lust for knowledge

Did you know the eccentric Mr. Emersons in "ARWAView" are an allusion to Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy?

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882

Have you noticed how romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish was modelled on Emily Spender (1841-1922) -an actual Edwardian suffragette writer E.M.Forster didn't take very seriously as an author?

Even the title of "Under a Loggia" by Eleanor Lavish is a parody of "Until the day breaks", by Emily Spender. Wicked, wicked E.M.Forster...

Everyone who's watched a cult movie way too many times starts finding unexpected connections between fact and fiction, past and present or Art and Life... After you've delighted in the same film for about three or four times, your mind starts craving for MORE! When I say more I don't mean a second part, or a prequel, or even a spin-off. I'm talking about a head-to-toe, vivid immersion in the characters' own world. 

Unfortunately, most cult movies can't make such experience possible. Try to jump head first into The Rocky Horror Picture Show's shallow waters and you may risk breaking your neck, almost literally. However, films like "ARWAView" seem to provide an endless depth of cultural reference to dive into. You only have to take down all the books the characters mention or quote from, to get a list of reading material long enough for a lifetime of research. Here are a few of them:

- Commedia, by Dante Alighieri

- I Promessi Sposi, by Alessandro Manzoni

- The World as Will and Representation, by Arthur Schopenhauer

- Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

- The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler

- A Shropshire Lad, by A.E.Housman

- Any of Friedrich Nietzsche's works

Reading just one of these books may lead a curious mind into other topics, which in their turn may open an appetite for yet more books -just the way a little brook can push a nutshell into a bigger river before it meets the sea. Take me, for instance. Ever since I discovered the wretched movie thirty years ago, I've come to learn about E.M.Forster's universe, but also about Fabian Socialism, Walt Whitman's Body Electric, Edward Carpenter's alternative lifestyle, John Ruskin's Mornings in Florence, Luigi Pirandello's Mattia Pascale or Bloomsbury's own sexual revolution -among other topics. 

And the same applies to Painting and Music. If you are willing to let it happen, "ARWAView" can take your imagination on a trip from Giotto's frescoes to Leonardo's Madonnas through Paolo Uccello's "Battle of San Romano", while you get inadvertently acquainted with some of Beethoven's piano music as well as two of Giacomo Puccini's most heart-rending operas -"Gianni Schicchi" and "La Rondine".

"Battle of San Romano", by Paolo Uccello

Who said watching movies makes kids dumb, lazy and easy to manipulate? Like a College degree in Humanities, "ARWAView" teaches us Literature, History, Art, Philosophy, Politics... you name it. James Ivory's most popular motion picture can trigger in us an insatiable lust for knowledge, plus a much better understanding of the world we live in. 

I'll say no more. I'd rather leave to you the enviable pleasure of putting together all the precious little pieces in this most fascinating of frescoes ever displayed on a movie screen. 

telling right from wrong

Ever since Nietzsche announced God's Death in the late XIXth century, Westerners seem to have been drifting about like orphans in a storm -as Evelyn Waugh would say.

The world has gone mad today,

and good's bad today,

and black's white today,

and day's night today...

"Paths of Glory" (1957), by Stanley Kubrik

Yes, the song is Anything Goes (Cole Porter, 1934). Before the First World War, back when the Church would tell us exactly what to do, it was fairly easy to tell Right from Wrong. About a hundred years later, the boundaries between them are not quite as sharp.

As opposed to people in the Belle Epoque, too many of us today feel we've been let down by our seniors' creeds and confessions, as they seem to be incompatible with our new views on individual freedom. However, our basically secular world still craves for some sort of moral compass. And this is exactly the perfect context for the advent of a most peculiar phenomenon -known as the cult movie.

"A Room With a View" (1985)... What else?

A cult movie doesn't necessarily have to be an excellent one, technically speaking -though many times it is. "ARWAView", for instance, is both a cult movie AND a work of Art, but this isn't always the case. I wouldn't exactly label "Enchanted April" as a well crafted motion picture... in spite of its many charms.

Enchanted April (1991), by Mike Newell

No. I'm afraid international film festival awards have little to do with public devotion. I dare say a film becomes cult when viewers go back to see it again and again, in an irrational search for answers to Life's Biggest Questions.

