Cinema
Il sorpasso
Dino Risi · 1962
Synopsis
Rome, 15 August, in the deserted city. Bruno Cortona, a loud, boastful middle-aged man, asks to use the telephone at the home of a stranger, Roberto Mariani, a reserved law student. He drags him off for an aperitif in his convertible Lancia Aurelia, and the drive carries on: along the via Aurelia, across Lazio and as far as Tuscany, from bars to beaches and from one encounter to the next.
Context
Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari wrote the screenplay and the dialogue with the director; it draws on car journeys the director had made himself. Vittorio Gassman plays Bruno, Jean-Louis Trintignant Roberto and Catherine Spaak Lilli. The film was released in Italy on 6 December 1962; in France, Splendor Films re-released it in cinemas in October 2018, and it then appeared on Blu-ray, restored in 4K, in 2020.
Who it is for
A little under two hours, in Italian. A road movie in black and white, between comedy and portrait of the Italy of the economic miracle.
Prizes and reception
Added in 2008 to the list of the one hundred films that changed the collective memory of Italy; released in the United States by Criterion in 2014.
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