Il giorno della prima di Close Up (1996)

Director:

Nanni Moretti

Genre:

Short

Plot:

The work and obsessions of director Nanni Moretti when the Iranian movie "Close Up" is scheduled to open in the movie theater he owns in Rome. Attention to details and above all a great love for cinema at its best. |

Cast

Fabia Bergamo
Paolo Di Virgilio
Paola Orfei
Fausto Polacco
Amleto Vitali
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nanni Moretti	...	Himself

Also Known As:

Le jour de la première de Close-up (France)
Opening Day of Close-Up
Am Tag der Premiere von Close Up (Germany) [de]
I premiera tou Close Up (Greece) (festival title) [el]

Runtime:

7 min

Country:

Italy | France

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Certification:

Italy:T

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Canal+

Movie Connections:

Features Nema-ye Nazdik (1990)

Comic homage to a modern masterpiece.

Nanni Moretti is a popular Italian director, often compared to Woody Allen, who makes deceptively simple essay-films which blur the line between 'documentary' and 'fiction'. 'Close-Up', by Abbas Kiarostami, is another film without a clear-cut line between these two modes. The enduring image of Moretti, from his film 'Dear Diary', is of the helmeted director riding his scooter. The most famous image from 'Close-Up' is of two men on a motorcycle, the passenger carrying a pot of flowers.

According to this short, Moretti is also the proprietor of what is often quaintly called an arthouse cinema; and he is about to exhibit Kiarostami's film. The short begins with him reaming off a load of figures, the individual grosses of 'The Lion King', which seem phenomenal, but, being in lire, you'd never know. One might expect the film to be a kind of David and Goliath story, the humble, low-budget Iranian docudrama versus the might of Disney's greatest earner.

Moretti's persona in this film is irritable and nervous to the point of obnoxiousness. He checks the sandwiches his staff have prepared for the spectators; he berates his receptionist for calling 'Close-Up' merely 'an Iranian film'; he lambasts customers more concerned with parking than cinema. He truly loves this movie, and invokes Kurosawa in its defence. In the film's most moving moment, he takes a peek at the film behind the door, his 'reframing' of the frame perhaps showing how such a humanist work from an alien, private culture, becomes universal, transcends culture.

Whether the fact that less than a hundred people actually go to see it on the day is a cause for depression is up to you - they all enjoyed it, and maybe that, and sandwiches, are all we can hope for in the face of the roaring mouse.