Original Artwork by Roman Preneste, 2012

But watch out. No matter how true some dialogues can ring in your ears, they may be culturally conditioned or even biased. In a previous entry called A BETTER SONG TO SING, we saw how certain messages -say, in "Mamma Mia" or "Shirley Valentine"- can easily turn you into Ryanair's favourite customer of the year. But there are other, more subtle ways to manipulate you.

Mamma Mia, 2008

There is evidence for the assertion above in "Tea with Mussolini". In this gorgeous production by Franco Zeffirelli, neglected seven-year-old Luca suffers from his philandering Catholic father's lack of responsibility. It is only through the kindness and moral superiority of a completely unemotional English Protestant lady that the kid gets familiar with Shakespeare's plays to learn the difference between Right and Wrong. In so doing, Luca gets a complete humanistic education and grows into a sound young man of action, as well as a world-famous opera stage designer. In fact, the movie contains lots of biographical information about Zeffirelli's own childhood in thirties' Florence. But this is besides the point.

"Tea with Mussolini", 1999

My Anglophile friend Richi never liked "Tea with Musso..." or any film alike. As she said once to me:

- I can't take any more of these patronizing stories about Anglos teaching everybody how to lead their lives!

- Any particularly loathsome screenplay in mind? -I replied, expecting her to come up with another of my all-time favourites.

- Yes, there is one I can't get over... What is that one about Jaipur called?

- Oh. Surely you don't mean "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"?

- Right! Exactly!! -she frantically nodded- Can you believe that postcolonial dog? -she almost screamed, getting slightly carried away- I mean, do the English still expect the rest of the world to sit in the dark for two hours to watch these geriatric crones coach a totally moronic Indian hotel manager till both his love-life and his business take off? Come on! I'm sure many Indians must have found the movie offensive.

-Excuse me? Maggie Smith and Judi Dench are far from being "crones"!!

Much as I enjoyed "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", I have to admit Richi made a good point. It doesn't look pretty when an adult from one culture treats an adult in another culture like a child, whether this exchange takes place between Brits and Indians, Brits and Italians or Brits and Spaniards (see "Fawlty Towers" for references).

"Fawlty Towers" (1975-1979). Spanish waiter Manuel never fails to bring the worst out of Basil...

Mind you, I never resented my intensive and extensive exposure to Anglo ways and ideas. On the contrary. Like little orphan Luca, I've also been helped out of storms by English-speaking friends from every corner of the former Commonwealth. The English-speaking mind provides a clear, insightful perspective on things that's rare to find along the Mediterranean. And I believe its influence has made me better in every sense of the word. 

a better song to sing

Apparently, many cities and municipalities in Tuscany have come up with a new tourist tax. Which means that travelling around Lucca, Siena, Pienza or San Gimignano is now more expensive than ever before.

What is the world coming to? Miss Charlotte Bartlett would tear her robes at this appalling outrage! As for me, I understand Tuscans to a point. If I was a resident in any of those gorgeous places, I wouldn't like to see my own small hometown constantly taken over by swarms of intruders armed with selfie sticks. As an attempt to put a limit to this, I guess the new tax is a sensible step -probably into a heartless, much colder world where only money seems to count, but a sensible step if there is one. 

We all know massive tourism is a curse, in spite of which we still go touring, don't we? Well, I hate to say it, but I partially blame the film industry for the inordinate amount of tourists that plague Southern Europe to the point of spoiling all its charm. 

Just an example of what a certain type of British tourists do when they go on holidays in Spain.

As I wrote on A MOVIE THERAPY, motion pictures tell us how to feel -and even what to think. If you are familiar with feel-good stories about Italy made in the 1980s and 1990s, you must have heard calls in your head such as: find out who you really are; follow your heart where it takes you; eat, pray, love and find a better song to sing... for you are ENTITLED to your own special share of happiness in your lifetime -or rather, what's left of it. Come on. YOU deserve it. 

Shirley Valentine always KNEW she could do better...

Now. When you think all these New Age slogans were thrown at you in inseparable association with beautiful Tuscan landscapes and Puccini arias it isn't hard to figure out why, thirty years later, so many Western citizens in the grip of a mid-life crisis still run to the nearest airport for the first plane to Florence, Majorca or Santorini. One should think such general quest for self-discovery would have led to some Universal Spring of Endless Harmony in the world. Instead, it's proved to be the best way to turn many individual dreams into a collective nightmare. To rephrase one of Willy Russell's most memorable lines in "Educating Rita", yes, we did find a better song to sing. But when we all sing it simultaneously, the result is shrill, hollow and tuneless. Sorry for the misquotation, Mr. Russell.

