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Interviews

Interview: Nanni Moretti Talks 'We Have A Pope,' Berlusconi Film, And Italian Cinema

By Christopher Bell
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April 4, 2012 12:58 PM
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News

With a career spanning almost four decades, it's about time we put the "Nanni Moretti is the Italian Woody Allen" descriptor to rest. Though ultimately a flattering praise, it doesn't exactly paint an accurate picture. Generally composing movies with a perfect blend of comedic and dramatic elements, most of the humor in a Moretti film comes from cleverly written lines delivered in sincere dryness unlike the self-deprecating rambling/witty quips that live in Allen's scripts. Aside from maybe the Italian director's two diary-form films "Caro Diario" & "Aprile," it's hard to see either's output as even remotely interchangeable -- Moretti in sci-fi satire "Sleeper" or Allen in straight-drama "The Son's Room"? While they definitely write from a very personal place (well, Allen maybe not so often now), Moretti's explore various feelings such as becoming a father ("Aprile"), contemporary politics ("The Caiman"), religion ("We Have A Pope"), and even his old favorite past-time, water polo ("Red Lob"). Similarities exist, but their voices are very much their own.

By Kevin Jagernauth
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January 20, 2012 10:20 AM
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1 Comment

News

With Sundance just underway, Berlin a couple of weeks off, we're now taking a longer look at to May, when the grand daddy of them all, the Cannes Film Festival, will roll out the red carpet. And it looks like organizers on the Croisette are beginning to put their pieces into position.

By Oliver Lyttelton
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July 28, 2011 2:26 AM
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1 Comment

While Sundance Selects Grabs Nanni Moretti's 'Habemus Papum'One of the more puzzling outcomes of the Cannes Film Festival has been the failure of Aki Kaurismaki's "Le Havre," which was second only to "The Artist" as far as crowd-pleasing hits on the Croisette go, to land a distributor. Sure, Kaurismaki's never exactly been a cross-over director in the U.S, but his latest, a hilarious, touching look at illegal immigration, picked up outstanding reviews and audience reactions -- we called it a "pure delight."

By Kevin Jagernauth
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May 13, 2011 2:36 AM
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3 Comments

Early word on Nanni Moretti's "Habemus Papam" was that it was more or less in the vein of "The King's Speech." Well, perhaps in broad strokes, but unlike Tom Hooper's wildly overrated Oscar-winner, Moretti finds more depth, complex emotion and goes for a much braver, uneasy ending for his film. "Habemus Papam" is less about a newly elected Pope overcoming his fears to serve the church, but more about the expectations we put on these figures and in its own quiet way, it questions -- without condemning -- the Vatican's staunch rules that keep much of the higher cardinals and officials out of reach from the everyday world.