It
is hard to imagine the golden age of Italian cinema without the great films
Sophia Loren did with Carlo Ponti, Vittorio De Sica, and Marcello
Mastroianni. She made plenty of history
in Hollywood as well. Recently, the still
glamorous Loren has increasingly found Italian television a hospitable place
for her diva turns. In fact, it has
offered her not one but two opportunities to place her sainted mother. In 1980, Loren played herself as well as Romilda
Villani, arguably Italy’s most celebrated stage mother. Thirty years later, Loren leaves the role of
her ingénue-self to an up-and-comer, content with to play Villani in Vittorio
Sindoni’s two part mini-series, My House is Full of Mirrors (trailer
here),
now available on DVD.
In
many ways, House is a valentine to
Villani and an extended middle finger to her absentee father. At least the slimy Riccardo Scicolone
acknowledged her. In contrast, he
steadfastly refuses to own up to her younger sister, Maria. However, she would have the last word,
writing the book on which House is
based. In fact, House is as much her story as it is her sister’s, particularly when
the freshly minted movie star disappears with her producer-lover Ponti for
months at a time. It makes mother
Villani feel downright unappreciated, over-sheltering the younger sister to
compensate.
In
fact, one of House’s best scenes is
the meeting between Maria Villani (Scicolone) and Romano Mussolini, one of
post-war Italy’s top jazz musicians and her future husband. Yes, he was the youngest son of that
Mussolini, but he did not share his father’s politics (or at least had the good
sense to keep his mouth shut about it).
Unfortunately, he turns out to be all too Italian in other ways. Regardless, it is nice to hear the “In Other
Words” motif during their courtship.
Loren
still has a forceful presence as Villani and Margareth Madè smolders up the
screen as her legendary co-star (talk about an intimidating gig), but the RAI
production often looks terribly TV. (By
comparison, season one of Don Matteo
appears more polished.) You would think they would want to step up their game for a screen
legend like Loren, but no, evidently Euro-austerity strikes again.
Nonetheless,
the novelty attraction of Sophia Loren appearing in her life story (again) will
appeal to a number of movie buffs. For
many Americans, the last time we saw her was in Rob Marshall’s not as bad as
you might have heard Nine, which
shrewdly uses Loren as the film’s sure-fire applause generator, but does not
give her very much to do. Indeed, it is
nice to see Loren is still as sharp and elegant as ever. While House
is pretty darned melodramatic, it gives Loren a meaty showcase for the
acting chops that she has kept up quite nicely.