Rita, like Shirley, DESERVES to be happy! You see, YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY TOO!

I can almost hear you say, "But E.M.Forster, Elizabeth Barrett-Browning and W. Shakespeare can't be all wrong! They must have meant well when they wrote their stories!"

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's tomb in Florence

Most definitely, I believe they did mean well. Maybe it's us who didn't get the message right. You see, these tales can't be taken literally because they belong in the realm of Myth. Far from being an actual physical place, the Italy they describe is an ideal. And you don't fly Easyjet to your ideals... or do you?

Endearing character Pamela Piggott saw this clearly in Billy Wilder's acclaimed "Avanti!" when she said something like

Italy is not a place, it is a State of the Mind...

Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills in "Avanti!" (1971)

A peaceful, blissful Italy of perfect Truth, Love and Beauty lives at the heart of all human dreams since the beginning of time, long before the real Italy materialized. You can find that special Garden of Saint Mark's within yourself, then make it grow and even share it. Touring, though, won't get you any nearer to it than you are now. 

Like dear old Mr. Emerson in "A Room with a View", you too can take a fork to your heart at the dining table to proclaim: 

I don't need a view! It is in here that the sun shines! It is in here that birds sing!

Unforgettable Denholm Elliot in "A Room with a View" (1985)

Who needs to pay extra for a Tuscan view anymore? Shouldn't all dreams be free? Haven't they always been?

windy corner, summer street

One of the many things that utterly fascinate me about "A Room with a View" is how situations in the story lead to each other following the cycle of seasons. Can there be anything more Pagan than letting weather rule your life? Characters in this tale seem to do it most gracefully indeed. 

For example, it is in early SPRING that Lucy Honeychurch awakes to her own wants and needs, along with her discovery of Italian Renaissance.

However, E.M.Forster times the second section of the story in SUMMER -to be precise in August, in a most fortunate coincidence with Thomas Parnell's Pervigilium Veneris-, right when all human passions are harder to repress. Lucy's heart won't be easily won by George, though. She may live in Summer Street, but her mother's house is still called Windy Corner. 

As a symbol for unrequited love, the first cool AUTUMN winds will find Charlotte Bartlett and Lucy's mother failing to plant roses in the garden. Bad weather seems to herald Lucy's personal crisis as she tries to smother her wants and needs, the same ones she has only just found out about. Eventually, her break-up with dull Cecil Vyse will be made public on a grey September day -as it couldn't be otherwise. 

It is really wise of Forster's to save his readers -and his characters- WINTER, a time Lucy and George probably spend doing little else than arranging their wedding. This is only logical. The Greeks knew we can't see Persefone in winter because she is held by Hades in the Underworld, where they just eat one pomegranate after another while she waits for Flora to rule the fields again. Juicy, but not very exciting. Besides, it is a well-known fact that light-hearted comedies are normally incompatible with pouring rain. 

For a short time, sweet Lucy Honeychurch runs the risk of becoming Persefone, dead-alive Queen of the Underworld. Tim Burton spotted that quality about her wife and made the most of it in a number of movies long afterwards.

As a result, we only meet the happy couple back in SPRING, during a honeymoon in Florence that completes the full circle. 

Isn't this the most clever literary artefact known to man? I think it is. And so must have thought E.M.Forster when he stumbled on ancient Roman poet Virgil's works -more specifically, "Georgics"- where all this possibly comes from.

Come on, do you honestly believe authors come up with everything they write out of nothing? No way! Every writer is a reader first. The fruitful relationship between English Thinking and Mediterranean Art started long before Forster was born. Lucy Honeychurch's love pains weren't originated in 1908, but much earlier. Most likely they took off in Elizabethan England, when Shakespeare -the shore where all rivers meet the Sea- wrote his Italian plays. I am thinking of "Romeo and Juliet" or "The Tempest". But this is another story. 

pervigilium veneris

Let those love now who never loved before,

let those who always loved, now love the more.

Original artwork by Roman Preneste

These lines are part of "Pervigilium Veneris" or The Vigil of Venus, a first century Roman poem translated into English by Thomas Parnell in the XVIIth century. The Eve of Saint Venus -as Anthony Burgess humorously called it in one of his books- used to be a Pagan festivity meant to celebrate the beginning of Spring, although the poem would normally be brought up again at the end of summer, on occasion of mid-August festivals. With the advent of Christianity, the Pervigilium Veneris accommodated into several different Virgin Mary festivities, among which May First and Assumption -on the 15th of August. I love to think that to this day, Venus is still worshipped in disguise, in Catholic countries all over the world. 

