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October 10, 2005
Who's Afraid of Lina Wertmuller?
Just past 79, the fave film director of 80ish reviewer John Simon gets a retrospective at Melbourne's Italian Film Festival and has a long banter about her continuing career with Stephanie Bunbury of The Age. "I am passionate about liberty. I am not necessarily a feminist; I don't agree with a lot of the elements of the feminist debate," Lina Wertmuller tells Bunbury. "I'm by nature an anarchist, an individualist. I can't distinguish between men and women; I know many men with feminine qualities and vice versa." She did not suffer, she believes, as the sole woman in a man's world. "But I was by nature sweet, curious and playful. I used these feminine qualities to my advantage." ... The vision of a director simpering at her crew is not a pretty one but, again, the image doesn't hold water. Look at Wertmuller herself, with her trademark white spectacle frames; she is the loudest of women, the most enthusiastic of grotesques. She is also no misogynist. "Stefania!" she cries down the telephone to me, suddenly bypassing the translator. "Can you understand my English? Tell me how old you are! No! Just a baby! You are a BABY!" She switches back to Italian just as suddenly, forcing the translator to tell me on her behalf what a sexy voice I have. Nobody has ever, I can say with certainty, said this before; "resonant" is generally the nicest adjective anyone can muster. And what do I look like? Large, I say euphemistically. Multi-coloured hair. Bright clothes. "Brava!" she roars, her own voice cracked with age and a lifetime's inferno of cigarette smoke. "Brava, Stefania!" Who would not want to grow up to be this woman, whose defiance even now prompts her to say she is planning a sequel to Swept Away, the film that upset everyone so much, with the same actors rolling once again in the sand. So what if they are over 70, just as she is? They are beautiful!"
Posted by pride at October 10, 2005 05:09 PM
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