-Hood-like Turi Guliani, General Garibaldi, and the playwright Pirandello, so they don’t really take kindly to caricature. The Northern Italian contempt for Southern Italians is behind these caricatures, and we must take these farcical pasticci with a grain of salt.
This said Sicilian machismo is fair game as is the often hypocritical concern with honore, and Germi and Mastroianni do it in flamboyant style.
I particularly like the cheekiness of the final scene on the yacht where the avenged cuckold has achieved his ambitions with a bikini babe as his wife, and is totally oblivious to the already emerging certainty of the adage of once a cuckold always a cuckold as the nubile young hussy plays footsie with one of the crew. The subtlety of this scene that shows and doesn’t tell is a brilliant counterpoint to the “burlesque” that has gone before. Wertmuller would a decade later take the hypocrisy of honore to an even more explicit and uproarious level in The Seduction of Mimi.
I would take issue only with the view that the strictures of honore stifle the individuality of Sicilians. All is below the surface like the sulfurous lava flows under Mt Etna which do burst out often and spectacularly. Like the title of another Wertmuller film, Tutto a posto e niente in ordine, everything in its place, but total chaos.
Tony, I really enjoyed reading your comment, and your fascinating remembrances of your Sicilian father, and the land’s connection to ancient Greece. I have long known through history that northern Italians have looked down their noses at the south. I would like to watch Wertmuller’s The Seduction of Mimi.
The baroque composer Scarlatti was a “famous” Sicilian.
Great addition here Frank with Scarlatti! I’ll add the beloved bell canto opera composer Vincenzo Bellini (Norma, I Puritani, La Sonnambula) and CINEMA PARADISO director Giuseppe Tornatore to the Sicilian Hall of Fame.
Agreed Peter on the breath of Tony’s contribution to the DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE literature!
Thanks guys and to Samuel below. The names of Sicilian notables were those that came to mind at the time of writing, but my curiosity piqued I found these two interesting Wikipedia lists – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sicilians and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sicilian_American – mobsters not included. I don’t deny the dark side.
A couple of ironic anecdotes.
Mafiosi even in my Dad’s time as befits their station were natty dressers. When complimenting my brother and I when we were suited up he would say sei mafioso, “a real mafioso”. My father migrated to Australia in 1938 as there were zero prospects in the South. My mother once related a story his elder sister had told her. In his early 20s his father bought him a new suit, but he was not happy. When queried he complained what is the good of a new suit with no money in the pockets…
Back in the 80s I worked in an investment bank in Sydney, a subsidiary of CIBC. I was the only “Italian” in corporate banking, and one day I was invited to a board lunch for the CEO of Olivetti Australia. Good PR or so they thought. Anyway, I was introduced to the guy, who was a stuck-up Northerner. (Oilvetti had its origins in Turin.) His first question was from which part of Italy my father was from. As soon as he heard it was Sicily, the cornuto gave me the cold shoulder…
Enjoyed your stories, Tony. It’s like the same in the US when northerners visited southern locations, or it WAS like that years ago. I’m Italian on my mother’s side, so in the day my name covered things up. Half Jewish, half Italian, a real nice mix.
I’d say that’s a divine mix David! The only problem is that you have starch-heavy diets on both sides! Ha
Thanks David. My mother was Greek, which made for a volatile mix :)
The rules of Sicilian life are very rigid, leaving little space for individuality. Germi capitalized on this rigidity to lampoon both the code of honor and the roles into which bourgeois Italians eagerly throw themselves.
Indeed Marilyn. And this lies at the center of the film’s acute point of view. Leonida Barboni’s vividly toned cinematography and rich contrasts provide a sometimes arresting and provocative look, that normally wouldn’t be the stylistic choices for a lighter satire. But as you note an entire culture in under siege here, not an individual or group of people. It’s as edgy a satire as any crafted, and it’s arguable Germi’s finest film. Not at all surprisingly it’s a personal favorite of Martin Scorsese, who is Sicilian on both sides. Your penetrating, breezy style has created a review that is perfectly attuned to the subject it considers. Fantastic work.
Another film that I am chagrined to admint I have not experienced. As always, Marilyn, your zfine writing encourages me to expand my viewing experience – I have no doubt that I will thoroughly enjoy this when I see it.
Hi, all. This is a review I wrote a long time ago. I would have did less of a plot summary today and tried to highlight the comedic elements more, but I’m glad you are all getting something out of it. I saw Seduced and Abandoned as well, but found it more depressing than comic – a very, very black comedy for me, whereas this is deliberate caricature. I have no doubt that much simmers under the surface of Sicilian society – as a fan of novelist Leonardo Sciascia and his exposure of the fractures in Sicilian culture, I have had exposure to its complexities. This film barely scratches the surface, but what pleasurable scratches.
Mastroianni’s performance sits with his iconic portrayals for Fellini.
This just missed my cut and that mainly because I’ve only seen it once, yet that was enough to impress me greatly. Mastroianni was really one of the greatest of all sound-era comic actors and with his facial expressions he probably could have gotten by in silents, too. The Sicilian thing in Italian cinema seems analogous to “Southern” tropes in American movies, so I imagine there was some debate over whether either country’s “South” was exceptional or quintessential, given that Germi’s film isn’t called “Divorce Sicilian Style.” For that reason I appreciate Tony’s comment as much as Marilyn’s review.
I enjoyed very much your presentation, Marilyn.
Although, as you well establish, this is a specifically Southern Italian crisis that banks on ludicrous codes to emit an uproarious comedy, I’ve always especially enjoyed it for Mastrioanni’s portrayal of a more universal longing for grand sensual moments he can crave for but can’t begin to bring off.
Terrific satire Marilyn and one of my favorites! Mastrioanni was such a great actor!
Saw this one recently on a Criterion DVD that Schmulee lent to me and loved it completely. The anarchic behavior, sharp dialogue and, of course, Masrioanni (who is one of the most under-rated comic performers of all time) really sold this to me. There’s something, call it off-the-wall if you will, hidden within the smoldering sensuality of this film (much as it was in Fellini”s LA DOLCE VITA) that draws you in for one thing and has you walking from the theatre after its over feeling you took something completely different from it. I expected this film to be kind of a “high-brow” comedy (laughs, but dangerously low-key laughs) and what I took from it was blazingly, riotously funny. Is it any wonder that Woody Allen chose to spoof this, and La Dolce Vita, in the “Italian” vinette of his EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX????
As for the essay, Marilyn has done her usual, stellar job and pin-points everything about the film that I found so wonderful and wonderfully surprising about it. She and I seem to be on the same wave-length alot of the time.
Nice job Marilyn. I enjoyed reading your essay of a film I actually have never seen. I wanted to see it before submitting my ballot but couldn’t quite get around to it. I do like Mastrioanni though and I think I would like this one. Wish I could comment more but will have to wait until I see it.
Two words and I’m off to track down ‘Divorce, Italian Style’ — Stefania Sandrelli.