The Decameron, 1971

Now let me tell you a short story about a Spanish friend of mine. Hilario Toledano was born on a 15th of August 1971, to late middle-aged parents. For some obscure reason, they were positive the baby would be a girl, so they had planned to call it Asunción -Spanish for the Virgin's Assumption. 

To be honest, the name Hilario always sounded to me like a last-minute solution to some unexpected emergency. And it was. Shy, brooding Hilario was the youngest of many siblings. I mean youngest by far. By the time he reached his teens, everybody else in the family had flown the nest. Hilario was a bit like those kittens raised by humans, who don't really know they will be cats one day... until they find out. He thought of himself as conventional, because everybody around was extremely so; thought of himself as a Christian, because his parents hadn't told him the family descended from hidden Jews; thought of himself as straight, because he believed everyone around to be so.

The day he turned fifteen, Hilario was feeling particularly mournful and deserted: he had just fallen out with some friends, his room-mate brother was away in the military service, his closest sister had just married and gone on her honeymoon, and another brother was staying in a hospital for the whole summer. So his well-meaning old parents made him a nice birthday meal and then disappeared into their bedroom to sleep a long siesta.

The only way to spend his birthday money Hilario could come up with was kill a couple hours at the village cinema... on his own.

Picture one of those rural movie theatres built in the 1920s: a cathedral-like, chilly inside in a cheap Decó style -only with crumbling walls, worn-out curtains, mouldy carpets, squeaky chairs, a battered screen and the inevitable pungent reek of lemon air freshener... And the movie was "A Room with a View". (Of course, what else?)

A Room with a View, 1985

Let's see. Considering Hilario's state of mind that afternoon, he may have been deeply impressed by ANY film whatsoever. Probably. But FATE -or Italy, depending what you call IT- wanted James Ivory's masterpiece to become part of Hilario's hard-wiring forever.

"It is Fate that I am here," says George Emerson to Reverend Mr. Beebe on their way to the pond. "But you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy."

Without knowing it, Hilario was pretty much in a disposition for what ancient Greeks called a mysteric ritual of initiation. And I believe such was exactly the kind of experience he went through during the show. Boy, how the movie spoke to him. The minute young George Emerson (above) goes on screen, Hilario immediately thought he would identify with that character and see the picture from George's point of view. Just a sound, easygoing, physical guy with an appetite for life.

- If I could be like that, every girl would like me -thought Hilario.

But then book-worm Cecil Vyse (below) comes into the picture, setting an uncomfortable polarity between Lucy's two gentlemen callers.

-Poor sod -thought Hilario-. What a pedantic jerk, and a sissy too! If I WAS LUCY, I would never go for a guy like that... But wait a minute...

Exactly, Hilario. Wait a minute. You meant to take sides with George, but now you are thinking like Lucy... Oh-Oh!

Who wins Lucy's heart -and flesh- in the end? Healthy George or refined Cecil? The answer is simple: the winner is whoever shows better knowledge of Lucy's soul -as well as himself's. As George puts it, Cecil can't love anyone intimately, least of all a woman... because he doesn't even know he is a homosexual. However, he eventually does when Lucy breaks the engagement by using delightful analogies of Leonardos and Mona Lisas.

This is the good part. Like Cecil, Hilario was given a chance to open his eyes: the film was telling him he would never be a George type, an action man, a breeder. For Christ's sake, Hilario even hated tennis as much as Cecil did! Like Cecil, my friend preferred books, and Art, and Music... and yes, men too. A heart-piercing realization for a kid who only wants to fit in the world some day.

When the show ended and lights went on, the boy was in a deep state of shock. On his way back home, as he almost sleep-walked through the mid-August, sunset-glowing countryside, every bird, every fly, every leaf on every tree seemed to be chanting:

let those love now who never loved before,

let those who always loved now love the more.

But Hilario felt painfully excluded from all that. Like Cecil, he was going to need a long time to come to terms with himself.

-Did you enjoy yourself, dear? -asked his mother when he got home

He could hardly make it to the bathroom in time to hide his tears. But he could still hear his father say:

-The poor kid is bored to death...

