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Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember

© Tracy Scarpino

Marcello Mastroianni died in 1996 at the age of 72. Over his career he made more than 150 films. In Rome people stood in line to pay their respects and to tell nearby reporters what Marcello meant to them. He was beloved in Italy where many people claimed it was like losing a friend, because Marcello was always unassuming and warm. He was at once a serious artist and at the same time a lover of life, of the dolce vita that the rich and famous often live. But it's impossible to describe him in one way or stereotype him. He was as complicated as some of the characters he portrayed and as simple as some of the others. As he says in the forthcoming documentary, Marcello Mastroianni: I Remember, some people thought he was alarmingly nice and others thought he was a pain in the ass. He appears, as he tells the story, to enjoy this contradiction.

The film, directed by his longtime companion, Anna Maria Tato, is 198 minutes long, but is so intriguing and well-edited, with shots of Marcello recounting mixed with film footage (some exquisitely rare), that three hours almost seem too short. Shot in Portugal while Mastroianni was shooting his last film, Voyage to the Beginning of the World (directed by Manoel de Oliveira), he looks into the camera and "remembers" his life and career. At one point he ponders the nature of memory and declares that Proust "was a great writer but got it wrong." Proust thought that memories were sacred, but Marcello believes it's the future that is precious. This statement is difficult to accept in the face of a film all about the past, but one realizes, as the film progresses and one gets to know Marcello, that this positive outlook is part of his nature. The unknown is what one must look to, not the old and familiar.

His shaking hands belie a much older age than does his face. The handsome face of his character in La Dolce Vita can still be seen... and what of that character? After his role in that film, Mastroianni came to be known as the ultimate Latin Lover. In I Remember, he criticizes those who have stereotyped him. He good-naturedly wonders if they have forgotten his role in Ettore Scola's A Special Day, in which he played a homosexual, his role as a rough, bearded union organizer in Mario Monicelli's The Organizer, or his role as an impotent lover in Mauro Bolognini's Il Bell'Antonio. He says he often made himself up to look older in order to be taken more seriously. (He does add, however, that it was part vanity because he thought the "old" makeup would mask the fact that he was aging in real life. People would say, "Oh, he's not really old, he's just made up that way!") He says he felt persecuted by "this ridiculous role of 'Latin Lover.'"

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