29 Oct Milan and Cinema: a journey through the places of Italian cult movies
From the late nineteenth century to today, Milan was the background of more than 500 movies. Unfortunately it seems that nobody has ever bothered to create pathways for the exploration of these sets, so why not create a small tour for real cinephiles just starting from the Hotel Cavour?
VIA FATEBENEFRATELLI
The area of our Hotel has been chosen as location for several Italian films. In 1968 the great Pasolini made a true ode to Milan with the film Teorema. The director was one of the deepest connoisseurs of our city and was able to paint like no one else some of its most intimate sides, among them even a glimpse of the nearby Via Goito: here's the school attended by one of the protagonists, Peter (Andres Soublette). This is the famous Parini high school where studied the young Manzoni, Gadda and other illustrious Milaneses.
In close proximity, precisely in Fatebenefratelli 11, the corridors of the Milan Police Station have been the natural habitat of the mustachioed protagonists, armed with pistols and bell-bottoms, of so many 70's crime films, as L’ uomo della strada si fa giustizia (1975), Milano rovente (1973) e Italia a mano armata (1976).
PALACE FIDIA
Continuing on foot through via Senato you will reach the wonderful residential area of Via Melegari: here you can enjoy a haven of peace in one of the most chaotic Italian cities. In Palazzo Fidia at number 2, Michelangelo Antonioni filmed in 1950 Cronaca di un amore with Lucia Bose and Massimo Girotti. The building, perhaps the architect Aldo Andreani’s highest artistic representation, is a true testimony of the best eclecticism in town.
VILLA NECCHI-CAMPIGLIO
In front of Palazzo Fidia is located one of the most beautiful house-museums of Milan. Villa Necchi Campiglio in Via Mozart 14 was built by Piero Portaluppi in the 30s and donated to the FAI foundation by Necchi sisters. The masterpiece of the great Milanese architect has hosted the filming of Io sono l’Amore, a film by Luca Guadagnino that tells the story of the wealthy Recchi family (starring an unusually elegant Pippo Delbono and a glamorous Tilda Swinton).
SPIERS OF THE DUOMO
Guadagnino also made Tilda Swinton wander among the beautiful spiers of one of the many marvels of Duomo: the viable roof over the building.
The scene is a quotation of a famous sequence in Rocco e I suoi fratelli. In 1960 Luchino Visconti filmed the final discussion between Rocco (Alain Delon) and Nadia (Annie Girardot) right here.
PIAZZA DUOMO
Finally we go down into Piazza Duomo to remember the hilarious meeting between Totò, Peppino and the policeman, or the "ghisa" (Totò, Peppino e la malafemmena, directed by Camillo Mastrocinque in 1956): the two brothers look for information to reach the theatre where the "malafemmena" performs, but they mistake the Milanese for an Austrian general. They attempt to make themselves understood with a bizarre linguistic mixture that gave origins to the ingenious gag "Excuse me ... bittescèn, Noyo volevan savuàr l' indiriss ... ja?".
We cannot forget the scene of the brothers arriving at the train station in Milan, dressed as Cossacks despite the spring weather in Milan because "the fog is there ... but we can not see it!"
