links_
news_
Rome in the movies - Eternally lively and beautiful
Jun 08, 2008
‘Rome is the city of illusions. Not by chance you have here the church, the government, the cinema. They each produce illusions.’- Gore Vidal
Arriving in Rome from the north, it is easy to see why the medium Cinema is often compared to a beautiful, powerful picture post card. It gives eye-popping perspectives on exotic locales and transports viewers to places that might otherwise remain ‘unseen’.
On a bright summery morning, when our train braked to a noiseless halt at Rome, the landscape views were quickly replaced by scores of urban scenes seen through umpteen cinematic lenses. It began even as we wheeled our Samsonite over cobble-stoned pathways to the B&B. Along the way, and in the following days, were close-up views of familiar buildings and monuments, people animatedly conversing flinging their arms this way and that, sun-tanned mini-skirted signorinas in goggles, and not forgetting the petulant little boy with fore-finger firmly in nose, being dragged by mother across the street.
Then holding the eye are other vignettes that are faithfully recreated in any number of movies: trattorias with red and white checked table linen, historic cafes with crimson velvet banquettes, the Spanish steps, the Trevi fountain, the Coliseum. Equally overwhelming were the wafting aromas of crispy fried vegetables in olive oil and steamy cooking and garlicky sauces from the pizzerias and sundry kitchens, and the heady scent of beautiful women as they brushed by. No, there was no getting away from it. The movies that we grew up with seemed to be unspooling in torrents at every turn in present-day Rome.
On Stazione Termini platform, ages ago, didn’t the millionaire Rock Hudson look sheepish and confused warding off a bambino thrust into his arms by a ‘misfiring synapses of a profanely rambling, babbling’ Gina Lollobrigida? Remember those passers-by tut-tut ting and making other sympathetic noises for the ‘wronged innocent young woman’ and her predicament? Robert Mulligan’s sit-com, Come September (1961) is just one of the many movies that had an unforgettable Italian connection.
Another movie, even older, that made huge impression on global audiences was Negulesco’s Three Coins in the Fountain (1954). ‘An inspirational travelogue masquerading as a romantic comedy’, the film has three moon-struck secretaries out on a Roman holiday hoping to return and get rich husbands. They fling coins into the Nicola Salvi’s Fontana di Trevi to make their dreams come true. Magically, the guys appear, and a happy conclusion ensues for all – including its moviemakers who smile all the way to the bank.
On a more dramatic note, we had an avian view of Roman streets and buildings and sunbathing beauties on rooftops as reporter Marcello Mastroianni, in a helicopter, tailed another chopper carting a Jesus statue. While St Peters, the Coliseum and other touristy sights flew underfoot, audiences held their collective gasp when a blonde sizzler in a low cut evening dress Anita Ekberg frolicked inside the Baroque style Trevi on a mid-night dip. That iconic wading scene created worldwide ripples and transported audiences on a ‘riveting ride through the riveting world of Rome’s jet set’ in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960).
Yes, there's something about the city of the Caesars that simply demands a movie. To be sure, ‘glamour, models, artists, fashion’ abound in the district that encompasses Piazza del Popolo, Trevi and Via Veneto. Starting out from Porta Pinciana, crossing the wide, square-like space named after director Fellini, and proceeding down Via Veneto, is like stepping back in time and into the symbolic footage of a great many movies.
On our visit, a surge of humanity was at Trevi tossing coins. Every inch of the place was taken. I asked a man next to me whether he had thrown a coin and made a wish. The American smiled and said, “I did. But by golly! People are still here!”
Still, on the same square of the fountain, perhaps on a less crowded day, the naive princess Audrey Hepburn on a state visit gave her attendants the slip to do the town, followed by reporter Gregory Peck. It was here in this square she had her long hair cut at a small saloon. That much-celebrated scene from William Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1954), was filmed a stone’s throw away from Trevi.
From the same vicinity, the Piazza di Spagna, the legendary Spanish Steps and the 16th century Trinita dei Monti have found their way into scores of movies. Some halfway up in the middle, a young Hepburn once sat relishing a gelato in Wyler’s movie. At the top, there are panoramic views of the city but my interests were elsewhere. My eyes swept downwards at the crowded piazza and steps below. Sure enough, an old flower-seller was there, beckoning tourists. Just like in the movies.
