Kapo (1960 film)
| Kapò | |
|---|---|
 Italian film poster | |
| Directed by | Gillo Pontecorvo |
| Written by | Gillo Pontecorvo Franco Solinas |
| Produced by | Franco Cristaldi Moris Ergas |
| Starring | Susan Strasberg Laurent Terzieff Emmanuelle Riva Didi Perego Gianni Garko |
| Cinematography | Aleksandar Sekulović |
| Edited by | Roberto Cinquini |
| Music by | Carlo Rustichelli |
Production company |
|
| Distributed by | Cineriz (Italy) |
Release dates | |
Running time | 116 minutes |
| Countries | Italy France Yugoslavia[2] |
| Language | Italian |
Kapò (Italian:
The film premiered at the
Plot
Edith, a naïve 14-year-old French Jew living in
As time goes by, she becomes hardened to the brutal life. She first sells her body to a German guard in return for food. She becomes fond of another guard, Karl. The fraternization helps her become a
When she falls in love with Sascha, a Russian
Cast
- Susan Strasberg as Edith / Nicole Niepas
- Laurent Terzieff as Sascha
- Emmanuelle Riva as Terese
- Didi Perego as Sofia
- Gianni Garko as Karl
- Annabella Besi as Carole
- Graziella Galvani as Isabelle
- Paola Pitagora as Georgette
- Dragomir Felba as Salomon Lejtman
- Dušan Perković as Commandant
- Mira Dinulovic as Alisa
- Dirjana Dojic as Ninette
- Sima Janicijevic as Doctor
- Eleonora Bellinzaghi
- Bruno Scipioni
Production
Pontecorvo and his screenwriter Franco Solinas were inspired to make the film after reading Primo Levi's memoir If This Is a Man.[4] The writing process was a tense one, as Pontecorvo and Solinas had contrasting ideas on what the film should be - Pontecorvo believed Solinas' script was too melodramatic and nearly broke off their partnership before the intervention of producer Franco Cristaldi.[4] Pontecorvo also disliked the ending, having preferred Edith survive and contemplate her solitude and sense of complicity.[5]
Claudia Cardinale was considered for the lead role before Susan Strasberg, who was known for playing Anne Frank in the Broadway play The Diary of Anne Frank, was cast.[6] This later caused problem on set, because the American actress did not speak Italian, and Pontecorvo had to communicate with her through an interpreter.[4]
Filming took place at Jadran Studios in Zagreb. The culture clash between the Italian and Yugoslavian crews also caused problems. Pontecorvo was forced to worked with a Yugoslavian cinematographer, Aleksandar Sekulović, whose smooth, "Hollywood-style" photography he found inappropriate for the subject matter, much preferring the vérité-style photography by the Italian second unit cameramen.[5]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 60% of 5 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.4/10.[7]
In their book Foreign Film Guide, authors Ronald Bergan and Robyn Karney wrote:
What does one say about this effort? Pontecorvo has jam-packed his film with every kind of tear-jerking cliché on offer and entrusted the debasement and regeneration of his heroine to a sadly inept actress. The result is an overheated melodrama which does a grave disservice to the enormity of its subject, although the horrors of the camps are realistically portrayed".[8]
In an article for
Lévy contrasted this reaction to one shot with what he asserted is the garish exploitation of Nazi history in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Shutter Island (2010).
See also
- List of Holocaust films
- List of submissions to the 33rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of Italian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
References
- ^ Erickson, Hal. "Kapò". Allmovie.
- ^ "Kapo". British Film Institute. London. Archived from the original on February 7, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
- ^ "The 33rd Academy Awards (1961) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-29.
- ^ a b c Intervista a Gillo Pontecorvo, in Contenuti speciali del DVD Kapò, Cristaldifilm, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2003
- ^ a b Scene commentate dal regista, Contributi speciali in DVD Kapò
- ISBN 88-07-17033-7.
- ^ "Kapo". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media.
- ^ Bergan, Ronald; Karney, Robyn (1988). Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 302–3. Published by Henry Holt, with a modified title, in the United States.
- ^ Bernard-Henri Lévy, "Hollywood's Nazi Revisionism", trans. Janet Lizop, Wall Street Journal, March 5, 2010.
External links
- Kapò at IMDb
- Kapo at the TCM Movie Database
- Kapo at AllMovie
- (in French) Column « De l'Abjection » by Jacques Rivette (1961) devoted to Pontecorvo's Kapo, L'oBservatoire site.