Film at and Cinecittà Present

June 14–26

Tickets: filmlinc.org Ermanno Olmi is a key Italian filmmaker of his generation whose career spanned more than six decades. Updating the stylistic hallmarks of to craft fiction films full of light and dignity, Olmi time and again portrayed the experience of work and family and expressed the churn of history with humor and grace. Known for his commitment to working with nonprofessional actors and to capturing the specific textures of the locations in which he filmed, Olmi, who started out as a self-taught documentarian, drew inspiration from his Catholic faith and from the social and cultural preoccupations of his native region— personified by peasants in rural farming communities or by white-collar workers in the provincial capital of . But Olmi, who passed away last year at age 86, was also always concerned with the political and economic systems underlying the social and physical environments in which his characters lived and dreamed. Join and the Istituto Luce Cinecittà in paying homage to this singular and sophisticated voice in Italian cinema.

Organized by Florence Almozini and Dan Sullivan of Film at Lincoln Center, and by Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero of Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Co-produced by Istituto Luce Cinecittà, Rome. Presented in association with the Ministry of Culture of .

#filmlinc Photo by Kash Gabriele Torsello

The Cardboard Village The Circumstance Italy, 2011, 87m Italy, 1973, 35mm, 97m At the age of 80, Olmi directed his The modernist tendencies that Olmi penultimate fiction film, a striking flirted with throughout the 1960s parable about the defense of faith and ’70s reached their most intense in a world posed to deny it. An old and abstract heights in this fractured church is scheduled for demolition: family portrait. Told in an elliptical the paintings have been taken off the maze of flashbacks and jagged edits, walls, the sacred objects put away, The Circumstance charts the unrav- and a giant, mechanical arm starts eling of a well-heeled Milanese to take down the life-size crucifix family over the course of a fateful that hangs over the altar. Yet despite summer when, after witnessing a seeing the destruction of a place in near-fatal motorcycle accident, which he has devoted so much of his the mother becomes obsessed life, the old priest (Michael Lonsdale, with the young victim. Applying in a beautiful performance) feels a his keenly observant eye for social certain joy, for stripped of all its dec- details to an upper-middle-class orations, the building has returned milieu, Olmi crafts a trenchant and to its true nature as a meeting place empathetic look at the search for for humanity and the Divine, where meaning amid the empty alienation the poor and the desperate can find bourgeois existence. a haven. As so often in his work, 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Olmi starts with a philosophical or spiritual themes and then fashions a Monday, June 17 4:00pm story that gives these themes a pow- Wednesday, June 19 8:30pm erful, contemporary relevance.

Friday, June 21 8:45pm Wednesday, June 26 2:00pm

Tickets: filmlinc.org The Fiancés Genesis: The Creation and the Flood Italy, 1963, 35mm, 77m Italy, 1994, 35mm, 91m Olmi achieved early acclaim with his third feature, which In one of his most ravishingly called “by far his most beautiful sensuous works, Olmi imagines foray into modernist territory, simply the biblical book of Genesis as a because it feels so homegrown.” As if golden-hued visual tone poem. to bridge the gap from his prior film, Shot in Morocco with a cast of local , Olmi opens with a dancehall Bedouins, Genesis: The Creation sequence in which our doleful pro- and the Flood begins as an old man tagonist—factory worker Giovanni answers his curious grandson’s (Carlo Cabrini)—faces the weight questions by recounting to him the of his choices. Giovanni has been Christian story of creation, from the offered a promotion, but it means first day, to the tale of Adam and Eve, relocating from Milan to far-off Sicily to the myth of the great flood. Worlds for 18 months and leaving behind removed from the high-gloss spec- his longtime fiancée Liliana (Anna tacle of Hollywood’s biblical epics, Canzi). There he finds loneliness and Olmi’s vision is a meditative, lyrical isolation among the mainland trans- expression of personal spiritual- plants and anxiety over his future ity that finds transcendence in the with Liliana. Melding Antonioni- beauty of the natural world. esque alienation and essentially 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. neorealist content (using nonprofes- sional actors), Olmi tenders a work Friday, June 21 2:00pm both melancholy and lyrical. Tuesday, June 25 8:30pm 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.

