Casanova ***** (1976, Donald Sutherland, Tina Aumont, Cicely Browne) – Classic Movie Review 2130

Director Federico Fellini’s exuberant 1976 masterwork is an amazing-looking, awesome movie, in which an unexpectedly but perfectly cast Donald Sutherland astonishes as the forehead-shaved, bewigged, foppish 18th-century Venetian rake, Giacomo Casanova.

What’s on screen is the most extravagant and imaginative 70s take on the love god, with a clever screenplay by Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi that explores sexuality in a depth surprising in a mainstream movie – but then it is Italian! It’s based on the autobiography La Storia della Mia Vita by Giacomo Casanova.

Fellini is working with the best craftsmen of the day: production designer Danilo Donati’s set designs and costumes are spectacular, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno’s images are breathtakingly imaginative fantastic and Nino Rota’s music is utterly captivating. Donati won an Oscar and a Bafta award for Best Costume Design, and the screenplay was Oscar nominated. Donati and Fellini won a Bafta for Best Production Design/Art Direction

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The worst film I ever made,’ Fellini complained, perhaps trying to justify its poor reception by audiences who were apparently put off by the lack of a conventional narrative or any apparent attempt at traditional story-telling. Maybe it’s just a series of bizarre, eye-boggling vignettes with little story-telling dynamic, but that makes a movie and a great one.

And for Fellini’s passion, Sutherland’s amazing tour-de-force of acting and all the ostentatious talent on display, it’s an absolute knockout. Oh, how we miss the great showman Fellini!

Also in the cast are Tina Aumont (as Henriette), Cicely Browne (as Madame D’Urfé), Carmen Scarpitta (as Madame Charpillon), Olimpia Carlisi, Adele Angela Lojodice, Marghareth Clementi, Clara Algranti, Daniela Gatti, Silvana Fusacchia, Chesty Morgan, Sandra Elaine Allen, Clarissa Mary Roll, Daniel Emilfork, Dudley Sutton (as the Duke of Wuertemberg), Diane Kurys, John Karlsen, Reggie Nalder and Luigi Zerbinati.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2130

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