Marco Bellocchio reimagines kidnapping of Aldo Moro in suspenseful GOOD MORNING, NIGHT
GOOD MORNING, NIGHT (BUONGIORNO, NOTTE) (Marco Bellocchio, 2003)
MoMA Film, Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Saturday, December 5, 8:00, and Wednesday, December 16, 4:00
Series runs December 4-18
Tickets: $12, may be applied to museum admission within thirty days
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio reimagines the kidnapping of Aldo Moro from the inside in Good Morning, Night, a taut, slow-paced drama that won the Little Golden Lion at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. Moro, a former Italian prime minister and president of the Christian Democratic Party, was boldly grabbed by members of the radical Red Brigades, who left a bloody mess in their wake. Bellocchio focuses on the three men and one woman who orchestrated the plot and kept Moro locked in a hidden room inside their large rented apartment. While Mariano (Luigi Lo Cascio), Ernesto (Pier Giorgio Bellocchio), and Primo (Giovanni Calcagno) take turns guarding Moro and Mariano spews Socialist rhetoric at him, Chiaras (Maya Sensa), who is Primo’s girlfriend but is pretending to be Ernesto’s wife as a cover, goes to work every day, buys supplies and newspapers, and dreams at night of Moro coming to her as a father figure. Chiaras is the moral conscience of the movie, and a complete invention on the part of Bellocchio, who has said, “I’m not interested in the factual truth.” Even so, much of the real story is still not known, and like the JFK assassination, there are lots of conspiracy theories out there about an event that shocked a nation. Pink Floyd fans get a bonus by Bellocchio’s powerful use of “The Great Gig in the Sky” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.” Good Morning, Night is screening on December 5 and 16 as part of the MoMA series “Italian Film, 21st-Century Style: A Tribute to Rai Cinema,” a two-week retrospective that consists of ten films from the last fifteen years released by the Italian studio, including Ermanno Olmi’s Il Mestiere delle armi (The Profession of Arms), Gianni Amelio’s Le Chiavi di casa (The Keys to the House), Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma, and Alice Rohrwacher’s Le Meraviglie (The Wonders).