The two thousand year old ‘temple to all the gods’, Pantheon delights moviemakers, audiences and visitors alike - no matter how many times seen or done. Facing the giant rotund structure is a famous sidewalk café, woven into many movies. Remember the broke Joe Bradley in Roman Holiday regally ordering ‘Champagne per la signorina, and cold coffee for me’? On our outing, we found actors dressed in handsome ancient Roman clothing, waiting to pose with tourists for a buck or two.
These actors looked like extras out of the lots of Quo Vadis, Ben Hur, Cleopatra and Gladiator. Cinema that hurtled viewers into a time-machine, and gave ringside glimpses of prehistoric Rome. These epics were actually shot extensively in the local Cinecittà studios. Backroom boys there worked feverishly and long with new technology to maximize the movie excitement. Take Ridley Scott's classic, its computer-generated visuals chillingly and stunningly throw visitors into the 80 AD Coliseum where much blood is splattered in the grotesque arena.
How can one be in Rome and not be romantic? In De Sica’s Yesterday Today and Tomorrow (1963), Sophia Loren entertains wealthy clients in her little apartment. From a nearby terrace, a wide-eyed young seminarian watches the goings-on. The novice flips for the buxom beauty. The novice’s worried grandmother tries to ‘save’ him by shutting out Loren and her lover, Marcello Mastroianni. But it’s too late. Loren is performing a striptease to please her man…and the seminarian is now smitten beyond holy relief!
But well before he shot those scenes, De Sica made a post WWII movie using the same sidewalk of Piazza Barberini and the tunnel for the neorealist classic, The Bicycle Thief (1948). At that spot, the protagonist parks his retrieved-from-the-pawnshop bicycle and gets to work, pasting cinema posters. That's when his bicycle is stolen. The startled man abandons the Rita Hayworth poster to catch the thief. The hopeless chase with a young son crying and running behind father moves the audience with the proverbial lump in throat but not before a host of postwar Rome scenes unfold in quick dramatic black and white succession.
In a more recent film, the Palazzo Taverna, a grand old palace located between Piazza Navona and the 139 AD Castel Sant Angelo, is where resides Henry Jame’s unhappily married heroine, Nicole Kidman in Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady (1996). Passing by the famous location, one senses the tension between her and the conniving husband, John Malkovich. When evening shadows, amber lights come on and the castle gorgeously reflects on the stream, the scene comes as a welcome distraction.
And so it goes on year after year, movie after movie. Even if realistic portrayals of the contemporary capital are few and far between, experts opine that no other world city has dominated the celluloid screen as much as Rome. With good reason. The capital is beautiful. Its two thousand years of continuing history has created a backdrop that lends itself magically to a plethora of emotions and situations.
Movie directors may have captured a fair bit: from chases to pedestrian brawls to high society intrigues and shenanigans, from mysterious and bewildering suggestions to the easy make-believe. Now the municipal authorities have captured these memorable cinematic scenes – the heart-tugging episodes, blistering romance, and the high-octane excitement and energy, in a book.
Delighted new generation of die-hard movie-buffs will pour over the book, Rome, The Great Movie Set, watch movies set in Rome, and gleefully hotfoot it to the locales. There, they will get, and experience, the bigger picture and find, for good reason, that the Eternal City has always been identified with illusions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Movies shot in or linked to Rome
De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953)
Negulesco’s Three Coins in the Fountain(1954)
Fellini’s Nights of Cabria (1957)
Fellini’s La Dolca Vita (1960)
Germi’s Divorce, Italian Style (1961)
Mankeiwicz’ Cleopatra (1963)
De Sica’s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963)
Mann’s The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
Reed’s The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Frank’s Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell (1968)
Jarmusch’s Night on Earth (1991)
Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady (1996)
Bertolucci’s Beseiged (1998)
Minghella’s The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
Scott’s Gladiator (2000)
Purcell’s When in Rome (2002)
For a few Annas more
May 25, 2008
It was the time of our lives when the humble four anna coin, was on the verge of becoming a 25 paisa coin. But how that coin ruled our lives!