Saturday, June 15 4:30pm Tuesday, June 18 8:30pm Sunday, June 23 7:30pm

#filmlinc Photo by Simone Falso - ITACA

Greenery Will Bloom Again Il Posto Italy, 2014, 80m Italy, 1961, 35mm, 93m At the age of 83, Olmi turned his As with the earlier Italian neoreal- attention to the First World War. But ists, Olmi generally opted to work instead of making a combat film, with nonprofessional actors and he chose to capture a single snowy frequently shot on location, but night on the Italian front, as soldiers such strategies are here used to burrowed in trenches confront their depict life during the era of rapid loneliness and find pockets of hope economic expansion following the where they can. With measured postwar recovery. The film follows pacing and sparse dialogue, hyp- wide-eyed Domenico as he journeys notizing in its patient alertness and to Milan to interview for his first job. reminiscent of Terrence Malick’s The There, he becomes smitten with a Thin Red Line in its ethereality and young woman, Antonietta, applying focus on inner thoughts, this haunt- for a position at the same company. ing meditation features actual World “For me,” Olmi once remarked, War I footage and is dedicated to the “the cinema is a state of mind and director’s father, who told Olmi tales a process of analysis from a series of the war when he was a child. of detailed observations,” and this DCP from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. attitude is very much at work in Il Posto, a tender yet unflinching look Thursday, June 20 4:00pm at the passage into adulthood and Saturday, June 22 2:00pm capitalist bureaucracy, with all its concomitant disappointments.

35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.

Friday, June 14 4:30pm Wednesday, June 19 6:30pm Friday, June 21 4:00pm

Tickets: filmlinc.org Photo by Aura/Cecchi Gori/Tiger/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

In the Summertime The Legend of the Holy Drinker Italy, 1971, 35mm, 105m Italy/France, 1988, 35mm, 128m Olmi took a turn into Chaplin-esque whimsy with this rarely screened The spiritual humanism that runs tragicomic fable about an eccentric through Olmi’s work reaches tran- mapmaker with a most unusual scendent heights in this sublime hobby: conferring phony aristocratic adaptation of a novella by Austrian titles, complete with custom-made writer . When a pious coats of arms, upon ordinary peo- stranger bequeaths him 200 francs— ple in whom he detects a certain with the caveat that he someday nobility. It’s a curious avocation that repay the debt in the form of an leads to both unexpected human offering to Saint Therese—a home- connection and serious legal trouble less alcoholic (a transfixing Rutger when his lofty fantasies bump up Hauer) living under the bridges of against harsh reality. The closest Paris finds himself launched into a Olmi came to pure comedy—delicate subtly surreal journey of the soul that and bittersweet as it may be—In the takes him from the height of luxury Summertime achieves a touching to the depths of despair. Set to the poignancy thanks to the director’s music of Stravinsky and punctuated abiding affection for the good- by hypnotic passages that unfold hearted outsiders of the world. with the hushed intensity of a rev- 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. erie, The Legend of the Holy Drinker confirmed Olmi’s status as cinema’s Saturday, June 15 6:15pm most sensitive chronicler of the Tuesday, June 18 2:00pm downtrodden and dispossessed. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà.

Sunday, June 16 8:00pm Saturday, June 22 7:30pm

#filmlinc Long Live the Lady! Italy, 1987, 35mm, 105m UK/Italy, 1965, 35mm, 90m Six young men and women are This unique biography of Angelo whisked away to a mysterious, heav- Giuseppe Roncalli—the son of hum- ily surveilled castle in the mountains ble sharecroppers who where they are being employed as would go on to become the much- the hired help for a swanky soiree, loved and subsequently sainted an elaborate dinner party for a cote- Pope John XXIII—casts Rod Steiger rie of intellectual and cultural elites as an “intermediary” between the presided over by an ancient, unsmil- man and the audience, narrating ing noblewoman. But as the bizarre, and sometimes reenacting the for- oddly funereal night progresses, mative events of his life. Based on the young charges being to sus- the diaries Roncalli kept during his pect there is something fishy going teenage years, A Man Named John on—and it’s not just the enormous, is less a conventional biopic than an grotesque flounder being served awe-inspiring, deeply felt spiritual as the centerpiece. A subversive, portrait that glows with the Catholic Buñuelian send-up of one of Olmi’s piety and belief in the extraordinary recurring concerns—the condition- goodness of ordinary people so cen- ing of young people for the labor tral to Olmi’s worldview. force—Long Live the Lady! is a rich 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. and strange feast indeed. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Sunday, June 23 2:00pm Wednesday, June 26 4:00pm Monday, June 17 8:15pm

Wednesday, June 19 2:00pm

Tickets: filmlinc.org Photo by Cinema S P A/Ital-Noleggio Cinematografico/ Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Photo by Cinemaundici/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

