Cinema city: Rome’s eternal appeal
From Roman Holiday to Dear Diary

Nanni Moretti (Chaos Calmo)

By Alessandro Mirra

Think of Rome and cinema and probably two classic movies spring immediately to mind: Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn whizzing around on a Vespa in Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953) and the voluptuous Anita Ekberg having a midnight dip in the Trevi fountain with Marcello Mastroianni in Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece La Dolce Vita. In both films the city is far more than just a simple location and is itself a real character. Many other movies have made the most of Rome’s unparalleled beauty and instantly recognisable urban landscape.

In Ettore Scola’s bittersweet 1974 comedy-drama We All Loved Each Other So Much (C’eravamo tanto amati) the Spanish Steps form the backdrop for the delightful scene where the ineffectual intellectual played by Stefano Satta Flores attempts to teach Stefania Sandrelli the fundamentals of Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of montage in Battleship Potemkin, all the while seducing her, as the hapless love rival Nino Manfredi watches on.
Not far from Piazza Navona, between via di Monte Giordano and via dei Coronari, is Palazzo Taverna, the Roman home of Isabel Archer (played by a youthful Nicole Kidman) in Jane Campion’s 1996 version of Henry James’ novel Portrait of a Lady.

The city was protagonist when in 1945 Roberto Rossellini evoked Rome’s rags and Resistance in Open City (Roma Città Aperta) and again in Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Bicicletti), which featured a classic crowd moment filmed at the market in Piazza Vittorio.
Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere provided the location for the final screen appearance of Rome-born movie legend Anna Magnani. In a cameo appearance, the actress plays herself in Fellini’s 1972 homage to the Eternal City: Roma. Magnani enters the street door of what was her own house, exchanging banter with the off-screen voice of the director.

Moving outside the historic centre and returning to La Dolce Vita, a famous scene was shot in the main square of the working-class Don Bosco district, chosen for the similarity of its buildings to the monumental modernist architecture found in Mussolini’s southern suburb of EUR. Piazza Don Bosco, where Fellini filmed the scene with Mastroianni and his photographer friend Paparazzo, was chosen because it was closer to the film’s home studio at Cinecittà.

Anita Ekberg in Federico Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece La Dolce Vita

More recently Ferzan Ozpetek, with Ignorant Fairies (Le Fate ignoranti, 2001), showed filmgoers the rarely seen working-class Ostiense district with its massive rusting gasometer and the sprawling General Market. Turkish-born Ozpetek has made his home in Ostiense since the 1970’s.
The nearby quarter of Garbatella (see separate article: page 7) played a key role in Dear Diary (Caro Diario) the 1993 box-office hit by one of Italy’s most respected directors, Nanni Moretti. In this gentle comedy actor-director Moretti makes a tour by scooter through a beautiful and virtually deserted Rome in mid-August. His journey begins from Garbatella, which he describes as the favourite quarter of his home city.

In last year’s Quiet Chaos (Caos Calmo) Moretti, under the direction of Antonello Grimaldi, moves to the upmarket hilltop villas and tree-shaded avenues of Aventino, where he spends much of the film on a bench in Piazza Albina. Moretti’s character, recently-widowed, passes his time on the bench across from his young daughter’s school. As the days pass, he becomes a fixture of the local scene and becomes a respected habitue of the local cafe. Aventino is an elegant, leafy quarter and well-worth a visit.
But don’t expect to find the benches where Moretti eased his grief or the cafe where he began to make new friends: the film crew dismantled the set and took it back to the studios. Fortunately the trees are still there.