It got you a coffee or a song on the juke-box at Koshy's on Brigade Road. Or a crisp Ceylon parata at Impie’s …and if you played your card smartly there, Abu or Rifle, treated you to special 'sherwa', red gravy, with the parata. It also got you a tall glass of yummy chilled to perfection rose milk.
When broke, we'd earn it the hard way. Clearing the garden for a kindly neighbour, Mrs Malathi Sidenur or singing carols. For the latter enterprise, three or four of us, mostly boys from a traditional Hindu family, formed a group to go around Richmond Town. Our early evening stops included unsuspecting gentle old Anglo Indian couples living in cottages.
There we'd stand by the gate and belt out, 'Come all ye faithful', 'Joy to the world' and other Xmas songs that we picked up at school with great gusto. Most often we got lucky. A kindly old lady would invariably emerge from the house, come to the gate and say, in some bewilderment, "Isn't this rather early for Christmas carols, dear? Why, it's only late November!"
To such responses we'd swing into a practiced pitch. We'd say something to the effect that there were many houses to visit, so little time to cheer people with the spirit of Christmas. The lady seeing through our game, smiling would press four 25 paisa coins into each of our eager palms. Triumphant, we'd put out a hearty, 'We wish you a Merry Xmas, Merry Xmas and a happy New Year', and race to Crown Café, Brigade Road and fall on a heavenly strawberry ice-cream. The coin also got a 'big' kite at shops behind Johnson market or on Arab Lines. Or a bicycle on hire. Or two days of tuck, that amazingly delectable jaggery, coconut and peanut treat, in the tuck-shop.
As we grew older, and moved into trousers, inflation was still under control. Armed with a 25 paisa coin each or with one of us, adventure was always around the corner. We'd set forth exploring the world beyond Richmond Town -- places as distant as KG tower in Lal Bagh or Cubbon Park.
On one such adventure we found ourselves in the crowded Russell Market area and happened on that famous, erstwhile institution known as Taj Hotel on OPH Road. The eatery was a hole in the wall where the radio blared old ‘Hindustani’ film songs, scores of noisy customers waited for tables, and often stood breathing down the neck of diners walloping biryani.
As soon as you got a seat, a waiter plonked four glasses of water on the table. He'd return in a jiffy with a plateful of biscuits and samosas which, with many years of practice ease, he'd slide on the marble table-top. Then he'd be ready to take orders. If you said 'tea' he'd ask with 'malai', cream, or without 'malai?
You were charged for what you consumed from the plate and the beverage… not with a written tab, but by a shout.
This was quite an achievement considering Taj invariably had Shamshed Begum going great guns on the radio. And the place had the din and noise of humungous intensity: Old wall-fans whirring noisily, and clanging each time they hit the wall. Plates and crockery noisily, and unceremoniously, dumped into steel bins. Sizzling sounds and other clatter emanating from the kitchen. People conversing in high decibels - often swearing and screaming to be heard. Outside, on the crowded road was the honking and rush of traffic included the clip-clop of jutka ponies. Somewhere else the muezzin was calling the faithful to prayer. Topping the melee was the shouts of the waiters. First they'd yell when placing orders to the kitchen. Next, they'd yell even louder, over the heads of customers, across to the cashier near the entrance.
In time you learnt the Taj system. As customers neared the cashier, you could hear the waiter yelling out, "Lal topi wallah, khuska-paal-chai, att anna." Behind the Fez gent was a hunk in a 'Sando' banyan, who became "Pehlwan, beja fry-roti, att anna", and young boy, “Chotu, sirf ek gilass pani, kuch nahi”. In between the waiter exchanged quick notes with the kitchen, "Sardarji ka beja lao" or "Saheb ka garam sherwa lao". When my turn came at the cash counter, I was identified as, "Pathla ladka, biscoot-chai, char anna”, and my bespectacled friend as ‘char-anken-wallah, ek samosa-ek colour soda, char anna."
The OPH Road experience was so unique, stunning that even as we hurried home, we knew that the story was worth many retelling, and the adventure was worth the money - all four annas of it!
© Copyright - Author