The Driver's Seat (film)

Last updated

Identikit
The Driver's Seat
The Driver's Seat 1974 film.jpg
Original Italian Film Poster
Directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi
Written by Raffaele La Capria
Giuseppe Patroni Griffi
Based on The Driver's Seat
by Muriel Spark
Produced by Nello Meniconi
Franco Rossellini
Starring Elizabeth Taylor
Ian Bannen
Guido Mannari
Mona Washbourne
Luigi Squarzina
Maxence Mailfort
Andy Warhol
Cinematography Vittorio Storaro
Edited by Franco Arcalli
Music by Franco Mannino
Distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures
Release date
  • 20 May 1974 (1974-05-20)
Running time
105 mins
Country Italy
Languages Italian
English

Identikit (also known as The Driver's Seat) is a 1974 Italian drama film directed by Giuseppe Patroni Griffi. [1] Based on the 1970 novella The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark, it is a psychological drama starring Elizabeth Taylor and Ian Bannen, and featuring Andy Warhol. [2]

Contents

Plot

Lise, a mentally unbalanced middle-aged woman, travels from her home in Copenhagen to Rome, where she embarks on a fatal search of her own destiny that she had helped to arrange for herself – a premeditated search for someone, anyone, with whom she could form a dangerous liaison.

Lise meets a variety of people during her journey who include Bill, a lecherous British macrobiotics devotee that she meets on the plane to Rome who tries to seduce her; Carlo, a young man whom tries to rape her on the street; an English aristocrat (Andy Warhol) who seems dismayed to make her acquaintance, a kind and elderly woman named Mrs. Helen Fiedke (Mona Washbourne) whom Lise bonds with while shopping at Standa, a large department store; and Pierre, a young man who tries to elude her by any means possible.

The film is told in a non-linear narrative as throughout the film are scenes of the local Rome police interviewing all the people that Lise interacted with as well as investigating the reasons for her strange behavior that led up to her own murder.

Cast

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References

  1. Ehrenstein, David (25 March 2013). "Sinful Cinema: The Driver's Seat". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 1 June 2023.
  2. Metzger, Richard (24 March 2011). "Elizabeth Taylor's craziest role: 'The Driver's Seat' AKA 'Identikit'". DangerousMinds. Retrieved 1 June 2023.