White Nights, La Notte & Many Nights of Marcello Mastroianni

  • White Nights

    He was discovered by director Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave him the starring part in his Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation Le Notti Bianche (1957)

    He died of pancreatic cancer on December 19, 1996.’

    Federico Fellini nicknamed him “Snaporaz” while they are working on La Dolce Vita (1960); 20 years later this was the name of the character he played in City of Women (1980).

    From 1971 to 1975 he had an intense relationship with french actress Catherine Deneuve. She was at his bedside when he died, along with their daughter, Chiara Mastroianni.(via)

    Mastroianni was directed by Visconti only twice..both literary adaptations one by Dostovesky and another by Camus L’Etranger with Anna Karina.

  • Four Nights a Dreamer by Robert Bresson is also based on White Nights.

    Two Lovers is a 2008 American romantic drama film, taking its inspiration from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story “White Nights”,[2] which had already been turned into a film 7 times, first by Luchino Visconti: Le Notti Bianche (1957)

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    Bardot, Marcello and Louis Malle while filming La Vie Privee (the private life).
    BB and MM shared a birthday both born on Sept 28.

    During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. (via)

  • Chiara Mastroianni: I only saw my parents together on screen

    Her favourite film her mother has been in is Roman Polanski’s London-set Repulsion and of her father’s films she likes Divorce Italian Style and What Time Is It?

    But since my father died [in 1996], I’m beginning to see what a lucky thing it is to have him around still. He was one of those actors who was actually quite like his on-screen characters.

    “But what really sticks is the voice. You can hear it in another room and it’s like he’s still there. That’s what gets me after all this time – an echo.”

  • On his role in La notte (1961): I was a little bit disappointed because I felt that the character, this writer suffering a crisis, was a little bit conventional. Perhaps I would have preferred him to be more angry, more cynical, but then I probably wouldn’t have been able to play him anyway. I suppose I felt that I had an example of a writer before me: my friend, Ennio Flaiano. And somehow or other, I don’t know why, I felt that this writer should be like him, which obviously wasn’t what Antonioni intended. So there was a sort of incomprehension between me and the director. As I went along I lost of that joy, that enthusiasm I had felt which had made me want to do the film. This was the state of mind I was while I was making the film. I would liked to be closer to Antonioni but it wasn’t possible. I don’t know if it was my fault or whether it was because he (and it is something he has always said) prefers not to have much interaction with the actors. (via)

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