Rhapsodies

For this week I decided to watch some movies about some of the great lovers of history and see what happened.

The first film on my list, Fellini’s Casanova. The tells the story of famous lover Giacomo Casanova based on his own memoirs… as interpreted by Federico Fellini. The whole thing is a picaresque with Cassanova (played by Donald Sutherland) traveling through Europe being known for his reputation as a lover and seducer while being endlessly frustrated by his desire to be respected as a philosopher and alchemist.

I’m embarrassed to admit I first elf ver heard of Casanova was through the Bob Hope comedy, “Casanova’s Big Night” and never ever bothered to find out more about him beyond confirming he was a real person.

As for Fellini, I’ve never really gotten into his work. At the time I assumed it was because I was too young to appreciate his work. (I watched his Satyricon at age 13 because I thought there’d be a werewolf in it like there was in the original Roman book.) Now watching this one at the correct age of the target audience I’m no longer sure of that.

While I enjoyed a lot of the visuals most of it was just silly and what they were trying to pass off as decadence was simply ridiculous.

My next film Don Juan DeMarco (the one from the Byron Poem not the one from Mozart) the world’s greatest lover (played by Johnny Depp early in his career.) Desolate because he was shunned by his one true love and plans to kill himself.

However, this is happening in modern day New York. So the police aren’t too happy when a man dressed in a cape and mask is about to jump from a billboard. So “Don Juan” is put away for observation by retiring psychiatrist, Jack Mickler (played by Marlon Brando) During their sessions, Don Juan tells the story of his life which reinvigorates Mickler’s love life with his wife, Marilyn ( Faye Dunaway) and in the process wonders if “Don Juan” should be “cured” at all.

This movie was… okay but it really didn’t do much for me. Depp was still in the stage of his career where he was still getting by on his looks and Brando was pretty much just phoning it in.