the internet is weird
you may have heard about this thing that started on tumblr & got kind of big. this post on tumblr explains where it started. basically, someone got boots with a label that mentioned a scorsese produced movie from like 1973 that doesn’t exist. and it snowballed from there. someone made a poster with the cast. people have done fanart (including a review from gene siskel before he joined ebert on TV), fan fiction, some have even created music for it.
There’s a tv tropes page which is the movie in a way. i think there are gifs or stills from movies of the mid ‘70s with actors from the poster & lines they made up too. If you click on the this tag on tumblr you can see what people have made.
so, i decided to go join in the madness.
it was either 11th or 12 grade where i had an english teacher who was really into this movie. like the 5 movies to have on a deserted island kind of thing. she saw it a year after it came out at her hometown’s $1 theater & ended up seeing it like 10 times that summer.
she had been using it in her curriculum for a few years as some kind of example of russian stories outside of russia. i don’t know, it was a third rate school system. anyway, she had a bootleg copy (& before it was released on VHS & DVD in the late ‘90s they were all bootleg copies) of the director’s cut. she recorded it off of HBO the one & only time they showed it in like 1980. this thing was nearly three hours long, which i don’t mind for a marvel movie, but for this it was at least an hour & a half too long. she showed it to us over three classes during the week. then we had to write a 200, or more, word report on it.
i don’t remember much; mostly all of the clocks and watches (& the ticking, even in the score). icepick joe’s cats, the long shots of naples scenery, the soundtrack, the gag with katya eating the neapolitan ice cream and a few lines/scenes. like when andri says to goncharov during the money counting scene; “it sure beats throwing pots in the old country, doesn't it?” the teacher later explained that the goncharov is equivalent to the english word potter & it probably means that his family made pottery at one point. and when sofia says to katya; “of course i lied. i couldn’t be expected to tell the truth in a situation like that.” the scene of mario ambrosini driving goncharov around & pointing out what businesses are fronts for the mafia. and the one with mikhailov & katya talking about one of the last times they saw one another at a relative’s funeral. both of which the teacher said were not in the original release of the movie.
i got 110% on my report because the teacher liked that i wrote; “forget checkov’s gun, at that point it was checkov’s armory.” and that i noticed the neapolitan pastries in the bakery scene. which helped be maintain my C average in that class when we had to do a report on the red badge of courage a month later & i called it an example of toxic masculinity. the teacher wrote on it that she “was disappointed with my interpretation” and gave me a B- on it.
my brother had the same teacher, but it was three years & a divorce later (he left her for his younger & thinner secretary) and she was just phoning it in until she could retire. he didn’t have to watch the film because some parents complained about the content. so his class got a badly mimeographed copy of the script (for the original theatrical release, i think) to read in class & had to do a report as well. she retired the next year and last i heard was living with a Polish man who painted portraits of people’s pets.
if you can, i recommend reading the novel in the streets of naples by albert d. forbes (forbes is rumored to be the real last name of Matteo JWHJ0715), the plot runs parallel, and at times intersects, with the plot of goncharov. it came out around the same time as the movie & had a limited reprinting when the DVD came out. i had a copy of the original printing with the edward gorey style art cover, which is better than the stock photo of a street in naples they used for the reprinting, imho.
it’s about an american university exchange student josephine “jo” king who spends an eventful year in naples trying to study archeology. she immediately makes a connection with the children of her exchange family; caprice “pri” who’s her age & her older brother mattia “matt” who work at the local hotel where some of the action takes place as a cocktail waitress and a cabana boy.
pri wants to open a nice clothing thrift store, mainly because she buys a lot of clothes from thrift stores & is running out of room. matt wants to do something other than work for his father’s roofing business, he don't know what though. he spends most of the story trying to avoid getting mixed up with a local low-level mafia thug, whose cousin he once dated. jo notes that “ he looks like the kind of man to have at least two knives on his person at any given time.”
in addition to the will they or won’t they thing that jo has going on with matt her story largely revolved around her classes at the university & visiting archaeological sites. i thought there was too much detail in those scenes, like the author needed filler. and noticing aftereffects of world war 2 not only on the city, but on the people. at one point one of her professors says “the echoes of war still reverberate today.” keep in mind, this was not even 30 years after WW II & those people who fought against the fascists in their teens, 20s & 30s were now (or then rather) in charge of things.
the parallels to goncharov are mostly in passing, a newspaper story here, a character mentioned there. the intersections are just a handful like pri having jo help her deliver some clothes she bought in her thrifting outings for sofia, who pays her to do it, while katya is there. this is the scene people refer to when they debate over if pri & sofia are lovers. because sofia introduces her to katya as her “dear friend.” the same term she used to introduce katya to a baker in goncharov, whereas she just referred to her as a friend before that, after the scene where the two share a bottle of brandy in the hotel bar. the scene hints that they become lovers that night. (it is not included in most cuts of the movie).
pri feeds icepick joe’s cats sometimes and after his death is reported she cries. not for him, but for the cats and their well-being. her father reassures her that “the cats of naples are as tough as nails, with balls of solid marble. even the girls.” in the end jo is torn between going back home & continuing her studies (and budding romance with matt) in italy. the events at the end of goncharov help make the decision clear.
rumor was there was a subplot with pri & matt’s cousin, a priest with ties to the vatican, and suspected corruption within the church. which was actually rumored at the end of paul VI's time as pope in 1978 & may be the reason that john paul I only had the job 33 days before he died. but the church got wind of it & objected, leading to its removal. which may be why it feels like the archaeological site descriptions are filler.