"A Room With a View" changed my friend's life inasmuch as it confronted him with parts of himself he had refused to see before -and it did it at a very impressionable age. I am sure it all was for the better. I mean, Hilario could have ignored these calls and gone on lying to himself. Like Cecil, he could have tried to take a trophy wife and made her miserable. Instead, he chose to embrace his book-worm nature and became a poet.

Not a very well known one. but a poet all the same. As Spanish poet Marino Sánchez put it, the fact that a poet can be ignored doesn't make him/her less of a poet.

Ser poeta ignorado es casi tanto

como alcanzar el cielo sin medida.

Es escuchar mi voz en la encendida 

proclamación oculta de este canto.

We all have to thank Hilario for confiding his teenage story to me, because without him I wouldn't even have been interested in this wretched film, and this blog wouldn't exist at all. Next week I will tell you what happened when I saw "ARWAV" myself, and how it changed MY life too.






   

a movie therapy

If you have read my previous entry called THE LIST, you'll remember I claimed cinema can have the power to change lives. Such an overstatement can sound very romantic, but hark! The kind of transformation we are dealing with here doesn't necessarily have to be FOR THE BETTER! Oh, no...

Black Narcissus, 1947

However, Carl Gustav Jung said that you should never be afraid of a change for the worse... as long as it brings you nearer to your own Truth -and I am rephrasing his words here because this is not intended to be a PhD.

Carl Gustav Jung, 1875-1961

 You can take Jung's shocking ideas the way you prefer. As for my personal translation of them, I believe there are few things worse in life than being a stranger to yourself. This is a situation that normally leads to wrong life choices, phony human relationships and -ultimately- terminally boring lives. And this is, precisely, the leit motif for most of the movies on my LIST.

Please don't take me wrong. I don't expect all my readers to share my own personal taste in cinema. This would be a fascist blog if I did. The good thing about movies is there is always a meaningful one for each and every one of us. I am basically a period-costume-drama sort of person, but it takes all sorts to make the world. You may be a Godfather/Sopranos/Montalbano/The-Leopard sort of person, or a Madmen/The-Apartment/Masters&Johnson sort of person, or a Showgirls/Boogie-Nights/Studio-54 sort of person, or a Cage-aux-folles/Behind-the-Candelabra sort of person, or a Colour-Purple/Fried-Green-Tomatoes/Dolores-Claiborne sort of person. Whoever you are, there must have been a time in your life when a film SPOKE TO YOU. That's what matters. 

What sort of things do motion pictures tell us? I don't know about yours, but mine speak quite clearly. These are some examples that spontaneously come to mind:

- "A Room with a View" seems to be telling me Self-knowledge is the key to all Happiness. It may also be saying that Nature is the easiest way to God

A Room with a View, 1985

- "Good Morning Babilonia" tells me creating beautiful things can make it up for life's hardships. In other words, Ars Lunga, Vita Brevis.

Good Morning, Babilonia, 1986

- "A month in the Country" says Mother Nature will heal you in your darkest hour.

A month in the Country, 1987

- "Tea with Mussolini" says bad times are never too bad in the company of good friends.

Tea with Mussolini, 1999

And so on and so forth. Now. If this is so, the movies we feed our minds can change the way we think -provided that we are young, impressionable or flexible enough. Well, this is what I call a movie therapy. I use my dvd player medicinally myself. I mean, who doesn't? We all play us a comedy when we are down... or a drama when we feel strong enough to take other people's trouble. Many times we choose the films that will tell us what we want to hear; but there are times when movies take us by surprise and mirror some of those ugly things about ourselves that we keep trying to ignore. This, and no other, will be the topic for PERVIGILIUM VENERIS, the next entry on this blog. 

the list

There comes a time in everybody's life when you just HAVE TO try acupuncture. I did it for a couple months' time, before I decided it wasn't for me. However, I will always remember something my Chinese doctor said:

- Always have positive thoughts! Careful what you feed your mind, especially at night! Never watch the news or read the papers before bedtime! I generally don't approve of TV at all, but if you have to watch something, at least make sure it is a feel-good movie...

A Room with a View, 1985

A most sensible tip I have taken to heart ever since. In fact, I have seen so many feel-good movies through the years I consider myself an expert in the matter. I even have my own list of absolute feel-good classics of all times.

Watch out, though. For this is not just another movie fan's top ten. Actually, my list is more of a magical instrument with the power to transform lives. As such, it should by all means be handled with the utmost care.

