{"id":3671,"date":"2015-08-20T21:03:44","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T21:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2015-08-05T21:03:58","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T21:03:58","slug":"elio-petri-the-teacher-of-vigevano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/elio-petri-the-teacher-of-vigevano\/","title":{"rendered":"Elio Petri: The Teacher of Vigevano"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"I<\/a>
I maestro di Vigevano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aka Il maestro di Vigevano
\nItaly
\n1963
\nA Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica production
\nDirector: Elio Petri
\nStory: Based on the novel \u2018Il maestro di Vigevano\u2019 by Lucio Mastronardi
\nScreenplay: Age [Agenore Incrocci] & [Furio] Scarpelli, Elio Petri
\nCinematography: Otello Martelli
\nMusic: Nino Rota, conducted by Franco Ferrara
\nEditor: Ruggero Mastroianni
\nArt director: Gastone Carsetti
\nCameraman: Arturo Zavattini
\nRelease dates & running times: Italy (24\/12\/63)
\nFilmed: Exteriors shot in Vigevano
\nItalian takings: 566.000.000 lire
\nCast: Alberto Sordi (Antonio Mombelli, a schoolteacher<\/i>), Claire Bloom (Ada, his wife<\/i>), Vito De Taranto (Pereghi, the headmaster<\/i>), Ya Doucheskaya (Eva<\/i>), Guido Spadea (Nannini<\/i>), Eva Magni (Nannini\u2019s wife<\/i>), Piero Mazzarella (Bugatti<\/i>), Lilla Ferrante (Cuore, Mombelli\u2019s sister<\/i>), Ezio Sancrotti (Carlo, Eva\u2019s brother<\/i>), Anna Carena (Drivandi, a schoolmaster<\/i>), Gustavo D\u2019Arpe (Amiconi, a schoolmaster<\/i>), Ignazio Gibilisco (Maraldi, a schoolmaster<\/i>), Bruno De Cerce (Cipollone, a schoolmaster<\/i>), Adriano Tocchio (Racalmuto, a lawyer<\/i>), Tullio Scavazzi (Rino Mombelli<\/i>), Egidio Casolari (Filippi, a schoolmaster<\/i>), Aniello Coastabile (Zarzalli, a schoolmaster<\/i>), Lorenzo Logli (shoe wholeseller<\/i>), Enzo Savone (Bugatti\u2019s son<\/i>), Olivo Mondin (the janitor<\/i>), Gaetano Fusari (the doctor<\/i>), Joris Muzio, Franco Moraldi, Umberto Rocco, Nando Angelini, Carlo Montini, Franco Tuminelli<\/p>\n

Petri\u2019s next film was The <\/b>Teacher of Vigevano<\/b> (Il maestro di Vigevano,63<\/i>), another intimate, black and white chamber-piece, which plays rather like a retread \u2013 albeit an even more pessimistic retread \u2013 of I giorni contato<\/b>.\u00a0 The everyman protagonist in this case is Antonio Mombelli (Alberto Sordi), a dedicated teacher at an elementary school in the small town of Vigevano.\u00a0 Despite loving his job, he finds it hard to cope with the pitiful pay, a state which is exacerbated by the continual complaints of his aspirational wife, Ada (Claire Bloom).<\/p>\n

His unhappiness increases after discovering that Ada has secretly taken a job at a factory and more especially when his fellow teacher and best friend, Nannini (Guido Spadea), commits suicide.\u00a0 As a result of all this, the quality of his work begins to suffer and he is subject to several reprimands from the headmaster. He decides to resign and set up his own business making and selling shoes (Vigevano is known for its shoe manufacturing industry), thereby living \u2018the Italian miracle\u2019.<\/p>\n

Despite a few mishaps (mainly due to Mombelli\u2019s lack of artisan skills), things seem to start off well.\u00a0 They soon have customers, wealthy friends and \u2013 more than anything else \u2013 no further need to fawn to their perceived betters.\u00a0 Inevitably, however, it doesn\u2019t last: a simple accounting mistake leads to disaster, and Mombelli\u2019s life takes an increasingly downhill path.<\/p>\n

Based on a novel by Lucio Mastronardi and scripted by the talented Age & Scarpelli [aka Agenore Incrocci and Furio Scarpelli] (along with Petri), this is another rather gloomy affair that seems to relish heaping misery upon its likeable central character.\u00a0 As with The Assassin<\/b> and I giorno contato<\/b>, it is immaculately made in a predominantly realist (or neo-realist) style.\u00a0 For the first time, however, Petri\u2019s more experimental sensibilities were starting to become visible.\u00a0 This is evident both in the architecture, which contrasts the downtown apartments of the poor with the exclusive, modernist houses of the rich, and also in a lengthy dream sequence that uses speeded up film-stock and imagery appropriated from the biblical \u2018Garden of Eden\u2019.\u00a0 As well as being an entertaining sequence in its own right, this marked a first use of the surrealist imagery that was to become increasingly profuse as his work progressed.<\/p>\n

\"Salvo<\/a>
Salvo Randone in Elio Petri’s I maestro di Vigevano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In some ways, The <\/b>Teacher of Vigevano<\/b> can be seen as a forerunner to Petri\u2019s later, better known The <\/b>Working Class Goes to Heaven<\/b>.\u00a0 As well as centering upon a bickering couple, this has a similar attitude towards work and workers.\u00a0 Although the teachers here are from the middle class, they\u2019re almost identical to the assembly-line employees of that film; they do their job \u2013 and do it well \u2013 but beyond their pay they also derive a sense of community from their profession.\u00a0 When this is cut off, they\u2019re left with nothing.<\/p>\n

Another central theme is the impossibility of balancing one\u2019s ideals and social standing.\u00a0 Mombelli\u2019s satisfaction with his job is compromised both by the headmaster\u2019s dictatorial bearing and Ada\u2019s desire to be seen as the wife of a prosperous man.\u00a0 Left to his own devices, he would be quite happy just drifting along, but the ambition of others drives him to his own inevitable misfortune.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, despite the heavy subject matter, the film is handled with a light touch that keeps it from becoming too oppressive.\u00a0 This is partly down to the performances: Alberto Sordi comes across a bit like Peter Sellers, his comic timing managing to imbue the character with a tangible sense of pathos.\u00a0 The character played by English actress Claire Bloom, who appeared in some odd films in the early sixties, is hardly likeable, but you actually begin to understand where she\u2019s coming from, which is no mean feat for such an unsympathetic role.<\/p>\n

After this trio of promising works, Petri spent a short while working on a couple of little-known items before attempting his next feature film. Nudi per vivere<\/b> was a mondo style documentary, directed \u2013 under the joint pseudonym Elio Montesti – in collaboration with Giuliano Montaldo and Giulio Questi (a seriously bizarre combination of mavericks), which featured so much racy dancing that it was actually burned by the Italian censors.\u00a0 Sadly, it remains hard to see today.\u00a0 Peccato nel pomeriggio<\/b>, again starring Claire Bloom, was an episode in the comedy anthology High Infidelity<\/b> (Alta infedelit\u00e0, 64<\/i>), which also had contributions from Luciano Salce, Mario Monicelli and Franco Rossi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Petri\u2019s next film was The Teacher of Vigevano (Il maestro di Vigevano,63), another intimate, black and white chamber-piece, which plays rather like a retread \u2013 albeit an even more pessimistic retread \u2013 of I giorni contato. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4090,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[1130,13,68,760,1131],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4092,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions\/4092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}