XX SECOLO. L’INVENZIONE PIÙ BELLA
October 24, 2022 - June 4, 2023
Rome, Cinema Quattro Fontane
The retrospective curated by Cesare Petrillo
and promoted by CSC - Cineteca Nazionale is back,
with the support of the Ministero della Cultura and in collaboration with Circuito Cinema
Media partner: MYmovies

After the first edition's success, the retrospective XX SECOLO. L’INVENZIONE PIÙ BELLA returns on October 24th in Rome (and soon in other Italian cities). The initiative is promoted by CSC - Cineteca Nazionale with the support of the Ministero della Cultura and in collaboration with Circuito Cinema. Once again, Cesare Petrillo is in charge of curating the retrospective and is widely regarded as one of the most knowledgeable experts on "Classic Hollywood cinema." Petrillo and Vieri Razzini are the founders of Teodora Film. This second journey through the history of cinema, which is expected to run until June 4, 2023, will accompany viewers as they discover (or rediscover) mythical figures and titles from the history of cinema. 200 masterpieces will finally return to the big screen, in DCP and 35mm, always in the original version with Italian subtitles. This new edition confirms the traditional programming days of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday morning at the Quattro Fontane cinema.

Says Marta Donzelli, President of the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia:  "Last year, we bet on the idea that allowing the public to discover or rediscover great films on the big screen, travelling through the history of cinema and regaining a joy that had been taken from us for far too long, was the best way to bring viewers closer to cinemas. A daily ritual for viewers of all ages, the appointment with XX SECOLO films has surpassed all expectations in terms of attendance. Therefore, we could only ask our curator, Cesare Petrillo, to continue his work and relaunch it with a second edition packed with fresh titles. This time around, there are more than 200 films available, part of a wider route that includes weekly double appointments to explore new worlds and genres. The rules of the game, however, are still the same: choose only films that, at least to us, it’s impossible not to love. Films that we'd want to see again, films that we cannot avoid recommending."

Explains Cesare Petrillo, curator of XX SECOLO. L’INVENZIONE PIÙ BELLA : "Let's try to do an encore to broaden our horizons after last season. This year, we will see less popular movies and the number of shows will go from seven to ten a week. Kubrick, Ford, and Marlene Dietrich are leading the parade of American battleships this year, and the presence of Ozu, Renoir, and our underappreciated Marco Ferreri will spark the new season with several surprises. "

The Curator of the Cineteca Nazionale, Alberto Anile, says: "The twentieth century is never over. The great cinema of the 20th century is an endless wellspring of genres and authors, which will supply fresh fuel for the second race of our journey. The most significant change from the previous edition is the widening of the horizons; the predominance of American cinema is replaced by a look as international as possible, ranging from France by Jean Renoir to Japan by Ozu Yasujiro, while continuing to keep an eye on the American lesson (his majesty John Ford, with a handful of classics among which the archetype Stagecoach) and especially on the incredibly delicious dishes prepared by European authors who were consecrated abroad: Frank Borzage, Billy Wilder, Josef von Sternberg, and once again Ernst Lubitsch. The tutelary deities in this first section, from the end of October to the middle of December, will still be two very different Europeans: our Marco Ferreri and Stanley Kubrick, an American by birth but a naturalised British citizen, who embodies the two opposite but essential qualities of elegance and anger. Between Barry Lyndon's tableaux vivant, the excesses of The Big Feast, and between the geometries of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the outrages of The Conjugal Bed, there is all the majesty and incorrectness that these troubled and falsely unconventional years would need."

Two of the greatest authors in the history of cinema will open the first part of the second edition: STANLEY KUBRICK, the brilliant director of a fistful of films (just thirteen in almost fifty years) very different in genre, tone, and subject but united by the perfection of the staging; and OZU YASUJIRO, “the most Japanese of Japanese directors”, with his apparently minimal family stories yet capable of reproducing the universality of human feelings through melancholy, lightness, and a subtle red thread of humour.

The movies by Kubrick that will be shown are: Killer's Kiss (1955), even with its limited resources and dreary b-movie plot (the encounter between a late-career boxer and a nightclub dancer),  foreshadows greatness to come; Horizons of Glory (1957), cornerstone of anti-militarist cinema set in the First World War trenches, was banned in France until 1975 with the accusation of damaging the French army's reputation; Lolita (1962), an adaptation of Nabokov's novel signed by the writer himself; Doctor Strangelove (1964), an unleashed satire of the war madness in the middle of the Cold War where Kubrick's obsession with war takes the form of a ferocious farce; 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which one year before the moon landing “invents” adult science fiction, forever changing a genre (and the imaginary); A Clockwork Orange (1971), a disturbing - and often misunderstood - reflection on violence, based on the controversial novel by Anthony Burgess; Barry Lyndon (1975), the adventures of an aristocratic social climber in an eighteenth century lit by candlelight (thanks to the special lenses of NASA used for indoor shooting); Full Metal Jacket (1987), yet another reflection on the senseless horror of war (this time the one in Vietnam); and the latest Eyes Wide Shut (1999), which draws on Schnitzler's book "Dream Story" (Traumnovelle – 1925/26) to tell the marital crisis of an upper-class New York couple with the star couple Cruise / Kidman (and perhaps on their skin).

The six Ozu's films are: Late Spring (1949), the model film of this author's entire post-war production, the moving story of a widowed professor who would like to see his daughter married, and the daughter who does not want to leave him alone; Tokyo Story (1953), probably the most famous title in his filmography. It is a bitter-tinged depiction of an elderly couple's first visit to their children, who have since married and moved to the capital city; Equinox Flower (1958), the director's first colour film is an ironic investigation into the loss of authority of the father figure; Good morning (1959), a self-remake of Ozu's previous hit, a savoury comedy about progress (and upcoming consumerism) with two terrible siblings desperate to own a television; ironic, but steeped in bittersweet, Late Autumn (1960), and finally, the last film, An Autumn Afternoon (1962), an elegy of passing time in which we can find the characters and situations typical of Ozu's cinema.

From 7 to 27 November there will be room for two other cinema giants: JOHN FORD (with the projection of The Whole Town's Talking, The Hurricane, Young Mr. Lincoln, Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, They Were Expendable, My Darling Clementine, Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Bravo, Wagon Master, The Quiet Man, The Sun Shines Bright, The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) and JEAN RENOIR (La Chienne, Swamp water, The Human Beast, The Golden Coach, The river, The Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game, The Crime of Monsieur Lange).

From November 28th to December 11th, this first tranche will end with our eyes on one of the most beloved divas in history and on the most sulphurous of Italian filmmakers: MARLENE DIETRICH (with Josef von Sternberg's Morocco and Shanghai Express, Frank Borzage's Desire, Ernest Lubitsch's Angel, George Marshall's Destry Rides Again, Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair and Witness for the Prosecution) and MARCO FERRERI (Dillinger is Dead, The Big Feast, The Wedding March, The Ape Woman, Seeking Asylum, The Little Coach,  The Story of Piera, Break Up - The man with the balloons, The Conjugal Bed and The House of Smiles).

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XX SECOLO. L’INVENZIONE PIÙ BELLA
The great cinema on the big screen 2nd edition
24 October 2022/4 June 2023

Rome, Cinema Quattro Fontane (via delle Quattro Fontane, 23)

Tickets and subscriptions

Single entrance ticket: 5 euros
10 entrance booklet: 35 euros
20 entrance booklet: 60 euros

The booklet subscription entitles you to a maximum of two admissions per screening.

For information: www.fondazionecsc.it
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