Black Narcissus, 1947

I didn't build THE LIST out of personal taste alone. I chose these films because they all have patterns in common that I'd love to discuss with you at length. For example, many of them deal with the contemporary need for self-discovery among individuals in the Western world, in connection with an insightful experience of some foreign culture steeped in ancient Pagan values. Typically, Italy. But also Greece or India.

Under the Tuscan Sun, 2003

Mediterraneo, 1991

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, 2011

These motion pictures tell us secular tales addressed at a secular public in secular democracies, and yet... they all glow with subtle forms of universal spirituality. Aldous Huxley may have called this philosophia perennis, but Robert Graves would have -most likely- named it just POETRY.

Shirley Valentine, 1989

Every single entry in this blog will inevitably be referring you to my fabled list over and over again, which is why I think best just to share it with you, NOW. So here it is:

1.- CAMELOT, Joshua Logan, 1967

2.- BROTHER SUN, SISTER MOON, Franco Zeffirelli, 1972

3.- THE DECAMERON, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971

4.- ROMEO AND JULIET, Franco Zeffirelli, 1968

5.- PROSPERO'S BOOKS, Peter Greenaway, 1991

6.- ORLANDO, Sally Potter, 1992

7.- VANITY FAIR, Mira Nair, 2004

8.- THE BOSTONIANS, James Ivory, 1984

9.- DEATH IN VENICE, Luchino Visconti, 1971

10.- COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE, Alfonso Arau, 1992

11.- WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD, Charles Sturridge, 1991

12.- A ROOM WITH A VIEW, James Ivory, 1985

13.- GOOD MORNING BABILONIA, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, 1986

14.- A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY, Pat O'Connor, 1987

15.- ENCHANTED APRIL, Mike Newell, 1992

16.- ISADORA, Karel Reisz, 1968

17.- TEA WITH MUSSOLINI, Franco Zeffirelli, 1999

18.- MEDITERRANEO, Gabriele Salvatores, 1991

19.- BLACK NARCISSUS, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947

20.- THE RIVER, Jean Renoir, 1951

21.- LE NOTTI DI CABIRIA, Federico Fellini, 1957

22.- THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS. STONE, José Quintero, 1961

23.- MAMMA ROMA, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1962

24.- NEVER ON SUNDAY, Jules Dassin, 1960

25.- THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA, John Huston, 1964

26.- AVANTI!, Billy Wilder, 1971

27.- MOONSTRUCK, Norman Jewison, 1987

28.- SHIRLEY VALENTINE, Lewis Gilbert, 1989

29.- UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, Audrey Wells, 2003

30.- MAMMA MIA,  Phyllida Lloyd, 2008

31.- THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, John Madden, 2011

In case you are not familiar with some of these motion pictures, you can click on the titles to find out more. As you can see, I didn't list them in chronological order -that is, according to the year they were made in-, but according to the period the stories take place at. There is a reason for this: I see each one of these tales as parts of a bigger story, a mind trip that takes off in the Middle Ages with "Camelot" to come to an end in XXIst century's Jaipur with "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". If you are patient, I'll provide evidence for the connections that exist between one, the other, and everything in between them.

Camelot, 1967

I know. Some of the films on my list can hardly be described as feel-good movies, strictly speaking. Not even in my craziest deliria would I dare to label "Mamma Roma", "The River" or "Night of the Iguana" as such. They are heavy pieces of drama my Chinese acupuncturist would surely not have approved of. But they set aesthetic references for the other, much lighter, comedies listed. And they can certainly make you feel good too, can't they? Well, that is exactly the purpose of this blog. Just to make you feel good. As The Bard put it once, 

Sing no more ditties, sing no more 

of dumps so dull and heavy.

The fraud of men was ever so

since summer first was leavy.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

and be you blithe and bonny.

Converting all your sounds of woe

into hey, nonny, nonny.

Personally, I love to remember this great Shakespeare's sonnet in the version Emma Thompson & Kenneth Branagh created for "Much Ado about Nothing" -which WILL NOT be part of the list, though.

One last thing: bear in mind everything I write here will be rotating around "A Room with a View", James Ivory's classic comedy of manners as well as a cornerstone for this blog. So, whether we analyse Dirk Bogarde's agony in "Death in Venice" or Cher's heart-throb in "Moonstruck", we'll really be secretly discussing the world of E.M.Forster. Capisci? Yes? Hai capito? Bene. 

Allora, Alla Salute!

Moonstruck, 1987