Criterion Challenge week six: Divorce Italian Style (1961)
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Actor John Turturro listed Divorce Italian Style (1961) as one of his favorite films from the Criterion Collection, sparking this week's challenge.
The Criterion Challenge is an annual film challenge hosted by Letterboxd users. It features 52 weekly categories, and the goal is to watch a different movie from the Criterion Collection— a collection of over 1700 films— to fill each weekly slot. I am participating in this year’s challenge and most recently watched Moonage Daydream (2022) for week five, which I covered in last week’s article.
The challenge for week six is “John Turturro’s Adventures in Moviegoing.” John Turturro, an Italian-American actor and a dedicated cinephile from Brooklyn, New York, often appeared in the works of film director Spike Lee and is most recently known for his role as Irving Bailiff in Apple TV+’s Severance (2022- ). Turturro, a fan of the Golden Age of Hollywood, sat down with the collection’s curatorial director, Ashley Clark, to discuss some of his favorite films from the Criterion Collection in a video.
From the seven films mentioned in the video, I chose Divorce Italian Style (1961), directed by Pietro Germi, for this week's challenge. Initially, I thought “dated” would be a kind way to describe this film. From the brief synopsis alone, I assumed the movie would critique its main character, Ferdinando (Marcello Mastroianni), unbiased hatred of his wife and attraction to his much younger cousin. Instead, the film paints a caricature of the overly conservative culture of the mid-20th century in Southern Italy— with emphasis on Sicily. The characters are hypocritical, enforcing aggressive double standards toward women. In their attempt to be pious, they become pharisaic at best.
Because divorce was illegal in Italy at the time, Ferdinando must find a way to get rid of his wife, Rosalia (Daniela Rocca). From the very beginning of the film, he fantasizes about her dying in various ridiculous ways, including her drowning in quicksand and being sent up into orbit in a rocket. Before watching, I assumed there would be a specific reason Ferdinando was unhappy with his wife, but I was surprised to find that there was not. Rosalia is a beautiful and loving partner, fully devoted to him and his family. Ferdinando is simply unhappy with her and longs to make his teenage cousin, Angela (Stefania Sandrelli), his child bride.
This movie is reflective of the religious culture of Southern Italy at the time, and there are specific laws included in the penal code about crimes of passion and “shame killings.” In other words, if one’s spouse leaves them or commits adultery, their actions bring shame to them, and as the betrayed spouse, they are expected to “do something about it.” Ferdinando decides to try and trap his wife into an affair with a painter so he can kill her and receive a lessened sentence due to the laws towards homicide under these created conditions.
At the film’s end, Ferdinando’s elaborate plan is technically successful. Rosalia leaves him for the painter, though the townspeople ridicule Ferdinando, and shame is brought upon his family, ending his sister’s engagement. In the end, the betrayed wife of the painter hunts the lovers down to kill her husband, and Ferdinando does the same with Rosalia, receiving only three years in prison.
While the film was strange, it was also entertaining and reflective of Sicilian culture at the time. Ferdinando aggravates the viewer, and watching him suffer feels cathartic. The pacing of this movie is razor-sharp, keeping you engaged and never feeling bored, even for a moment. All in all, I rate this film three stars out of five.