#Luigi Bazzoni

[roserosette]

The Fifth Cord, 1971, Luigi Bazzoni

[tina-aumont]

Tina Aumont as Polly Clay in in Luigi Bazzoni’s “Blu Gang” aka “Brothers Blue”, 1973. Ebay

[ofleafstructure]

Pamela Tiffin in Luigi Bazzoni's The Fifth Cord.

[ourlittlesister2015]

Footprints on the Moon [Le Orme], (1975), dir. Luigi Bazzoni and Mario Fanelli

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Footprints on the Moon (Bazzoni, 1975)

This is a movie I’d made a mental note to see years ago when I’d come across some particularly striking screencaps. Seeing it now on Severin’s Blu-ray release, it certainly lived up to that impression, looking even more stunning than I’d anticipated. I suppose it wouldn’t have been too great a surprise had I looked up the credits beforehand, as we get none other than legendary cinematographer Vittorio Storaro on DP duty, going all out with the colours and making the most of the Turkish locations in which most of the movie is set. Now, I’d slotted in this movie this month as I’d been itching to watch more giallo, but this is probably on the fringe of the genre furthest from overt horror, as if director Luigi Bazzoni (who previously collaborated with Storaro on the similarly gorgeous Fifth Cord) wanted to strip away most of the violence and purify the genre into a psychological study. So it is perhaps not ideal Spooky Season viewing outside of some nightmare (or flashback?) sequences and some late bloodletting, although the results feel like a cross between the work of two other notable directors, one of whom has dabbled in more Spooky Season fare than the other.

On the less spooky side, the way this frames a sense of psychological unmooring and detachment against unfeeling surroundings brings to mind the films of Michelangelo Antonioni. In particular, the earlier sections in Rome with the gleaming modern buildings have some of the same science fiction quality of Red Desert and L’Eclisse. (I watched the Italian cut, which on top of classing things up probably invited this comparison further. Perhaps the American cut with its English audio would make it play closer to the rest of the genre.) On the more spooky side, the sense of narrative drift and the appreciative exoticism with which this views its Turkish locations brings to mind such qualities common in Jess Franco’s work. The relationship between the psyche and one’s surroundings, particularly in terms of architecture and décor, is a common theme in giallo, but what I think makes this closer to the work of those two directors than to the rest of the genre is that I find that most giallo externalizes psychological fracturing, whereas this movie and those other directors almost clamp it down. In one you’re pushed to scream, in the other you’re shushed into silence.

If anything, I wished this almost worked on the level of pure drift, like an ouroboros of mood, unreconciled clues and psychological unease, and I find the denouement a little unsatisfying, if only because it puts and end to the proceedings. But I can see myself warming up to this further in the future, with more time to drift along with the movie.

[theageofthemovies]

"Le orme" (aka "The Footsteps"; Luigi Bazzoni, 1975).

The (short) story of this lightly imperfect but amazing Italian S/F mystery movie is about the double life of Alice (Florinda Bolkan), a woman obsessed by the hidden experiment that a scientist (Klaus Kinski) seems to perform on an astronaut: soon she is prey of a doubt: there is really a man who wants to kill her or is it just a fruit of his schizophrenia? (I stop here).

The genre of the movie can be a sort of "psychodrama with parascientific implications" (the footsteps of the title are those of the astronaut on the moon) that, through minimal devices, is able to create a pervading (and fascinating) atmosphere of mystery. The fact it (the movie) fails to reach a satisfactory melting among all the motives it presents, is its only (forgivable) flaw.

Great photography of Vittorio Storaro.

R.M.

R.M.

[filippotenebra]

"Le orme"; Luigi Bazzoni (1975).

[casino-bunker]

The Fifth Cord aka Giornata nera per l'ariete (1971), Luigi Bazzoni

[wonderfulstills]

The Fifth Cord

[ Luigi Bazzoni • 1971 ]

[michaelcoffeysthoughts]

Watched Today: Footprints (on the Moon) (1975)

[roserosette]

The Fifth Cord, 1971, Luigi Bazzoni

[tina-aumont]

Two "L'Uomo, L'Orgoglio, Las Vendetta" (Luigi Bazzoni, 1967) lobby cards showing Franco Nero as Don José and Tina Aumont as Carmen.

Ebay.

[wakeupkiss]

La Donna del Lago, Franco Rossellini and Luigi Bazzoni, 1965

[ourlittlesister2015]

Footprints on the Moon [Le Orme] (1975), dir. Luigi Bazzoni and Mario Fanelli

[elliotpsmoke-blog]

'Footprints on the Moon,' directed by Luigi Bazzoni

Movie, 1975 Mystery film, featuring memories of an experiment on the moon and an amnesiac interpreter’s stay in an idyllic Turkish setting. While some of the technical aspects of the film feel stifled and jumpy, on occasion, the film has a great, unsettling power, as both Alice (the main protagonist) and the viewer try and put her story together. Visually, there are also some fine moments, and…

[60sfactorygirl]

Virna Lisi in 'La donna del lago' (1965) dir. Franco Rossellini and Luigi Bazzoni.