One Fine Day Italy, 1968, 35mm, 105m Italy, 2007, 35mm, 92m Olmi returned to the soulless cor- Conceived by Olmi as his final film porate environs of Il Posto for this (though he would ultimately go on provocatively open-ended portrait to direct two more narrative fea- of bourgeois moral breakdown. tures), this deceptively slight char- Unfolding in a series of fleeting acter study neatly summarizes the flashbacks and impressions, the director’s spiritual and humanist ironically titled One Fine Day takes philosophies. Opening with a shock- place in the mind of a philandering, ing crime—a twisted individual has middle-aged advertising executive driven stakes through 100 precious whose banal existence is upended books at a university library—the film by two sudden twists of fate—one goes on to follow the perpetrator: a that works seemingly to his advan- disillusioned religion scholar (Raz tage, the other a tragedy that Degan) who flees the arid world of leaves him questioning everything. academia to rediscover himself amid Steadfastly refusing to pass judge- the simple pleasures of the country- ment on his subject, Olmi creates a side. Awash in images of impression- minutely sketched character study ist beauty, One Hundred Nails is a that exemplifies his mantra: “For me, paean to that which Olmi loved most: the cinema is a state of mind and a the glory of the natural world and the process of analysis from a series of goodness of everyday people. detailed observations.” 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Thursday, June 20 2:00pm Wednesday, June 26 9:00pm Saturday, June 15 8:30pm

Tuesday, June 18 4:15pm

#filmlinc The Profession of Arms The Scavengers World Premiere of a Italy, 1970, 35mm, 101m New Digital Restoration Shot amid the scenic splendor of the Italy, 2001, 105m Alps, this postwar-set pastoral fol- The Profession of Arms is Olmi’s qui- lows the fortunes of a young soldier etly shattering requiem for Giovanni who returns from the front lines to de’ Medici, the 16th-century mili- his home village faced with no pros- tary captain whose death signaled pects. Desperate to earn a living, the end of an era in Italian history. he joins forces with a boisterous, Hired by the Pope to command an free-spirited old man who teaches army of mercenary Italian soldiers him the ropes of a most dangerous against invading German forces, the line of work: salvaging undetonated fearless de’ Medici leads his band bombs leftover from the war for of condottieri in a series of intense scrap metal. A tender, rollicking por- battles—until a cannon wound to the trait of intergenerational friendship leg leaves him on the brink of death. shot with a documentarian’s eye for With a meticulous attention to period naturalism, The Scavengers is an detail, Olmi crafts a hushed and hal- alternately lighthearted and serious lucinatory meditation on corporeal variation on Olmi’s key theme: the suffering, spiritual release, and the tension between the demands of inhumanity of industrial warfare. labor and personal liberty. This restoration was completed in 2019 at the 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Istituto Luce-Cinecittà laboratories, by Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia - Cineteca Nazionale and Istituto Luce-Cinecittà, from Saturday, June 15 2:00pm the original 35mm picture and Dolby Master Monday, June 17 6:00pm audio. Laboratory work was supervised by director of photography Fabio Olmi. Sound restoration supervision by Federico Savina.

Sunday, June 16 5:30pm Friday, June 21 6:30pm

Tickets: filmlinc.org The Secret of Singing Behind Screens the Old Woods Italy, 2003, 35mm, 98m Italy, 1993, 35mm, 134m Stories within stories and plays Following the death of his uncle, within plays feature prominently a bull-headed army colonel (the in Olmi’s late works, perhaps never beloved Italian character actor more dazzlingly than in this raptur- ) inherits a story- ous blend of Chinese opera, high- book mountain estate with the stip- seas adventure, and fairy tale. On ulation that he preserve, at all costs, a rain-soaked night, a timid young the ancient woodlands adjoining it. man mistakenly enters a Chinese When, despite the warnings of the brothel where he is mesmerized by townspeople, the stubborn mili- a most amazing sight: an opulent tary man proceeds with a plan to stage production about the legend cut down the trees and sell the of a vengeful female pirate that lumber, he awakens the spirits that shifts magically between layers dwell within the forest who fight of reality. A sensuous and surreal to save their home. Gorgeously shot spectacle, Singing Behind Screens on location in the mist-shrouded, finds the director leaving his neo- moonlit Dolomite mountains, this realist roots behind once and for all wondrous magical-realist fable is in favor of sumptuous, fully trans- graced with a gentle animist spirit portive fantasy. and an impassioned message of ecological stewardship. Wednesday, June 19 4:30pm 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Tuesday, June 25 6:00pm

