Cinema Serenissima
Sometimes filming locations dominate a movie or TV series. As the old line goes, the city becomes a character in the film. Many of the world’s major cities—New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris—are popular locations in flicks, but just being a filming location doesn’t necessarily make a place a “character in the film.” That phrase requires—or should require—that it is impossible to imagine the movie taking place anywhere else. At the very least the character and essence of the place and its people should infuse the story.
Arguably, few if any cities exert as much character on a movie as does Venice. That is because Venice is quite unlike most other cities. Not only is its architecture distinctive—Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical all combine in wondrous ways—but so is the way of life. There are no cars. You are either wandering on foot down narrow, twisty streets or you are traveling on water.
If I sound like a tourist recently returned from the Queen of the Adriatic (one of the place’s quite numerous nicknames), it’s because I am. I had long promised the Missus a visit to the Bride of the Sea, but what with one thing or another, not to mention the odd pandemic, it kept getting put off in a way that was starting to seem downright indefinitely. So when the opportunity came up to combine a visit to the City of Water with a trip that was mainly to Bavaria, we latched onto it.
Needless to say, on our return, my immediate impulse was to start watching or re-watching movies. Actually walking the streets of the City of Masks, not to mention floating through narrow watery byways on the inevitable gondola, just awakened so many cinematic memories. Maybe that’s not as strange as it may sound. The Missus was also eager to revisit the City of Bridges through the virtual means of visual fiction. The natural first choice for viewing? Luchino Visconti’s 1971 classic Death in Venice, of course. Not only is it about someone going on holiday to the Floating City, but he does it during an epidemic. At one point we spy an unfortunate fellow stricken with cholera lying on a floor and propped up against a wall. He bears an eerie resemblance to one of our group who, it eventually emerged, had never received any coronavirus vaccinations and in fact tested positive for covid by the end of the trip. (Did I mention we were on a religious pilgrimage?) For such a beautiful city, it is ironic that La Serenissima is so often portrayed in cinematic themes of decay and doom.
Another case in point? Nicolas Roeg’s creepy 1973 flick Don’t Look Now. A couple from England (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) try to leave tragedy behind by spending time in the City of Canals where the hubby is to restore an old church. Death, it seems, however, has followed them. Shiver. Are those two grim flicks outliers when it comes to portraying Venice? Well, we also have The Comfort of Strangers, Paul Schrader’s 1990 adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel about another British couple (Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson) who get lost in Venice while on holiday and wind up in the clutches of twisted Christopher Walken. Anyone seeing a pattern forming?
The best thing I saw in Venice
Actually, a lot of movies set in Venice seem to be about visiting holidaymakers. In David Lean’s 1955 flick Summertime, secretary Katharine Hepburn finds romance there. In Iain Softley’s The Wings of the Dove (1997), it’s Helena Bonham Carter and Linus Roache who get caught up in romantic (and financial) complications. In Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Tourist (2010), it’s the mutually deceptive Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie who have Venice on their itinerary.
Are there any Italian films about Venice? Not as many as you might expect, but Silvio Soldini’s Bread and Tulips (2000) provides a popular example of Italians on a Venetian holiday-gone-wrong. One of the country’s most beloved directors told the story of a famous seducer in that city in Fellini’s Casanova (1976 with Donald Sutherland again).
Swedish director Lasse Hallström submitted his own take on the great lover (played by Heath Ledger) in 2005’s Casanova. Also, we shouldn’t overlook Michael Radford’s 2004 Shakespeare adaptation The Merchant of Venice. Nor F. Gary Gray’s 2003 remake of The Italian Job, which moved the action from Turin to Venice and which starred Mark Wahlberg and (what? again?) Donald Sutherland.
Sometimes Venice just shows up in a movie as an aside to action that is mostly taking part other places. Like in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You (1996) or 2006’s Casino Royale or the 2013 biopic One Chance starring future late-night chat show host James Corden.
Another example of an incidental Venetian interlude is Matthew Good and Ben Wishaw’s holiday in the 2008 film version of Brideshead Revisited. Still, it’s not nearly as memorable as when Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews played the same characters in the 1981 TV miniseries adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel.
Just thinking about all those movies puts me in a mood to head straight back to the City of Nicknames. Just as long as I don’t run into Donald Sutherland or, worse, Christopher Walken.
-S.L., 13 June 2022
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