Gomorrahis brutal. That much goes without saying, given the genre. But unlike the more glamorous American gangster movies, which tend to elevate their anti-heroes to aspirational role models, Gomorrah turns that brutality against its subject — the widespread operations of Italy’s Camorrah clan. Like the bestselling exposé that inspired it, Gomorrahis more outraged than impressed by the corrupt world it reveals. To that end, director Matteo Garrone cast coarse, physically revolting adults and shot the film in an almost nauseating handheld style, fleshing out the authentic hell-on-earth locations with the sound of screams and harsh urban noise.
These are not characters or situations anyone would want to emulate, which was important to the director and his team. “Here in the south of Italy, we are living so close to this problem that we have to consider what kind of example a movie can have, especially on young people,” says Maurizio Braucci, who collaborated with Garrone, Roberto Saviano (author of the nonfiction bestseller on which Gomorrah is based) and three other writers. In his book, Saviano is openly critical of Hollywood’s impact on these criminals. He describes one boss who ordered a villa custom-built to the specifications of Tony Montana’s mansion in Scarface, then goes on to explain how The Godfather dictated their fashion sense (pinstriped suits and dark glasses) and Pulp Fiction made them sloppy (by holding their guns sideways, young killers sacrificed aim for style, making executions needlessly bloody and painful).
“I think the problem is that audiences are generally attracted by stories about the obscure part of life,” says Braucci (the English speaker of the bunch). “Gomorrahtries to give a different representation of this world, including such a terrible representation of the criminals – their bodies, the way they walk, the way they talk — that they seem almost like monsters.” Like Saviano (who had to go under police protection a couple weeks into the screenwriting process), Braucci hails from the Camorrah-controlled Naples area, bringing his own research and experience to the adaptation.
Matteo Garrone’s Italian mob film Gomorrah found the highest per-theatre-average debut of 2009 this President’s Day weekend, according to four-day estimates provided this afternoon by Rentrak. On 5 screens, the IFC release grossed $102,702 for a $20,540 average. That even topped overall box office leader Friday The 13th’s $14,56- PTA. It also set a record for the biggest opening weekend ever at the IFC Center in New York City, grossing an estimated $32,000. Gomorrah played to sold-out houses all weekend-long, with hundreds of would-be movie patrons turned away. The strong numbers for Gomorrah helped lead the IFC Center complex to its highest grossing weekend of all-time with an estimated take of $53,870, beating the previous record weekend by nearly $10,000. The previous highest grossing weekend for the IFC Center was $43,337 from January 25-27, 2008 in conjunction with the opening of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” On Sunday, February 15th, the IFC Center broke the record for its biggest one-day gross, taking in more than $20,167 in a single day.
The indie box office boom in the face of otherwise total economi despair continues.. Via indieWIRE.
Wow––this is amazing. Enrico Enrica Fico, the widow of Michelangelo Antonioni, told Italy’s La Stampa that her husband essentially committed long, slow suicide by refusing to eat. The article is in Italian and I’m sure the Google translation is imperfect, but it’s good enough to get the gist.
The filmmaker went nearly completely blind after suffering a stroke and, according to his widow, “not to see for him had become absolutely unacceptable.” Fico says Antonioni actually asked her to shoot or poison him, but she refused, and instead allowed him to starve himself by subsisting on “only a few teaspoons” of food each day from September 2006 until his death the following summer.
Incredibly, Antonioni’s widow compares his chosen manner of death to his filmmaking style. The translation is mangled but the sentiment seems clear: “Like his films, even his death was a masterpiece.It went quiet in absolute and embracing the absolute, as if it were a mystic.”
Above: the end of Il Grido, in which the protagonist falls (accidentally) to his death at the feet of his horrified former mistress.
Though they’ve been carefully tasteful about the use of grotesque images of Heath Ledger in the marketing of The Dark Knight domestically, Warner Brothers execs say the actor’s death “had not altered the marketing of the pic internationally.” The film had an Imax premiere at CinemaExpo this week.
When Dreamworks inevitably splits from Paramount later this year, there’s a possibility that they’ll exist as a stand-alone inde...bankrolled on a billion dollars (yes! Literally!)
Silvio Berlusconi is taking away government-sponsored subsidies for Italian filmmakers. In response, Italian filmmakers are threatening to take their films away from the Venice, Turin and Rome Film Festivals.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
filmcouch-114
Matteo Garrone’s Italian mob film Gomorrah found the highest per-theatre-average debut of 2009 this President’s Day weekend, according to four-day estimates provided this afternoon by Rentrak. On 5 screens, the IFC release grossed $102,702 for a $20,540 average. That even topped overall box office leader Friday The 13th’s $14,56- PTA. It also set a record for the biggest opening weekend ever at the IFC Center in New York City, grossing an estimated $32,000. Gomorrah played to sold-out houses all weekend-long, with hundreds of would-be movie patrons turned away. The strong numbers for Gomorrah helped lead the IFC Center complex to its highest grossing weekend of all-time with an estimated take of $53,870, beating the previous record weekend by nearly $10,000. The previous highest grossing weekend for the IFC Center was $43,337 from January 25-27, 2008 in conjunction with the opening of “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.” On Sunday, February 15th, the IFC Center broke the record for its biggest one-day gross, taking in more than $20,167 in a single day.
Though they’ve been carefully tasteful about the use of grotesque images of Heath Ledger in the marketing of 