Wednesday, June 26 6:15pm

#filmlinc Time Stood Still Italy, 1958, 35mm, 83m Italy, 1978, 186m Tasked by the Edison-Volta electric Olmi’s Palme d’Or–winning master- company with documenting the piece is an epic, ennobling portrait building of a hydroelectric dam, of four families living and working Olmi turned the project into his on a wealthy landowner’s estate in first narrative feature: a charmingly 19th-century Lombardy. From an inventive human comedy bursting accumulation of richly observed with the fresh exuberance of youth. details, the director builds a work In a snowbound shack in the Alps, of monumental majesty that vividly a veteran dam worker—charged portrays the peasants’ hardships, with overseeing the construction celebrations, beliefs, relationships site while the rest of the crew is to the land and animals, and, above away for Christmas—has his solitude all, the rhythms and rituals of their interrupted by the arrival of an unex- work, at once backbreaking but pected roommate: a rock ’n’ roll–mad honest in its purity. Balancing an young man with whom he gradually almost documentary-like commit- forms an unexpected bond. Imbuing ment to realism with a poetic feeling the simple story with sincere human- for landscape, The Tree of Wooden ity, Olmi finds common ground in the Clogs overflows with love and con- gulf between generations. cern for its common heroes.

35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. Friday, June 14 6:30pm Sunday, June 16 2:00pm Friday, June 14 2:30pm Saturday, June 22 4:00pm Tuesday, June 18 6:30pm

Tickets: filmlinc.org ERMANNO OLMI SCHEDULE All screenings take place at the Walter Reade Theater

FRI June 14 2:30  Time Stood Still 4:30  Il Posto 6:30  The Tree of Wooden Clogs

SAT June 15 Walking, Walking 2:00  The Scavengers 4:30  The Fiancés Italy, 1983, 35mm, 171m 6:15  In the Summertime Five years after the international 8:30  One Fine Day success of The Tree of Wooden Clogs, Olmi returned with another SUN June 16 neorealist historical epic, this one 2:00  The Tree of Wooden Clogs a sprawling retelling of the biblical 5:30  The Profession of Arms story of the Magi. Opening in con- 8:00  The Legend of temporary Italy as a village prepares the Holy Drinker for a celebratory reenactment of the wise men’s journey, the film MON June 17 magically transforms pageant into 4:00  The Circumstance “reality,” following the three kings 6:00  The Scavengers and a caravan of believers on their 8:15  Long Live the Lady! arduous pilgrimage to Bethlehem, their courage and faith tested every TUE June 18 step of the way. Forgoing preachy 2:00  In the Summertime piousness in favor of probing philo- 4:15  One Fine Day sophical inquiry and earthy realism, 6:30  Time Stood Still Olmi crafts a provocative, uniquely 8:30  The Fiancés elemental spiritual odyssey. 35mm print from Istituto Luce Cinecittà. WED June 19 2:00  Long Live the Lady! Sunday, June 23 4:00pm 4:30  Singing Behind Screens Tuesday, June 25 2:30pm 6:30  Il Posto 8:30  The Circumstance

THU June 20 2:00  One Hundred Nails 4:00  Greenery Will Bloom Again

#filmlinc “One of the last of the great filmmakers of the ’60s . . . An absolutely individual artist.” ­­ —

FRI June 21 TUE June 25 2:00  Genesis: The Creation 2:30  Walking, Walking and The Flood 6:00  Singing Behind Screens 4:00  Il Posto 8:30  Genesis: The Creation 6:30  The Profession of Arms and The Flood 8:45  WED June 26 SAT June 22 2:00  The Cardboard Village 2:00  Greenery Will Bloom Again 4:00  A Man Named John 4:00  The Tree of Wooden Clogs 6:15  The Secret of the Old Woods 7:30  The Legend of 9:00  One Hundred Nails the Holy Drinker

SUN June 23 Tickets 2:00  A Man Named John $10 Members 4:00  Walking, Walking $12 Students, Seniors, and 7:30  The Fiancés Persons with Disabilities $15 General Public MON June 24 No screenings SAVE WITH A 3+ FILM PACKAGE OR ALL-ACCESS PASS

Film at Lincoln Center receives generous support from Official Media

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Images: (this page) The Secret of the Old Woods; (cover) The Legend of the Holy Drinker, photo by Aura/Cecchi Gori/Tiger/ Kobal/REX/Shutterstock

Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Walter Reade Theater 144 West 65th Street, New York, NY 165 West 65th Street, New York, NY

Tickets: filmlinc.org