The Big Night

La notte brava

France, Italy

1959

95 Min

Black and White

Italian

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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PROD Tonino Cervi, Alessandro Jacovoni

SCR Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jacques-Laurent Bost

CAST Rosanna Schiaffino, Elsa Martinelli, Laurent Terzieff, Mylène Demongeot, Antonella Lualdi, Jean-Claude Brialy, Anna-Maria Ferrero, Franco Interlenghi, Tomas Milian, Maurizio Conti, Piero Palmisano, Franco Balducci, Mario Meniconi

Two young unenployed men, Scintillone and Ruggeretto, pick up a couple of prostitutes. They hope their company will help them sell some rifles they have stolen. On their way they meet Bella Bella, who also aids them in selling the goods.

They then abandon the women in the countryside, only later to notice the money
they had has been stolen from them. They try in vain to find the girls and retrieve the money.

After an initial brawl, they make friends with three other men, one of them Achille.
They steal more money from Achille’s place, but are unable to divide it between them. In the end, the money ends up with Ruggeretto, who spends it all on a night with Rossana, throwing the last thousand liras off a bridge.

Loosely based on Ragazzi di vita by Pasolini, who also wrote the screenplay, Bolognini’s La Notte Brava exposes beauty and desperation in a nocturnal, silent Rome, as lived by restless souls in search of a life “to live”.

Considered by many the director’s best work. —Karagarga

Director

Mauro Bolognini

Mauro Bolognini (28 June 1922 – 14 May 2001) was an Italian film director of literate sensibility, known for masterful handling of period subject matter.

Mauro Bolognini was born in Pistoia, Tuscany.

A former architectural student, Bolognini began his film career as an assistant to director Luigi Zampa in Italy, and directors Yves Allegret and Jean Delannoy in France. He began directing his own feature films in the mid 1950s, and had his first international success with Gli innamorati (“Wild Love”).

His other notable films of the 1950s and early 1960s include Giovani mariti (“Young Husbands”), La notte brava, La giornata balorda (“From a Roman Balcony”), and the Marcello Mastroianni-Claudia Cardinale starrer Il bell’Antonio (arguably his masterpiece), all written by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Parting professionally with Pasolini in 1961, Bolognini went on to direct two sensual love stories starring Cardinale, La Viaccia and Senilità, before turning his talents… read more

Mauro Bolognini (28 June 1922 – 14 May 2001) was an Italian film director of literate sensibility, known for masterful handling of period subject matter.

Mauro Bolognini was born in Pistoia, Tuscany.

A former architectural student, Bolognini began his film career as an assistant to director Luigi Zampa in Italy, and directors Yves Allegret and Jean Delannoy in France. He began directing his own feature films in the mid 1950s, and had his first international success with Gli innamorati (“Wild Love”).

His other notable films of the 1950s and early 1960s include Giovani mariti (“Young Husbands”), La notte brava, La giornata balorda (“From a Roman Balcony”), and the Marcello Mastroianni-Claudia Cardinale starrer Il bell’Antonio (arguably his masterpiece), all written by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Parting professionally with Pasolini in 1961, Bolognini went on to direct two sensual love stories starring Cardinale, La Viaccia and Senilità, before turning his talents to a series of international anthology films, including Le bambole (The Dolls), I tre volti (“Three Faces of a Woman”), Le fate (“The Queens”) and Le streghe (The Witches).

Returning to features in the late 1960s with Mademoiselle De Maupin, his later works included the accomplished period dramas Metello and Bubu (both featuring Massimo Ranieri), Fatti di gente per bene (La Grande Bourgeoise) starring Giancarlo Giannini, Catherine Deneuve and Fernando Rey, L’eredità Ferramonti (The Inheritance) with Anthony Quinn and Dominique Sanda, and La Dame aux camélias featuring a young Isabelle Huppert.

In his later years, Bolognini continued directing feature films, as well as opera and the television miniseries The Charterhouse of Parma and The Time Of Indifference. His final movie feature was the soft-core erotic drama Husbands and Lovers, released in 1992. In 1994 he directed the show that the top female Greek singer Haris Alexiou appeared in the world famous Odeon of Herodes Atticus. He died in Rome in 2001. —Wikipedia

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