Alberto Moravia

Alberto Moravia

Birth : 1907-11-28, Rome, Italy

Death : 1990-09-26

History

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alberto Moravia (Italian pronunciation: [alˈbɛrto moˈraːvja]; November 28, 1907 – September 26, 1990), born Alberto Pincherle, was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation and existentialism. Moravia is best known for his debut novel Gli indifferenti (1929) and for the anti-fascist novel Il Conformista (The Conformist), the basis for the film The Conformist (1970) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. Other novels of his adapted for the cinema are Agostino, filmed with the same title by Mauro Bolognini in 1962; Il disprezzo (A Ghost at Noon or Contempt), filmed by Jean-Luc Godard as Le Mépris (Contempt 1963); La Noia (Boredom), filmed with that title by Damiano Damiani in 1963 and released in the US as The Empty Canvas in 1964 and La ciociara, filmed by Vittorio de Sica as Two Women (1960). Cedric Kahn's L'Ennui (1998) is another version of La Noia.

Profile

Alberto Moravia

Movies

The Time of Indifference
Novel
A screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia. Rome, our days. Mariagration Ardengo and her children Michele and Carla are left without a livelihood. Mariagration's money-hungry lover Leo develops a plan to take the last property from the family - the attic in which they live. Michele tries to thwart Leo's plans, but when his attempts fail, young Carla takes over.
Io sono nata viaggiando
Se stesso
A journey back through Dacia Maraini's and her trips around the world with her close friends cinema director Pier Paolo Pasolini and opera singer Maria Callas. An in-depth story of this fascinating woman's life. Maraini's memories come alive through personal photographs taken on the road as well as her own Super 8 films shot almost thirty years ago.
L'ennui
Novel
A philosophy teacher restless with the need to do something with his life meets a young woman suspected of driving an artist to his death. He finds the very simple Cecilia irritating but develops a sexual rapport with her. Obsessed with the need to own and tormented by her inability to respond to him, he becomes increasingly violent in a quest he can't name - a quest that slowly begins to undermine his certainties.
The Voyeur
Novel
At a college in Rome, a professor, nicknamed "Dodo" is in a deep depression. His stunningly beautiful wife has just left him for another man. Dodo wants her back very badly and has erotic daydreams about her. A beautiful young student in his class asks him for a ride home and seduces the lucky man, but still he wonders about his wife and her lover.
Husbands and Lovers
Novel
Stefan finds that he can no longer tolerate the arrangement of his cheating wife ... he, the husband, gets her during the week and her lover gets her on the weekends. At the same time the wife finds herself increasingly drawn to the violence of her lover versus the adoration of her husband.
Suffocating Heat
On June 30, 1990, in Rome, Marie Christine is getting ready to take her son Pietro and Paolo to their father for the weekend. As the Football World Cup is taking place in Italy, Rome is flooded with supporters; the traffic is chaotic and French-born Marie Christine, who works as a translator, finds a bag that belongs to Miriam, who must leave the next day. Marie Christine decides to find her to return her passport, but one Giuliano Ferrini tries to prevent this. So Marie Christine finds herself navigating through a hot Roman night in a city she doesn't know, among people she never dreamed could inhabit the same city.
The Belt
Novel
Vittorio, an American novelist teaching in Rome, meets the beautiful but damaged Bianca and they rapidly fall into an urgent, tempestuous affair. He's hesitant over their relationship since she seems to thrive on conflict and is constantly baiting him into physical altercation. Bianca gives Vittorio an exquisite leather belt as a gift; he knows immediately that she wants him to whip her with it. Driven by his craving for her, Vittorio complies to Bianca's desire. Their relationship escalates into a dark realm of S&M which becomes more and more self-destructive.
Running Away
Writer
Remake of the famous 1960 "La Ciociara" movie.
Gli Indifferenti
Novel
A penniless countess falls in love with a cad, unaware that he is also involved on the side with her beautiful daughter.
The Peddler
Author
The movie consists of three episodes that explore the lives of poor and desperate in Iran. In episode one, a very poor couple with many crippled children abandon their newly born baby in hopes that it will have a better future. In the second episode, a mentally impaired and isolated young man tries to take care of his senile mother who is almost dead. In the third episode, a cowardly and desperate peddler tries to escape from his boss.
