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Fellini’s Casanova AKA Il Casanova di Federico Fellini
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Mr. Bongo Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (26th August 2015). |
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The Film
 During Carnival in Venice, great lover Giacomo Casanova (Donald Sutherland) is summoned to an island palazzo with the irresistible invitation of Sister Maddelena (Margareth Clémenti) to deflower her in the audience of the French ambassador. This turns out to be a set-up as – in the aftermath of kinky acrobatics – Casanova's extoling of his intellectual and metaphysical interests with hope of securing a post in France is followed up by his arrest by the local inquisition on charges of heresy and possessing forbidden knowledge. Escaping from prison – although it is quite possible that he never escaped and is just dreaming or fantasizing since continues to wear the same soiled undergarments beneath his other clothing throughout the entire film – he hides out at the home of Madame Charpillon (Diane Kurys), catering to her sadomasochistic desires while desiring virginal Anna Maria (Clarissa Mary Roll) whose fainting spells are treated with progressive bleeding that cause her to spend even more time on her back (unconscious). Fleeing to the progressiveness and sophistication of Paris, he winds up in the salon of alchemist Madame D'Urfé (Cicely Browne) who begs his assistance in helping her achieve immortality by siring a male child into whose body she can pass (since it was believed at the time that men have four souls and women only three, the one lacking being the immortal one). With the assistance of his fallen cleric brother's mistress Marcolina's (Clara Algranti) bared derriere, Casanova rises to the occasion but we never learn whether D'Urfe achieves her "grand opus" since he is off in search of the next conquest. Mediating in a disagreement between an innkeeper and a Hungarian captain (Donald Hodson) suspected of smuggling in a woman disguised as a soldier, he becomes infatuated with the beguiling and mysterious Henriette (Tina Aumont) who reveals hidden talents while they are in attendance at the fête of libertine Marquis Du Bois (Daniel Emilfork); and the loss of her has him contemplating suicide. In the Roman home of British ambassador Lord Talou (John Karlsen), Casanova finds himself insulted by landlord Prince Del Brando who wagers Casanova's legendary stamina against that of his coachman Righetto (Mario Gagliardo). This triumph is followed by the infection of his equipment in London by a monstrous mother/daughter duo and reduced to arm-wrestling the seven foot wonder Angelina the Giantess (Sandra Elaine Allen). The guest of entomologist Dr. Moebius (Mario Cencelli) in Berne, he is literally bewitched by the man's daughter Isabella (Olimpia Carlisi) and her sister (Silvana Fusacchia). When Isabella "betrays" him by refusing to run away with him, Casanova finds solace in the bosom of a hunchbacked actress (Angelica Hansen) from a troupe in Dresden to perform Orpheus and Eurydice. The chance meeting with his mother (Mary Marquet), however, is like a bucket of ice to the groin. Casanova ends up as the librarian Count of Waldenstein, reduced to petty squabbles with butler Faulkircher (Reggie Nalder) and occasionally trotted out to the Count's guests for thankless oratory performances. Long out of general circulation in English-speaking territories, Federico Fellini's Casanova is a spiritual cousin to the visually and aurally dazzling excesses of Fellini Satyricon as well as the vignette-structured Roma and Amarcord. Moving from episode to episode – possibly fantasies melding past conquests with past travel and the imagination of a writer – with following Casanova's conquest or failure with the ones that get away becoming "the one that got away" and his last on-screen conquest being the loving and leaving of a mechanical woman (Leda Lojodice) in the Gothenburg court of The Duke of Wuertemberg (Dudley Sutton). In the English version, Sutherland seems wildly miscast, but Fellini seemed more interested in faces than performances in his later years; and Casanova is voiced more effectively in the Italian version by acclaimed Italian actor Gigi Proietti who might have made a better casting choice for Casanova (although he probably did not have enough international name value), with Sutherland's own whiny voice only seeming suited as an old man in the Waldenstein sequence. Even at the film's most grotesque, Casanova is an undeniably gorgeous visual experience thanks to the cinematography of Fellini regular (Giuseppe Rotunno) and the sets of (Danilo Donati) which are simultaneously awe-inspiring and theatrically artificial, even operatic with the vertiginous accompaniment of Nino Rota. Indeed, there is nothing realistic about Fellini's mise-en-scene, from the domes of the Venice rooftops to the painted stairways and corridors in the forced perspective sets to the plastic sheet oceans (an effect that Fellini and Rotunno would further innovate in And the Ship Sails On depicting an entire ocean liner at sea). If the film is a failure, it is a fascinating and visually satisfying one.
Video
Although released theatrically by Fox in the UK with a running time of 163 minutes, all home video releases appear to match the running time of the current Blu-ray transfer at 154 minutes taking PAL speedup into account for the European releases (although she is listed in the credits, the sequence featuring Chesty Morgan was deleted before release but was shown at least in part on a TV documentary about the film). The dual-layer 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 transfer - presumably derived from the same master as the French Blu-ray - is gorgeous, heightening the deliberate theatrical artifice of the sets, details of the costumes, and the many wigs worn by Casanova and other characters.
Audio
Italian and English dubs are included in LPCM 2.0 mono and are in similar condition, with the Italian a tad cleaner. The Italian track is also a dub, but it is the preferable listening option despite losing Sutherland's voice. The English dub track also softens some of the bawdy dialogue, as well as rechristening the giant whale "Muna" while she was "Mona" in Italian ("mona" being Venetian slang for a woman's genetalia). Optional English subtitles are included, but they do not cover the German dialogue in the later scenes of the film (perhaps because Casanova understands none of it).
Extras
There are absolutely no extras.
Overall
Although devoid of the extras the accompanied the French Blu-ray release or any sort of contextual extras for the Fellini film or Casanova himself (much more than a legendary lover/sexual predator), Mr. Bongo's release may be the most accessible release with English subtitles for the preferred Italian track and region free, 1080p encoding that may make it attractive to viewers in other territories.
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