Tag: pier paolo pasolini

Dario Bellezza: “Crazed, Crazed for Love”

 

Photographers Unknown, Crazed, Crazed for Love

For Pier Vittorio Tondelli

At night we lose sight of the Tiber.
The wind forces open your honeyed
mouth; I taste firsthand
the languid roses of your springtime.

The quick pace of a police officer
perhaps young and willing, or maybe
elderly who gropes for the stairs
confounds the memories and the sky
goes dark–

Crazed, crazed for love, to love
thresholds oblivious and rabid for trade
where I enter without looking for the gloom
within, muted lover, I shout
to get through the days, arrived
midway through life and sated,
but still unknown to myself
restless, high-wired for sex –
inclined to abandon personal grievance,
to abjure, repudiate the celestial spheres
of nightly idleness or of infected Narcissus.
I’ll trample History
out of dishonor or delight.

Dario Bellezza, Crazed, crazed for love, Snakewoman, Translated in 2025 from the Italian by Peter Covino

Born at Rome in September of 1944, Dario Bellezza was Italy’s first openly gay major prizewinning poet, author and playwright. He is considered to be among the best poets of the second half of the twentieth-century due to the veritable variety of his work from epigrams and brash love-lyrics to unfaltering political chronicles.

Bellezza’s elementary education was at Rome’s classical lyceum from which he graduated in 1962. His education led to writing for several Italian literary and poetry magazines, including the 1967-1968 journal “Carte Segrete (Secret Cards)” dedicated to avant-garde and contemporary literature, art and thought. Bellezza began his rise to prominence in the 1960s through his lifelong collaboration with the magazine “Nuovi Argomenti (New Subjects)”, a literary magazine founded in 1953 by Alberto Moravia.

Through his association with literary critic and writer Enzo Siciliano, Dario Bellezza entered the intellectual world of mid-1960s Rome, at a time when Italy was undergoing convulsive ideological confrontations in its culture and politics. Those writers who primarily influenced his work included Italian poet Sandro Penna, French novelist and playwright Jean Genet, symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud whose entire poetic works  would later be translated into Italian by Bellezza, and Elsa Morante, poet, novelist and wife to Alberto Moravia.

Bellezza’s first published prose work was the 1970 “L’innocenza (Innocence)”, a dark partially-autobiographical story of the protagonist Nino, who after recognizing his own homosexuality, chose condemnation rather than acceptance. In 1971, Bellezza’s first volume of poetry “Invettive e Licenze (Invectives and Licenses)” was published by the Milan press Garzanti. Noted for its technical precision, the autobiographically-inspired poems depicted people overwhelmed by bitterness, guilt, scandal, and shame. 

Dario Bellezza’s debut poetry volume was praised by poet, film director and playwright  Pier Paolo Pasolini, prominent in the Roman intellectual scene and a major figure in European cinema and literature. Bellezza was very grateful for Pasolini’s affection and support for his work. Upset and angry at his friend’s death, Bellezza wrote the 1981 biographical essay “Morte di Pasolini” in response to the November 1975 brutal kidnapping, torture, and murder of Pasolini in the Roman coastal neighborhood of Ostia. This was followed three years later by a second work on Pasolini, “Turbamento (Disturbance)”.

In 1983, Bellezza published “io (me)”, a collection of autobiographical poems that described his everyday life and the desperation of his loves. Seeing himself as a highly educated bourgeois man and homosexual bigot, Bellezza suffered from insomnia that he felt was due to feelings of guilt as well as the many contradictions that struggled within him. The difficulty of a secret and clandestine homosexual life in Rome was a predominant topic in both his poetic and prose work. Bellezza cites the systematic refusal of the self as the only salvation from homosexuality in his 1972 “Lettere da Sodoma (Letters from Sodom)”,

Over his twenty-five year career as a writer, Dario Bellezza published more than twenty books, including eight full-length poetry collections, eight novels, two theater plays, and translations from the French. He received the 1976 Viareggio Prize, Italy’s prestigious literary award, for his 1976 poetry volume “Morte Segreta (Secret Death)”. In 1994, Bellezza received the Montale Prize for his poetic work “L’avversario (The Adversary)” and the Fondi la Postora Prize for his play “Ordalia della Croce (Ordeal of the Cross)”