Inverno di malato
Writer
Girolamo, a teenager from a good family suffering from bone tuberculosis, is hospitalized in a sanatorium where he is forced to suffer the harassment of his rough roommate, sadistically backed by an Austrian nurse. To alleviate his suffering a little will be the tender friendship with Polly, a sweet English girl.
Disobedience
Novel
Luca Manzi is a fourteen year old boy when the Northern Italy Republic of Salò is governed by the Fascists. He becomes a partisan but when the war ends he is disappointed because things have not changed as he had hoped they wood, and he decides to let himself die. He is saved by Edith who tries to introduce him to sex. Based on the novel by Alberto Moravia.
Wie de Waarheid Zegt Moet Dood
Self - writer
Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini's life and art to explain why he died. The film traces Pasolini's life chronologically - family roots, hiding during World War II, teaching, moving to Rome, being arrested and acquitted many times, publishing poems, getting into film, being provocative, and being murdered. Interviews with Alberto Moravia, Laura Betti, Maria Antonietta Macciocch, and Bernard Bertolucci are inter-cut with readings of Pasolini's poems and with clips from four films - primarily the Gospel According to St. Matthew - to illustrate his changing ideas and points of view. Bregstein makes a case for Pasolini's being lynched.
Desideria
Novel
All her life, an overweight girl has been ignored by her rich and attractive mother. But when the ugly duckling becomes a swan, she turns into a world-class tease, exacting her revenge by seducing her mother's boyfriend...
Savage Man Savage Beast
Narrator (voice)
A notorious mondo film depicting unbelievable and bizarre rituals, animal killing and cruelty, and people being killed and eaten, all by either animals or humans against each other or themselves.
Alcune Afriche
Himself
Mondo Magic
Writer
This film is about tribes in Africa and South America who turn toward magic as a means of survival and way of life.
Io e lui
Story
Rico is a not too successful screen-player. He is also a repressed sex addict. His life changes when he starts to talk to his own penis, which incredibly answers him! All his relationships and views about reality are seriously impacted by his new "friend", his penis! The "two" in fact, often have different opinions, and sometimes the personality of "it" is stronger than its owner.
Orders are Orders
Novel
Giorgia, an unhappy housewife tired of marriage with her husband Amedeo, starts to hear a voice that orders her to perform actions out of the ordinary.
Pier Paolo Pasolini: A Film Maker's Life
Documentary about Italian movie director Pier Paolo Pasolini, with interviews with some of his actors and friends.
The Conformist
Novel
A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.
Conjugal Love
Screenplay
In a well appointed villa in Bagheria, near Palermo, a couple, Silvio and Leda Pataneo, spend their days attempting to complete a novel, making love, and caring for a citrus grove that the local townfolk want to acquire. All framed against a political backdrop of class and cultural differences.
The Rage Within
Story
A University professor is being blackmailed by his own daughter for having an affair with one of her friends.
Umano Non Umano
Self
Artists and poets meet in a dreamlike space between walks and performances.
A Rather Complicated Girl
Story
Having casually overheard a confusing phone conversation between two women, Alberto manages to get in touch with one of the callers, Claudia, a painter. The two become lovers and things are spiced up by Claudia's ambiguous sexual nature and by the presence of her former lover, Pietro. Alberto discovers a pistol in Claudia's handbag and this leads to a further revelation: she's dominated by her stepmother Greta, who forced her into a clandestine lesbian relationship; of which Claudia is ashamed and wants to end - at all costs. Alberto, now a slave to love, runs Greta over. But Claudia denies urging him to murder...
The Olympian
Portrait of novelist Alberto Moravia filmed in Rome.
The Wild Eye
Writer
A film documentarian stops at nothing to record unusual and supposedly true-to-life situations.
Cinéma et Réalité
Self
In this documentary, giants of italian cinema such as Rossellini, De Sica, Fellini and Zavattini talk about the importance of cinema after WW2, and about huge moments of social rebellion. This movie gives the floor to the creators of italian neorealism.
Love Meetings
Self - Writer
