If Father Adelfio, the parish priest who in New Cinema Paradiso he rang the bell every time he saw a kiss on the big screen, had he been on the Lido in 1934, it is very likely that he would have implored divine intervention directly from the dome of San Marco. The 1934 edition of the Venice Film Festival was, in fact, the custodian of the first real scandal of the Biennale: the Czechoslovakian film Ecstasy in fact, by Gustav Machatý caused a sensation for two reasons: for the first full nude in the history of cinema and for a sexual act suggested by the mimicry of the protagonists that indignant and shocked.
Michelangelo Antonioni, present at the screening as a critic, wrote: “In the garden of the Excelsior, that evening, you could hear the breath of the attentive spectators, you could hear a shiver run through the audience”. This, of course, gave the film a huge publicity that even led it to win the Coppa Città di Venezia as well as the approval of an exceptional sponsor: Benito Mussolini. With everything we have seen over the decades it is obvious that today «the deal Ecstasy»Face tenderness, but there is no doubt that the season of scandals, those for which the press and the public go to the broth of jujube, had also begun in Venice. How many others have there been? And, above all, how were they managed?
The second episode of Venezia My Love, the new Vanity Fair podcast dedicated to the Venice International Film Festival which, a year and a half after the outbreak of the pandemic, returns to the Lido with an edition, the seventy-eighth, scheduled from 1st to 11th September with hundreds of headlines, stars, loves and, of course, glamor, it talks about this: the scandals and gossip that animate the exhibition, always filling newspapers with ink for almost 80 years. There is something for all tastes: from the parties of the powerful Elsa Maxell, the gossip journalist who held the bench in the Venice of the fifties by organizing parties at which the excluded made more noise than the guests, to controversial directors such as Pier Paolo Pasolini that, first for Mamma Roma with Anna Magnani and then with Theorem with Terence Stamp, he was denounced twice for obscenities. It must be said that there have been several films that have caused a scandal on the Lido: from Games at night by Mai Zetterling, considered so bad as to reserve the screening only for accredited journalists, a The last temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese, which aroused the alarmism of various members of the Church.
Even the authors do not joke: from Luchino Visconti, who missed the Golden Lion three times – first with Sense, then with The white nights and finally with Rocco and his brothers – before getting on the winner’s wagon (the film, for the record, was Vague stars of the bear, certainly not as memorable as the previous ones) a Stanley Kubrick who, at the beginning of the sixties, cleverly decided not to show up at the screening in the Sala Grande of Lolita to avoid the whistles and protest from the public. The scandals at the Lido have, however, also conquered the red carpet. As in 2006, when Scarlett Johannsson showed up 45 minutes late due to a precious clip which seems to have driven her stylists crazy. Or like in 2017, when a journalist heavily insulted director Jennifer Kent, the only woman in competition, at the film’s preview The Night-in-gale. More recently they have been talked about Roman Polanski, which in 2019 won the Grand Jury Prize for The officer and the spy although the president of the jury Lucretia Martel had expressed strong doubts about her participation, a Chiara Ferragni Unposted, the documentary by Chiara Ferragni produced by Amazon that made more than one journalist turn up their noses in 2019. The question, at this point, is clear: could there be a Venice Film Festival without even the shadow of a scandal?
These and many other questions are answered by “Venezia Mon Amour”. Have a good listening!
The Vanity Fair podcast «Venice Mon Amour» is available on iTunes, Spreaker and Spotify.
Donald-43Westbrook, a distinguished contributor at worldstockmarket, is celebrated for his exceptional prowess in article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a gift for storytelling, Donald crafts engaging and informative content that resonates with readers across a spectrum of financial topics. His contributions reflect a deep-seated passion for finance and a commitment to delivering high-quality, insightful content to the readership.