Known for his candid exploration of homosexuality and its complexities in the modern world, Dario Bellezza, in the midst of writing a book about his struggle with AIDS, died a premature death related to complications from AIDS on the last day of March in 1995. He is interred at Campo Cestio (Cimitero Acattolico), Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Notes: The Poetry Foundation has a May 2025 article on Dario Bellezza written by essayist and poet Daniel Felsenthal, entitled “Drink Me, Lick Me Even” at its online site: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/1679372/drink-me-lick-me-even

The online literary site Asymptote has two poems by Dario Bellezza translated by University of Rhode Island Associate Professor Peter Covino: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/poetry/dario-bellezza-what-sex-is-death/

An obituary on Dario Bellezza written by James Kirkup for the online “Independent” news magazine can be located at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-dario-bellezza-1303484.html 

There is a collection of Dario Bellezza’s poetry, translated by Italian literature researcher Luca Baldoni, in Volume 1 of the 2006 Italian Poetry Review available as a PDF  at Academie.edu: https://www.academia.edu/44358397/Dario_Bellezza_Selection_of_Poems_Translated_into_English

Top Insert Image: Guglielmina Otter, “Dario Bellezza”, circa 1976, Gelatin Silver Print, Interview with Velio Carratoni for Fermenti Magazine

Second Insert Image: Dario Bellezza, “Morte di Pasolini”, January 1, 1981, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore , Milan, Italy

Third Insert Image: Dario Bellezza, “Addio Amori, Addio Cuori”, January 1, 1996, Fermenti Editrice , Rome, Italy

Bottom Insert Image: Guglielmina Otter, “Dario Bellezza”, circa 1976, Gelatin Silver Print, Interview with Velio Carratoni for Fermenti Magazine

Massimo Girotti and “Ossessione”: Film History Series

Luchino Visconti, “Ossessione (Obsession)”, 1943, Film Gifs of Massimo Girotti as Gino Costa, Cinematography Aldo Tonti and Domenico Scala, Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane

Born at the Macerata city of Mogliano in May of 1918, Massimo Girotti was an Italian film and stage actor whose career spanned seventy years. A swimmer and polo player, he was brought to the attention of film writer and director Mario Soldati who gave him a small part in his 1939 comedy “Dora Nelson”. Girotti began to be taken seriously after his appearances in Alessandro Blasetti’s 1941 adventure film “La Corona di Ferro (The Iron Crown)” and Roberto Rossellini’s 1942 war drama “Un Pilota Ritorna (A Pilot Returns)”. His rise to fame began with his role opposite Clara Calamai in Luchino Visconti’s 1943 crime drama “Ossessione”.

After the war years, Girotti was starring in several movies each year, among which were Roberto Rossellini and Marcello Pagliero’s 1946 melodrama “Desire” and Pietro Germi’s 1949 Mafia drama “In Nome dell Legge (In the Name of the Law)”, co-written by Federico Fellini. In 1950, Girotti starred in Michelangelo Antonioni’s first full-length feature, “Cronaci di un Amore (Story of a Love Affair)”. After playing Spartacus in Riccardo Freda’s 1952 “Spartaco”, he rejoined Visconti for the 1954 “Senso”, a historical melodrama co-written by Visconti, Suso Cecchi d’Amico and Tennessee Williams.  

In the following years, Massimo Girotti worked with several directors including Mauro Bolognini, best known for his 1960 drama “Il bell’Antonio (Handsome Antonio)” written by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Mario Alberto Lattuada who co-directed Federico Fellini’s 1950 “Luci del Varietà (Variety Lights)”. Girotti starred with Terence Stamp and Silvana Mangano in Pasolini’s 1968 surrealist psychological drama “Teorema (Theorem)”. He was cast two years later for Pasolini’s “Medea” in which he played opposite opera soprano Maria Callas. 

In 1972, Girotti had the role of Marcel in Bernardo Bertolucci’s erotic drama “Last Tango in Paris”, which starred Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider. Although he appeared mainly in character roles for the next thirty years, Girotti was in such notable films as Joseph Losey’s 1976 mystery drama “Monsieur Klein” nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as Visconti’s final film, the 1976 period drama “The Innocent”, an adaptation of Gabriele d’Annunzio’s novel “The Intruder”. 

