Post Description

Seven Beauties
1975, 116 minuten, Italië
Drama, Oorlog, Sociaal drama, Satire

regisseur:
    Lina Wertmüller
acteur:
    Giancarlo Giannini
    Fernando Rey
    Shirley Stoler
    Elena Fiore
    Enzo Vitale
    Francesco Marciano
    Mario Conti
componist:
    Enzo Jannacci
kleur
    K

Een Napolitaan met zeven huwbare zusters vermoordt de verleider van een van hen, komt in een psychiatrische inrichting, tekent voor het nazi-leger, deserteert, wordt gigolo van de vrouwelijke commandant in het concentratiekamp die hem kapo maakt, liquideert zijn beste vriend. Deze groteske film over de overlevingsdrang van een schlemiel was een van de reeks die Wertmüller en Giannini in Amerika beroemd maakte. Elders wekte de optelsom van grove en rumoerige effecten vooral verbijstering en soms weerzin. GB-titel: SEVEN BEAUTIES. 

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Awards

The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay. Wertmuller was the first woman ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director.


 Criticism

Bruno Bettelheim, while admiring the film's artistry, severely criticizes the impression it makes of the experience of concentration camp survivors in his 1976 essay "Surviving"[1].

 Trivia

Shirley Stoler's character was based on Ilse Koch, notoriously known as the "the Bitch of Buchenwald". The wife of the camp's commandant Karl Otto Koch, she took sadistic pleasure in the torture of inmates, and was suspected of having lampshades made out of the skin of inmates.

Giancarlo Giannini stars in three other films Wertmuller made during this period, "Love and Anarchy", "The Seduction of Mimi" and "Swept Away". As in the latter film, Giannini here plays a character who is dominated by a woman.

The film was controversial at the time for its graphic depiction of concentration camp scenes. Pasqualino's nickname "Seven Beauties" ("Settebellezze") refers to the fact that he has seven ugly sisters. His family name in the film is Frafuso.

Aldo Valletti has a little cameo as a patient in the same insane asylum Pasqualino.

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DVD Info Link: 
Size: D1: 7.12GB DVD9 D2: 4.01GB DVD5
Removed: Nothing
Untouched -- 1:1
No Reposts
Par2s: 10%
Color: Technicolor
Length: 115 min
Aspect: WS Matted 1.66
TV System: NTSC
Audio: Dolby -- Ital 5.1/Stereo/Mono, Eng 5.1/Stereo/Mono
Subs: Eng
Extras: Director Interview Disk2 (78min)/Wertmuller Trailers

Poster: Free agent