There’s a tv tropes page which is the movie in a way. i think there are gifs or stills from movies of the mid ‘70s with actors from the poster & lines they made up too. If you click on the this tag on tumblr you can see what people have made.
so, i decided to go join in the madness.
it was either 11th or 12 grade where i had an english teacher who was really into this movie. like the 5 movies to have on a deserted island kind of thing. she saw it a year after it came out at her hometown’s $1 theater & ended up seeing it like 10 times that summer.
she had been using it in her curriculum for a few years as some kind of example of russian stories outside of russia. i don’t know, it was a third rate school system. anyway, she had a bootleg copy (& before it was released on VHS & DVD in the late ‘90s they were all bootleg copies) of the director’s cut. she recorded it off of HBO the one & only time they showed it in like 1980. this thing was nearly three hours long, which i don’t mind for a marvel movie, but for this it was at least an hour & a half too long. she showed it to us over three classes during the week. then we had to write a 200, or more, word report on it.
i don’t remember much; mostly all of the clocks and watches (& the ticking, even in the score). icepick joe’s cats, the long shots of naples scenery, the soundtrack, the gag with katya eating the neapolitan ice cream and a few lines/scenes. like when andri says to goncharov during the money counting scene; “it sure beats throwing pots in the old country, doesn't it?” the teacher later explained that the goncharov is equivalent to the english word potter & it probably means that his family made pottery at one point. and when sofia says to katya; “of course i lied. i couldn’t be expected to tell the truth in a situation like that.” the scene of mario ambrosini driving goncharov around & pointing out what businesses are fronts for the mafia. and the one with mikhailov & katya talking about one of the last times they saw one another at a relative’s funeral. both of which the teacher said were not in the original release of the movie.
i got 110% on my report because the teacher liked that i wrote; “forget checkov’s gun, at that point it was checkov’s armory.” and that i noticed the neapolitan pastries in the bakery scene. which helped be maintain my C average in that class when we had to do a report on the red badge of courage a month later & i called it an example of toxic masculinity. the teacher wrote on it that she “was disappointed with my interpretation” and gave me a B- on it.
my brother had the same teacher, but it was three years & a divorce later (he left her for his younger & thinner secretary) and she was just phoning it in until she could retire. he didn’t have to watch the film because some parents complained about the content. so his class got a badly mimeographed copy of the script (for the original theatrical release, i think) to read in class & had to do a report as well. she retired the next year and last i heard was living with a Polish man who painted portraits of people’s pets.
if you can, i recommend reading the novel in the streets of naples by albert d. forbes (forbes is rumored to be the real last name of Matteo JWHJ0715), the plot runs parallel, and at times intersects, with the plot of goncharov. it came out around the same time as the movie & had a limited reprinting when the DVD came out. i had a copy of the original printing with the edward gorey style art cover, which is better than the stock photo of a street in naples they used for the reprinting, imho.
it’s about an american university exchange student josephine “jo” king who spends an eventful year in naples trying to study archeology. she immediately makes a connection with the children of her exchange family; caprice “pri” who’s her age & her older brother mattia “matt” who work at the local hotel where some of the action takes place as a cocktail waitress and a cabana boy.
pri wants to open a nice clothing thrift store, mainly because she buys a lot of clothes from thrift stores & is running out of room. matt wants to do something other than work for his father’s roofing business, he don't know what though. he spends most of the story trying to avoid getting mixed up with a local low-level mafia thug, whose cousin he once dated. jo notes that “ he looks like the kind of man to have at least two knives on his person at any given time.”
in addition to the will they or won’t they thing that jo has going on with matt her story largely revolved around her classes at the university & visiting archaeological sites. i thought there was too much detail in those scenes, like the author needed filler. and noticing aftereffects of world war 2 not only on the city, but on the people. at one point one of her professors says “the echoes of war still reverberate today.” keep in mind, this was not even 30 years after WW II & those people who fought against the fascists in their teens, 20s & 30s were now (or then rather) in charge of things.
the parallels to goncharov are mostly in passing, a newspaper story here, a character mentioned there. the intersections are just a handful like pri having jo help her deliver some clothes she bought in her thrifting outings for sofia, who pays her to do it, while katya is there. this is the scene people refer to when they debate over if pri & sofia are lovers. because sofia introduces her to katya as her “dear friend.” the same term she used to introduce katya to a baker in goncharov, whereas she just referred to her as a friend before that, after the scene where the two share a bottle of brandy in the hotel bar. the scene hints that they become lovers that night. (it is not included in most cuts of the movie).
pri feeds icepick joe’s cats sometimes and after his death is reported she cries. not for him, but for the cats and their well-being. her father reassures her that “the cats of naples are as tough as nails, with balls of solid marble. even the girls.” in the end jo is torn between going back home & continuing her studies (and budding romance with matt) in italy. the events at the end of goncharov help make the decision clear.
rumor was there was a subplot with pri & matt’s cousin, a priest with ties to the vatican, and suspected corruption within the church. which was actually rumored at the end of paul VI's time as pope in 1978 & may be the reason that john paul I only had the job 33 days before he died. but the church got wind of it & objected, leading to its removal. which may be why it feels like the archaeological site descriptions are filler.