Massimo Girotti had a starring role in Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Özpetek’s 2003 mystery drama “La Finestra di Fronte (Facing Windows)”. After completing the filming of his role, Massimo Girotti unexpectedly died of a heart attack in Rome on the fifth of January in 2003. “La Finestra di Fronte” was released at the end of February. For his role in the film, Girotti won the David di Donatello Award for Best Actor given by the Academy for Italian Cinema. 

The 1943 “Ossessione” is an Italian crime drama directed and co-written by Luchino Visconti for his directorial debut. Considered by some critics as the first Italian neorealist film, it was an unauthorized and uncredited adaptation of James M. Cain’s 1934 novel “The Postman Always Rings Twice”. Inspired by the details of the 1927 Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray case, the novel was adapted seven times as a film, twice as a play, and once as an opera and radio drama. Visconti’s unauthorized version was the second time as a film adaptation and followed French director Pierre Chenal’s 1939 “Le Dernier Tournant (The Last Turn in the Road)”.

“Ossessione” starred actress Clara Calamai as Giovanna Bragana, the ill-fated protagonist; Juan de Landa as Giovanna’s older husband Giuseppe Bragana; and Massimo Girotti as Gino Costa, the wandering tramp who begins an affair with Giovanna at the couple’s petrol station. This film became a turning point in Girotti’s film career as a serious actor and rising star; Clara Calami’s portrayal as the femme fatala, who conspired to murder her husband, became her most remembered role.  

Luchino Visconti’s film was made during the years of dictator Benito Mussolini’s far-right Fascist government which exerted censorship over many aspects of Italian life. Visconti originally sought to use an adaptation of a story by Italian realist writer Giovann Verga; however, that project was denied by the Fascist authorities who worried that its subject matter of bandits in Italy would tarnish the country. Visconti eventually collaborated with several filmmakers and writers, including Gianni Puccini and Giuseppe De Santis, to adapt a French translation of James Cain’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice”.

Stark realism was one of the prominent aspects of the 1943 “Ossessione”. Visconti chose realistic Italian locations that were specifically rural and for the most part unromantic. His film did not idealize its characters; each character’s temperament and daily routines were captured through incisive glimpses. Visconti employed medium and long shots for nearly the whole story, with close-ups used only at those moments of intense emotion. Filming all the characters together as a complex larger cast, he used focus depth to highlight the variety of action occurring in the frame.   

“Ossessione” was competed and released in 1943; however, it was  not the innocent murder mystery that the authorities were expecting. After several screenings in Rome and northern Italy, outraged reactions from both Fascist and Church authorities led to the banning of the film and ultimately its destruction. All current prints of the film were made from a duplicate negative that Visconti had kept. As Visconti had never obtained the rights to film Cain’s novel and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer decided to produce its own authorized adaptation in 1946, Visconti’s “Ossessione” was not released in the United States until 1976. The Italian Ministry of Culture later placed Visconti’s film version on its preservation list of one hundred Italian films produced between 1942 and 1978. 

Notes: A biographical article on Massimo Girotti with film scenes from “Senso” and “La Finestra di Fronte” can be found at the European Film Star Postcards site located at: https://filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com/2019/09/massimo-girotti.html

In his screenplay of “Ossessione”, Luchino Visconti followed the general outline of Cain’s novel; however, he added an interlude segment in which Gino Costa is befriended by a street performer known as Io Spagnolo, the Spaniard. This role was played by Italian actor Elio Mancuzzo. An article on Mancuzzo’s life and his role in “Ossessione” can be found at: https://godsandfoolishgrandeur.blogspot.com/search?q=ossessione

Top Insert Image: Italian Postcard, “Massimo Girotti in La Corona di Ferro (The Iron Crown)”, Balleri & Fratini, Florence, Italy

Second Insert Image: Luchino Visconti, “Massimo Girotti as Gino Costa”, 1943, “Ossessione”, Cinematography Aldo Tonti and Domenico Scala, Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane  

Third Insert Image: Luchino Visconti, “Massimo Girotti and Clara Calamai”, 1943, “Ossessione”, Cinematography Aldo Tonti and Domenico Scala, Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane  

Fourth Insert Image: Luchino Visconti, “Massimo Girotti and Juan de Landa”, 1943, “Ossessione”, Cinematography Aldo Tonti and Domenico Scala, Industrie Cinematografiche Italiane  

Bottom Insert Image: Italian Postcard, “Massimo Girotti”, Publicity Card for Lux Film, Private Collection