• Source: Seven Beauties

Seven Beauties (Italian: Pasqualino Settebellezze, "Pasqualino Sevenbeauties") is a 1975 historical black comedy drama Italian film written and directed by Lina Wertmüller and starring Giancarlo Giannini, Fernando Rey, and Shirley Stoler.
Written by Wertmüller, the film is about an Italian everyman who deserts the army during World War II, is captured by the Germans and sent to a prison camp, where he does anything he can to survive. Through flashbacks, we learn about his seven unattractive sisters, his accidental murder of one sister's lover, his imprisonment in an insane asylum—where he rapes a patient—and his volunteering to be a soldier to escape confinement.
For her work on the film, Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. The film received three other Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Foreign Language Film. It also received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Foreign Film.
The production design and costume design are by Wertmüller's husband, Enrico Job.




Plot


The picaresque story follows its protagonist, Pasqualino (Giannini), a dandy and small-time hood in Naples in Fascist and World War II-era Italy.
To defend his family's honor, Pasqualino kills a pimp who had turned his sister into a prostitute. To dispose of the victim's body, he dismembers it and places the parts in suitcases. Caught by the police, he confesses to the murder, but successfully pleads insanity and is sentenced to 12 years in a psychiatric ward. Desperate to get out, he volunteers for the Italian Army. With an Italian comrade, he eventually deserts the army, but they are captured and sent to a German concentration camp.
Pasqualino attempts to survive the camp by providing sexual favors to the female commandant (Stoler). His plan succeeds, but the commandant puts Pasqualino in charge of his barracks as a kapo. He is told he must select six men from his barracks to be killed to prevent all from being killed. Pasqualino ends up executing his former Army comrade, and is responsible for the death of another fellow prisoner, a Spanish anarchist.
At the war's end, upon his return to Naples, Pasqualino discovers that his seven sisters, his fiancée, and even his mother have all survived by becoming prostitutes. Unfazed, he insists on marrying his fiancée as soon as possible.




Cast


Giancarlo Giannini as Pasqualino Frafuso, a.k.a. Settebellezze
Fernando Rey as Pedro, the anarchist prisoner
Shirley Stoler as the prison camp commandant
Elena Fiore as Concettina, a sister
Piero Di Iorio as Francesco, Pasqualino's comrade
Enzo Vitale as Don Raffaele
Roberto Herlitzka as socialist
Lucio Amelio as lawyer
Ermelinda De Felice as Pasqualino's mother
Bianca D'Origlia as the psychiatrist
Francesca Marciano as Carolina
Mario Conti as Totonno "18 Carati", Concettina's pimp




Production






= Casting

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Giannini starred in three other films Wertmüller made during this period: The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973), and Swept Away (1974).




= Filming locations

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Seven Beauties was filmed on location in Naples, Campania, Italy.




= Opening sequence

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In the opening sequence of Seven Beauties, spoken over World War II archival footage showing the destruction of cities and men, Wertmüller defines the object of her critique—a "particular petty bourgeois social type".




Reception






= Critical response

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The film's subject is survival. At the time of its release, it was controversial for its graphic depiction of Nazi concentration camps. In his 1976 essay "Surviving", Bruno Bettelheim, while admiring the film's artistry, severely criticized its depiction of the experience of concentration camp survivors. Bettelheim's own views about concentration camps have likewise been critiqued.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based reviews from 21 critics, and an average rating of 8/10. In April 2019, a restored version of the film was selected to be shown in the Cannes Classics section at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.




= Awards and nominations

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See also


List of submissions to the 49th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
List of Italian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
List of Italian films of 1975
The Seven Beauties: A medieval Iranian romance poem about the foreign escapades of the pre-Islamic Persian ruler, Bayram Gur. Framed in pleasantries in seven pavilions modeled on seven climes controlled by the seven planets followed by various sufferings, grievances and injustices encountered in seven of his subjects.




References


Notes

Citations

Bibliography




External links


Seven Beauties at IMDb
Seven Beauties at AllMovie
Seven Beauties at Rotten Tomatoes

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Pasqualino Settebellezze
• Lina Wertmüller
• New York Film Critics Circle Awards 1976
• Academy Awards ke-49
• Giancarlo Giannini
• Turandot
• Kematian tahun 2024
• Directors Guild of America Awards ke-29
• Michelle Yeoh
• Directors Guild of America Award untuk Penyutradaraan Film Fitur Terbaik
• Seven Beauties
• Seven Beauties (ballet)
• Haft Peykar
• Shirley Stoler
• Giancarlo Giannini
• Lina Wertmüller
• Gara Garayev
• 49th Academy Awards
• Bahram V
• Grok