Microphone in hand, Pier Paolo Pasolini asks Italians to talk about sex, apparently their least favorite subject: he asks children if they know where do babies come from, asks old and young women about gender equality, and asks both genders if a woman's virginity still matters, how do they view homosexuals, if sex and honor are related, if divorce should be legal, if they support the recent abolition of brothels, etc. He interviews workers, intellectuals, students, rural farmers, the bourgeoisie, and other different people, painting a vivid portrait of Italy in the years of the Economic Boom, suspended between modernity and tradition.
Time of Indifference
Novel
A penniless countess falls in love with a cad, unaware that he is also involved on the side with her beautiful daughter.
Le ore nude
Novel
In this sex-charged character study, a woman's husband persuades her to share in his predilection for group sex. Later, she meets a student and has a one-day affair with him.
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Short Story
Three tales of very different women using their sexuality as a means to getting what they want.
The Empty Canvas
Novel
An aspiring young artist breaks from his wealthy, possessive mother to live a bohemian existence in the artist's section of Rome and falls in love with a beautiful model who wants an uncommitted relationship.
Contempt
Novel
A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.
Agostino
Novel
Agostino is a 13-year-old boy on vacation in Venice with his widowed mother. When a local stud seduces her, jealous Agostino joins a local group of juvenile delinquents out of protest. They force him to face his budding sexuality..
Italy Is Not a Poor Country
Writer
A documentary about Italy's underground oil and metan deposits, sponsored by Italian state-owned oil company, ENI. Pictures of the state-of-the-art oil infrastructure are mixed with others of the traditional way of living of poorer Italian regions.
Two Women
Novel
Widowed shopkeeper Cesira and her 13-year-old daughter Rosetta flee from the allied bombs in Rome during the second World War; they travel to the remote village where Cesira was born. During their journey and in the village and onward, the mother does everything she can to protect Rosetta. Meanwhile, a sensitive young intellectual, Michele, falls in love with Cesira.
From a Roman Balcony
Screenplay
The ironic study of a young man's poignant adventures and sensual adventures...based on "Roman Tales" by Alberto Moravia.
From a Roman Balcony
Novel
The ironic study of a young man's poignant adventures and sensual adventures...based on "Roman Tales" by Alberto Moravia.
The Passionate Thief
Novel
On New Year's Eve, a young woman and an out-of-work actor complicate a pickpocket's plans to ply his trade.
The Dolphins
Writer
An acid portrait of Italian youth at the time, I DELFINI follows a dreary season of discontent and viciousness in the lives of a thoroughly unpleasant group of mostly rich youngsters in a small Adriatic coast city.
Le Bel Âge
Novel
Steph, Jean-Claude and Jacques work in a Parisian art shop, but they mainly work in the field of eroticism, which they conceive as a wide-ranging field of exercises and experiments.
Second Look: Fellini
Self
A four-part documentary series about the Italian director Federico Fellini. Episode 1: His Childhood, His Beginnings; Episode 2: His First Films; Episode 3: His Films with Giulietta Masina; Episode 4: "La dolce vita" and Neorealism.
Love on the Riviera
Screenplay
It is Summer. It is the right time for love, especially in a most romantic place as Golfo del Tigullio. Different stories: Dorina looking for a rich lover; Clara who takes a fancy to the young Walter while her daughter Lina tries to save her; Aristarco who gave up his career to follow Ada's, but who likes Jacqueline; Renata who is offered by her husband to Ferrari to get money; Marcello who, extraditing Micheline to France, misses the train and falls in love with her.
Love on the Riviera
Story
It is Summer. It is the right time for love, especially in a most romantic place as Golfo del Tigullio. Different stories: Dorina looking for a rich lover; Clara who takes a fancy to the young Walter while her daughter Lina tries to save her; Aristarco who gave up his career to follow Ada's, but who likes Jacqueline; Renata who is offered by her husband to Ferrari to get money; Marcello who, extraditing Micheline to France, misses the train and falls in love with her.
Roman Tales
Co-Writer
Alvaro is been in jail and so he consider himself the most fit to lead his three friends Mario, Otello and Spartaco. The four young men decide to start a business. They need only a van to start a transport company. But they lack the money. How can they get it?
Roman Tales
Novel
Alvaro is been in jail and so he consider himself the most fit to lead his three friends Mario, Otello and Spartaco. The four young men decide to start a business. They need only a van to start a transport company. But they lack the money. How can they get it?
