60 years of the Divorce Italian Style
On December 20, 1961, the premiere of the comedy "Divorzio all'italiana (Divorce Italian Style)" by Pietro Germi took place in Rome. The film was the debut of the great actress Stefania Sandrelli, who turned 15 that year.
The film is based on some of the storylines of Giovanni Arpino's novel "Un delitto d'onore (Honour Killing)", published in 1960. But if the novel by Arpino, who, by the way, defended his thesis on the work of Sergei Yesenin, can rather be attributed to the genre of criminal or political drama, then Pietro Germi and his co-authors of the script created a comedy melodrama on its basis. Hence - the name of the film, which contains a clear allusion to the genre that emerged in Italian cinema in the late 50s - "commedia all'italiana".
The genre "commedia all'italiana", or "Italian comedy", appeared as an addition to the trend that became very popular - "Italian neorealism". But unlike the latter, the "Italian comedy" denounced outdated traditions and concepts, condemned social ills, etc., not with gloom and tragedy inherent in neo-realism, but with humor inherent in the Italian people. So in this film, not that "harsh denunciation", but rather ridicule, were subjected to the outdated Italian divorce law and the practice of so-called "honor killings", for which absurdly light sentences were often passed in Italian courts. It should be noted that this law was canceled in Italy, but, however, only 20 years after the film was released on the screen.
5 months after the premiere, the film by Pietro Germi was presented at the Cannes International Film Festival, where it received a nomination for the main prize - Palme d'Or. Germi's film did not receive this award. It was awarded to the Brazilian film "O Pagador de Promessas (The Given Word)" directed by Anselmo Duarte by the decision of the jury chaired by Tetsuro Furukaki, Ambassador of Japan to France. Among the more than 30 "relative losers", in addition to the movie "Divorce Italian Style", there were such films as "L'Eclisse" by Michelangelo Antonioni, "El ángel exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)" by Luis Buñuel, "Когда деревья были большими (When the Trees Were Tall)" by Lev Kulidzhanov, "Cléo de 5 à 7 (Cleo from 5 to 7)"of the recently departed Agnès Varda. However, the film by Pietro Germi did not remain without a festival award. By decision of the jury, it was awarded the prize for Best Comedy (Prix de la meilleure comédie).
In early 1963, Pietro Germi's film "Divorce Italian Style" won two Golden Globe Awards - Best Foreign Film and Best Actor (Marcello Mastroianni). A little later, "Divorce Italian Style" received three Academy Award nominations and won one of them for Best Screenplay. In the nomination for Best Director, Pietro Germi lost to David Lean, director of the film "Lawrence of Arabia".
A year later, the film obtained three nominations for the British BAFTA award and won one of them - Best Actor (Marcello Mastroianni). In the nomination Best Film from any Source, British film academics awarded their prize to the British, and rather average, film by Tony Richardson "Tom Jones". This despite the fact that "Tom Jones" won the BAFTA award and for Best British Film. And this time, Pietro Germi's film was in more than a worthy company of "relative losers": "8½ (Eight and a Half)" by Federico Fellini, "Days of Wine and Roses" by Blake Edwards, "Nóz w wodzie (Knife in the Water)" by Roman Polanski, "The Servant" by Joseph Losey, "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Robert Mulligan etc.
Pietro Germi's film "Divorce Italian Style" obtained overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Even the always grumbling Bosley Crowther, no matter how hard he tried, could not find anything to complain about in this picture, and filled his review with compliments, like: "Pietro Germi, who directed and helped write the script, announces himself with this achievement as a master of farce in any style.... he has worked out his plot so deftly, with his tongue obviously in his cheek, that the whole arrangement seems not only respectable but also devilishly ingenious. Indeed, ingenuity is the striking directorial quality one notes in the charmingly smooth, efficient and flexible flow of the film. Mr. Germi is a genius with the sly twist." And in the end - the main conclusion: "his is one of the funniest pictures the Italians have sent along."
Pietro Germi's movie "Divorce Italian Style" was to the taste not only of cinematographers and film critics of the early 60s, but also of ordinary moviegoers. In any case, Soviet. Suffice it to say that this Italian film reached Soviet cinemas relatively quickly - 2.5 years after the premiere. And in 1964 it became one of the leaders of the Soviet film distribution, gathering in cinemas almost 28 million moviegoers. Yes, of course, to the absolute leader of the Soviet film distribution of that year - Alexander Stolper's film "Живые и мёртвые (The Alive and the Dead)", which brought together 41.5 million people at the screens, Germi's picture did not quite reach. But you need to keep in mind that the Italian film was shown in cinemas under the heading "Children under 16 are not allowed." And this has a pretty strong effect on the attendance rates.
Over the past decades, Pietro Germш's film "Divorce Italian Style" has not lost the sympathy of moviegoers in the least. Modern moviegoers all over the world still rate this film very highly: 72% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users gave this film an 8 to 10 rating.
With that said, FilmGourmand rated Pietro Germi's "Divorce Italian Style" at 9,046, placing it 157th in the Golden Thousand.
