Così ridevano (1998)

Director:

Gianni Amelio

Writers:

Gianni Amelio (writer) and
Daniele Gaglianone (writer) ...

Release Date:

2 October 1998 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Turin at the end of the fifties: two brothers have emigrated there from Sicily and the older works very...

Plot Keywords:

Turin Italy | Industrial Town | Immigrant | Violence | Sicily

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Francesco Giuffrida	...	Pietro
Enrico Lo Verso	...	Giovanni
Rosaria Danzè	...	Lucia
Fabrizio Gifuni	...	Pelaia
Claudio Contartese	...	Rosario
Domenico Ragusa	...	Simone
Simonetta Benozzo	...	Ada
Pietro Paglietti	...	Battista
Corrado Borsa	...	Teacher at Examination
Barbara Braga	...	Girl at Bar
Calogero Caruana	...	Giovanni's Friend
Edoardo Ciciriello	...	School Assistant from Naples
Valerio Contartese	...	Unemployed Boy from Calabria
Iolanda Donnini	...	Mrs. Verusio
Erika Doria	...	Alessandra

Also Known As:

The Way We Laughed

Runtime:

124 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Iceland:L | France:U | Italy:T

Filming Locations:

Turin, Piedmont, Italy

Company:

Cecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematografica

Trivia:

The title refers to the back page of a popular 1950s Italian magazine which had a section devoted to old jokes that were no longer funny but still evoked a sense of nostalgia. One such joke is repeated throughout the film: "How do you get four elephants in a Fiat?" The answer: "Two in front and two in back".

Quotes:

Giovanni: You think your children are your own, then they learn to walk and they leave you. Know what they say back home? "Raise hogs, 'cause then you can eat them"

Movie Connections:

References Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)

A Brother's Debt

Set in late '50's, early '60's. Brave emigrants from impoverished Sicily make their way in industrial Turin. This movie gives you time with a good-hearted Catanese, Giovanni (Enrico Lo Verso), a man who loves desperately, adoringly. The object: his teenaged brother Pietro (Francesco Giuffrida) who is urbane while Giovanni is elemental.

Giovanni's love and personal honor require that he believe no ill about Pietro. The older brother works like an ox to shield his Pietro-on-a-pedestal from the harsh world of manual labor, to give him better lodgings than he himself enjoys and to keep him in school (where Pietro actually is an inveterate hookey-player and a bored, listless daydreamer).

Though Pietro is detached he nevertheless feels guilt for his deceptions and he loves Giovanni for his sacrifice and natural goodness. ("Giovanni is far too good," he says to the whore-waif his older brother has taken under his protection. "He loves everybody").

But while the facile and literate Pietro drifts, the illiterate but intelligent Giovanni makes useful friends, exploits opportunities and rises in life.

Always Pietro remains at the center of Giovanni's heart. And one night Pietro is given the opportunity, finally, to repay Giovanni's selfless devotion.

If there is a "revelation" in this film, it is near the end when we see that the adoring Giovanni has an unexamined, unquestioned faith that his Pietro has the same devotion to him. As a given, he believes that brotherly sacrifice is a two-way street. The immense decision that his younger brother has made against himself and for Giovanni is merely the kind of thing brothers do for eachother. In a horrifying moment Giovanni opens to us: his great love is unselfconsciously, blanketingly possessive, devouring.

Palermo-born Lo Verso is a great actor. That his beautiful, movingly expressive face is not world-famous is a misfortune. But he is only forty now (early thirties in "Cosi Ridivano"). There is time. Jim Smith-----------------------