ADUA E LE COMPAGNE (Italy, 1960, 106′)

Friday, October 4, 2:30 pm, Cinema Massimo, Screen 3

Class with Giulia Francesca Muggeo (University of Turin, the Department of Humanities – DAMS) aimed at DAMS students and open to the public

New to the Job Film Days program is an open lecture by Giulia Francesca Muggeo, professor of Cinema, Photography, Radio, Television and Digital Media at the Department of Humanities-DAMS, University of Turin. It is aimed at DAMS students, but open to the public. The focus of the lecture will be the film Adua e le compagne, Antonio Pietrangeli‘s masterpiece presented at the 1960 Venice Film Festival, which tells the story of the resourcefulness of four women who try to engage in an honest profession after the closure of the dating house in which they worked.

Method of access: free admission

Director: Antonio Pietrangeli
Script: Ruggero Maccari, Antonio Pietrangeli, Ettore Scola
Screenplay: Tullio Pinelli, Ettore Scola, Antonio Pietrangeli, Ruggero Maccari
Photography: Armando Nannuzzi
Editing: Eraldo Da Roma
Music: Piero Piccioni
Cast: Simone Signoret, Sandra Milo, Emmanuelle Riva, Gina Rovere, Claudio Gora, Ivo Garrani, Gianrico Tedeschi, Valeria Fabrizi, Domenico Modugno, Marcello Mastroianni
Production: Moris Ergas per Zebra Film

After the closure of a house designated for prostitution, Adua, Milly, Lolita and Marilina decide to open a typical Italian trattoria outside the city. They will thus create an honest job for themselves, which will disguise the shady business they are used to. In their new venture they find the non-disinterested help of a man, Ercoli, who facilitates the paperwork for the business licence, but imposes his own conditions. In the first few months, the women will have to have an irreproachable demeanour so as not to arouse suspicion; then they will resume business as usual and share the proceeds with their pimp. A new life begins for Adua and her companions: they learn about the work and gain an unknown peace of mind from it. The inn thrives and the prospect of possible reintegration into society opens up for the women. Faced with Ercoli, the four friends refuse to honour their bargain and expel him. But the exploiter takes revenge and succeeds in closing the inn. The women look for someone to help them, but everyone retreats and abandons them to their fate. In a fit of rage and despair they destroy the inn and return to their sad life. Adua e le compagne was presented at the 1960 Venice Film Festival and is one of the many masterpieces by Antonio Pietrangeli, one of the greatest Italian filmmakers of the 1950s and 1960s.

Antonio Pietrangeli (Rome, Italy, 1919 – Gaeta, Italy, 1968) was a director, screenwriter and film critic. He began his career writing for the magazines ‘Bianco e Nero’ and ‘Cinema’. Professor at the Centro sperimentale di cinematografia (Experimental Cinematography Centre), between 1941 and 1942 he was assistant director when Luigi Chiarini’s Via delle Cinque Lune (Street of the Five Moons) was made in the Centre’s studios. In 1942 he was among the scriptwriters for Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione . After the war he participated in the drafting of several screenplays including: La terra trema by Visconti, Fabiola by Alessandro Blasetti, Europa ’51 by Roberto Rossellini, La lupa by Alberto Lattuada. He was the first national president of the Italian Federation of Film Clubs set up in 1947. In 1953, he made his directorial debut with Il sole negli occhi (The Sun in the Eyes), which stands out for its acute analysis of a woman’s psychology, followed by an episode of the collective film Amori di mezzo secolo (Loves of Half a Century). He chose the path of Italian comedy with Lo scapolo starring Alberto Sordi and Nino Manfredi, then focused on female-themed subjects with the following Souvenir d’Italie , Nata di marzo , starring Jacqueline Sassard and Gabriele Ferzetti, and Adua e le compagne , the story of a group of ex-prostitutes following the approval of the Merlin law. Fantasmi a Roma represents Pietrangeli’s foray into satirical and fantastic cinema, starring Marcello Mastroianni, Eduardo De Filippo, Tino Buazzelli, Vittorio Gassman and Sandra Milo (already in Adua e le compagne ). Pietrangeli continued his chiaroscuro portraits of women in La parmigiana , with Catherine Spaak, La visita , again with Milo, Io la conoscevo bene , with Stefania Sandrelli together with an ensemble cast in which Enrico Maria Salerno, Nino Manfredi and Ugo Tognazzi stood out. The latter had also starred in Pietrangeli’s previous film, Il magnifico cornuto , with Claudia Cardinale. Pietrangeli’s filmography came to a tragic end in 1968 at the age of 49 when he was on the set of Come, quando, perché . Pietrangeli accidentally died of drowning during the filming in Gaeta. The film, to be released in 1969, was completed by Valerio Zurlini.

Filmography: Il sole negli occhi (1953), Amori di mezzo secolo (1954, episodio Girandola 1910), Lo scapolo (1955), Souvenir d’Italie (1957), Nata di marzo (1958), Adua e le compagne (1960), Fantasmi a Roma (1961), La parmigiana (1963), La visita (1963), Il magnifico cornuto (1964), Io la conoscevo bene (1965), Le fate (1966, episodio Fata Marta), Come, quando, perché (1969).