For the record, I believe that Violent Summer (Estate Violenta) is at or near the level of Family Diary (Cronaca Familiare), and features his most extraordinary scene, an unbelievable dance sequence where Jean-Louis Trintignant and his newfound love, Eleonora Rossi Drago, dance with other partners, eyes glued to each other, while the music of `Temptation' plays, only to end up in each other's arms.
*****SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT*****
I missed the viewing of Le Soldatesse, but The Desert of the Tartars (Il Deserto dei Tartari) was also a unique, remarkable, and powerful film. Perhaps after those films, The Professor (La Prima Notte Di Quiete) is another stunning film, not the least of which is how little time this particular professor, Daniele, Alain Delon, actually spends in class, instead he is a drinker, a gambler, a womanizer, and a bon vivant in the provincial town of Rimini. The party sequences in this film are quite extended, and feature the Zurlini theme of dancers staring daggers at others, NOT their dance partners. He has a long standing love affair with Monica, Lea Massari, who describes the strength of their relationship in terms of their `despair,' an incredibly astute remark, suggesting his newfound flame, the stunningly beautiful Vanina, Sonia Petrova, is a young, unrealistic expectation, as Daniele is really not capable of love, he is instead a tormented soul, and to prove it, she suggests she will commit suicide if he leaves her. So, of course, he walks out on her in an instant only to have second thoughts on route to his new love, perhaps realizing that he really only loves Monica, but dreams of the passions of Vanina, and in his internal torment, makes a crucial, careless, and reckless mistake that costs him his life, he gambles and loses. At his funeral, Zurlini reveals one of his most frequent images, Daniele's casket is surrounded by statues, living people who have the appearance of statues, dead souls that he has spent his life rejecting in a vain attempt to discover his own life, but the dead souls prevail in the end - cold, hard, slabs of rock, lifeless, inanimate objects that are permanently in a state of frozen disuse, another visually exquisite film that searches for the internal obsessions and motivations of it's characters.
Robert
*****SPOILER ALERT*****SPOILER ALERT*****
I missed the viewing of Le Soldatesse, but The Desert of the Tartars (Il Deserto dei Tartari) was also a unique, remarkable, and powerful film. Perhaps after those films, The Professor (La Prima Notte Di Quiete) is another stunning film, not the least of which is how little time this particular professor, Daniele, Alain Delon, actually spends in class, instead he is a drinker, a gambler, a womanizer, and a bon vivant in the provincial town of Rimini. The party sequences in this film are quite extended, and feature the Zurlini theme of dancers staring daggers at others, NOT their dance partners. He has a long standing love affair with Monica, Lea Massari, who describes the strength of their relationship in terms of their `despair,' an incredibly astute remark, suggesting his newfound flame, the stunningly beautiful Vanina, Sonia Petrova, is a young, unrealistic expectation, as Daniele is really not capable of love, he is instead a tormented soul, and to prove it, she suggests she will commit suicide if he leaves her. So, of course, he walks out on her in an instant only to have second thoughts on route to his new love, perhaps realizing that he really only loves Monica, but dreams of the passions of Vanina, and in his internal torment, makes a crucial, careless, and reckless mistake that costs him his life, he gambles and loses. At his funeral, Zurlini reveals one of his most frequent images, Daniele's casket is surrounded by statues, living people who have the appearance of statues, dead souls that he has spent his life rejecting in a vain attempt to discover his own life, but the dead souls prevail in the end - cold, hard, slabs of rock, lifeless, inanimate objects that are permanently in a state of frozen disuse, another visually exquisite film that searches for the internal obsessions and motivations of it's characters.
Robert