Storie di ordinaria follia (Tales of Ordinary Madness) | |
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Directed by | Marco Ferreri |
Screenplay by |
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Produced by | Jacqueline Ferreri |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
Edited by | Ruggero Mastroianni |
Music by | Philippe Sarde |
Production companies |
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Release date |
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Running time | 101 min. |
Countries | |
Language | English |
Tales of Ordinary Madness (Italian : Storie di ordinaria follia, French : Contes de la folie ordinaire) is a 1981 film by Italian director Marco Ferreri. It was shot in English in the United States, featuring Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti in the leading roles. The film's title and subject matter are based on the works and the person of US poet Charles Bukowski, including the short story The Most Beautiful Woman in Town (published by City Lights Publishing in the 1972 collection Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness ).
The film's protagonist, Charles Serking, is based on Bukowski's autobiographical character Henry Chinaski. At the time, the director Taylor Hackford owned the rights to the Chinaski name, having acquired them when he optioned Bukowski's 1971 novel Post Office . [2]
The film follows the meandering (sexual) adventures of the poet and drunk, Charles Serking, laying bare the sleaze of life in the less reputable neighborhoods of Los Angeles. Serking's life takes a turn for the better when he meets Cass, a young hooker with self destructive habits. They have a stormy relationship. When Serking gets an offer from a major publishing house, Cass tries to stop him from leaving, but fails. Serking gives in to the temptation of the big bucks, but soon realises his mistake and returns to L.A only to find that Cass has killed herself in his absence. Devastated he hits the bottle in a nightmarish drinking bout, but finally reaches catharsis and returns to the seaside guesthouse where he spent his happiest moments with Cass. Here he rekindles his poetry with the aid of a young admirer in one of Ferreri's trademark beach scenes.
While successful in Europe, the film met with a lukewarm reception in the US despite its American setting. Janet Maslin of the New York Times gave the film a negative review. [3]
The best that can be said for Marco Ferreri's Tales of Ordinary Madness is that somewhere inside its unworkable blend of pretension and pornography, there's a serious film about art and sexual abandon struggling to get out. The worst, which can be said with considerably more accuracy, is that Mr. Ferreri's film is strained, absurdly solemn and full of inadvertent howlers. [3]
The film won 4 David di Donatello and 2 Nastro d'Argento both including Best Director.
Henry Charles Bukowski was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted home city of Los Angeles. Bukowski's work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City.
John Fante was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his semi-autobiographical novel Ask the Dust (1939) about the life of Arturo Bandini, a struggling writer in Depression-era Los Angeles. It is widely considered the great Los Angeles novel, and is one in a series of four, published between 1938 and 1985, that are now collectively called "The Bandini Quartet." Ask the Dust was adapted into a 2006 film starring Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek. Fante's published works while he lived included five novels, one novella, and a short story collection. Additional works, including two novels, two novellas, and two short story collections, were published posthumously. His screenwriting credits include, most notably, Full of Life, Jeanne Eagels (1957), and the 1962 films Walk on the Wild Side and The Reluctant Saint.
Barfly is a 1987 American black comedy film directed by Barbet Schroeder and starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. The film is a semi-autobiography of poet/author Charles Bukowski during the time he spent drinking heavily in Los Angeles, and it presents Bukowski's alter ego Henry Chinaski. The screenplay, written by Bukowski, was commissioned by the Iranian-born Swiss film director Barbet Schroeder, and it was published in 1984, when film production was still pending.
Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski's thinly veiled alter ego, during his early years. Written in Bukowski's characteristically straightforward prose, the novel tells of his coming-of-age in Los Angeles during the Great Depression.
Post Office is the first novel written by American writer Charles Bukowski, published in 1971. The book is an autobiographical memoir of Bukowski's years working at the United States Postal Service. The film rights to the novel were sold in the early 1970s, but a film has not been made thus far.
Factotum is a 2005 French-Norwegian dark comedy-drama film co-written and directed by Bent Hamer, adapted from the 1975 novel of the same name by Charles Bukowski. It stars Matt Dillon as Bukowski's alter ego, Henry Chinaski. Although events in the book take place in Los Angeles in the 1940s, the film has a contemporary setting.
Women is a 1978 novel written by Charles Bukowski, starring his semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski. In contrast to Factotum, Post Office and Ham on Rye, Women is centered on Chinaski's later life, as a celebrated poet and writer, not as a dead-end lowlife. It does, however, feature the same constant carousel of women with whom Chinaski only finds temporary fulfillment.
Marco Ferreri was an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, who began his career in the 1950s directing three films in Spain, followed by 24 Italian films before his death in 1997. He is considered one of the greatest European cinematic provocateurs of his time and had a constant presence in prestigious festival circuit - including eight films in competition in Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Bear win in 1991 Berlin Film Festival. Three of his films are among 100 films selected for preservation for significant contribution to Italian cinema.
Hollywood is a 1989 novel by Charles Bukowski which fictionalizes his experiences writing the screenplay for the film Barfly and taking part in its tumultuous journey to the silver screen. It is narrated in the first person.
Ask the Dust is the most popular novel of American author John Fante, first published in 1939 and set during the Great Depression era in Los Angeles. It is one of a series of novels featuring the character Arturo Bandini as Fante's alter ego, a young Italian-American from Colorado struggling to make it as a writer in Los Angeles.
Head were an English rock band of the late 1980s.
Factotum (1975) is a picaresque novel by American author Charles Bukowski. It is Bukowski’s second novel and a prequel to Post Office (1971).
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 historical non-fiction book by Erik Larson presented in a novelistic style. Set in Chicago during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, it tells the story of World’s Fair architect Daniel Burnham and of H. H. Holmes, a criminal figure widely considered the first serial killer in the United States. Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the film rights in 2010. The concept has since been in development hell.
Katya Bebb Cobham (Berger) (born 13 December 1966) sometimes credited as Katia Berger or Katja Berger, is a film actress.
The Nastro d'Argento for Best Director is a film award bestowed annually as part of the Nastro d'Argento awards since 1946, organized by the Italian National Association of Film Journalists, the national association of Italian film critics.
Ted Rusoff was a Canadian voiceover artist, actor, vocal coach, and translator specializing in the adaptation and translation from and into various languages of synchronized dialogue for the dubbing of films and cartoons. Highly prolific with over 100 credits to his name, Rusoff is best remembered for his work adapting and performing English-language dialogue for countless Italian genre films.
Torch Song Trilogy is a 1988 American comedy drama film adapted by Harvey Fierstein from his play of the same name.
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness was a paperback collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, first published by City Lights Publishers in 1972. It was the first collection of Bukowski's stories to be published, and it was republished in two volumes in 1983, as Tales of Ordinary Madness and The Most Beautiful Woman in Town.
Charles Bukowski's work has influenced popular culture many times over in many forms, and his work has been referenced in film, television, music and theater.
More Sexy Canterbury Tales is a 1972 Italian decamerotic comedy film directed and shot by Joe D'Amato, who also wrote the story and acts in a small part as one of the monks.