Madeleine Rabusson

O filme narra os últimos dias do artista alcóolatra e tuberculoso Amedeo Modigliani em Montparnasse, Paris. Ele traça as relações do pintor com três mulheres: uma jornalista britânica masoquista, uma simpática dona de um bistrô e uma jovem inocente, modelo de alguns de seus quadros mais famosos.

Num circo decadente, a cortesã Lola Montes (1820-1861) estrela um espetáculo sobre a sua vida de aventuras, marcada pelos romances com o compositor Franz Liszt e o rei Ludwig I da Baviera. Por meio de flashbacks, entramos no universo de memórias dessa fascinante e melancólica personagem.

Tapioca, a small-time thief, hides out in an elegant apartment, where he is soon joined by Cascarilla, one of his apprentices who has become better than his master. When the owners arrive home, the latter offers the wife a bunch of love letters she has written to various lovers for ten million.

"Elena" cannot marry the man she loves, so enters into a loveless marriage with the wealthy "Andrea". Gradually she falls in love with him, but he never reciprocates. Things become further complicated when a letter from her first love "Carlo" is discovered.

Produced in Italy in breathtaking Technicolor, this biographical story of Puccini (played by L'avventura's Gabriele Ferzetti) spans his creative life from early student days to the height of success, including his early flop Madama Butterfly and his incomplete Turandot. Along the way he encounters three women who change his life, including a sexy, beautiful singer (Two for the Road's Nadia Gray) whom he drops for a small town girl (Sirocco's Marta Toren), and a servant girl who commits suicide over him. Well-selected excerpts from Manon, La Boheme, Madama Butterfly and Turandot are featured along with other Puccini music, including the voice of Beniamino Gigli. Sets, costumes and production values are first class, all sumptuously filmed by Claude Renoir.

The evocation of Paris in the 1920s mingles with the rapid rise of the irresistible Caprice, a talented singer, and her tumultuous love affair with Jeff the composer. A photographer nicknamed Bagnolet, a gentle anarchist, gently monitors the activities of Caprice, who has become Lady Paname and, in the absence of morality, makes love triumph.