Woman of the River
Story
When peasant girl Nives is deserted by smuggler Gino Lodi, she betrays him to the police. Police officer Enzo Cinti, who loves Nives, traces her to the Po River cane-fields, where she is working as a cutter to support herself and an infant son, and warns her that Gino has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge. She rejects his offer to protect her. Gino finds Nives, mourning the drowning death of their son. He surrenders himself to the police and then walks at Nives' side in the funeral procession.
Too Bad She's Bad
Novel
When young and attractive Lina Stroppiani, a thief like the rest of her family, tries to steal the taxi of Paolo, together with two accomplices, she can't possibly know that this will have far reaching consequences.
Woman of Rome
Screenplay
During the fascist era, Adriana a beautiful young model, becomes a prostitute after a love affair gone wrong. She meets Mino, a partisan who falls in love with her and wants to redeem her.
Woman of Rome
Novel
During the fascist era, Adriana a beautiful young model, becomes a prostitute after a love affair gone wrong. She meets Mino, a partisan who falls in love with her and wants to redeem her.
A Slice of Life
Story
Nine episodes about life in Italy in the period just before its economic boom.
She Wolf
Screenplay
A woman in her thirties is a single mother of a teenager daughter, and both are in love with the same young soldier. Mother sacrifices herself for Maricchia's marriage, but ultimately falls to her own passion, leading to family disruption.
The Wayward Wife
Novel
The ever-growing popularity of Gina Lollobrigida was a decided box-office asset when the Italian La Provinciale was distributed to the U.S. as The Wayward Wife. Lollobrigida acquits herself quite nicely in the tensely dramatic role of a much-put-upon small-town girl named Cemma. Seduced by a lad who turns out to be a relative, Cemma is tossed out of her home. Seeking security, she impulsively marries bookish science professor Franco Vagnuzzi (Gabriele Ferzetti). Bored by her marriage, Cemma doesn't realize the true value of her loving husband until it's almost too late. The original 118-minute run time was reduced for U.S. release.
Sensualità
Screenplay
Refugee Franca Gabre comes to the Po Valley with intent to use her obvious attributes and man-swaying talents to gain some security. She targets farm-owning brothers Riccardo and Carlo Sartori and uses the latter in an attempt to reach Riccardo, the older brother.
Last Meeting
Screenplay
The wife of a mechanic and tester of Alfa Romeo cars becomes the lover of a pilot. The two decide to flee together in Argentina.
Blame the sun
Writer
This short film is the only cinematographic experience of Alberto Moravia. It shows some typical themes of the writer: the bourgeois setting, the taste for detail, the eros and the violence that scratch indifference.
Blame the sun
Director
This short film is the only cinematographic experience of Alberto Moravia. It shows some typical themes of the writer: the bourgeois setting, the taste for detail, the eros and the violence that scratch indifference.
Monastero di Santa Chiara
himself
Rudolf a nazi officer falls in love with Ester a jewish singer and tries to save her from deportation hiding her in the Monastery of Santa Chiara.
La freccia nel fianco
Screenplay
Started in the summer of 1943 by Lattuada and , the because of the war that raged in Italy at the time, the shooting was interrupted several times only to stop for good in September of the same year. It only resumed after the war, in the spring of 1945, but with Mario Costa as the director instead of Lattuada. It was eventually released in September 1945 with only Lattuada billed as the director. Similarly, the film was started with Vittorio Gassman in the role of Brunello, but when the shooting resumed in 1945 he was replaced by Leonardo Cortese
Ossessione
Screenplay
Gino, a drifter, begins an affair with inn-owner Giovanna as they plan to get rid of her older husband.
Zazà
Screenplay
A glamorous female singer Zazà (Isa Miranda) has an affair with a passerby engineer Dufresne (Antonio Centa). But when Zazà impatiently comes to him in Paris she finds out that he is married and even has a daughter. He wants to escape from his relatives with Zazà, but, disillusioned and exhausted, she rejects his proposition and insists on his coming back to his family.
The Sin of Rogelia Sánchez
Writer
Rogelia, the orphan of an Asturian miner who died in a work-related accident, marries Máximo, a man as robust as jealous, drunk and violent. But when her husband is jailed, the woman will take advantage to escape with the doctor of the village so as to see the world and perhaps to form a family.