Marco Ferreri

Tale of Ordinary Madness

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Ben Gazzara in stained white T shirt

Tales of Ordinary Madness is a snappier title than the book it’s based on. Charles Bukowski’s Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness is the source of Marco Ferreri’s semi-doomed attempt to get the beat poet for guys (always guys) too young for Kerouac et al onto the screen. It doesn’t work and it can’t work – Bukowski is all about the voice, the words – but Ferreri at least gives it the college try in his second American movie. Oddly, like the first, Bye Bye Monkey, it’s a bitty affair with not much in the way of plot to hang onto. But that’s what you get when you adapt a … Read more

Bye Bye Monkey

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Lafayette with chimpanzee

Translating 1978’s Ciao Maschio as Bye Bye Monkey doesn’t really help the film very much. Literally, it should be something like Farewell Machismo, and that title makes a lot more sense when you actually watch the film, whose eventual English-language title has been overwhelmed by the presence of a chimpanzee in the film. So, where to start with this one? It’s a strange movie set in New York, directed by a veteran, very talented Italian director, Marco Ferreri, with a cast of French and Italian stars. All concerned seem to be indulging themselves in what looks like late-to-the-party entry-level absurdist situationism. A bit of plot will help clarify things. In opening scenes we … Read more

El Cochecito

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Lucas, the wheelchair and Anselmo

There aren’t many films called El Cochecito. That’s the Spanish title. In English it goes by the title The Wheelchair. There aren’t many films with that title either. A wheelchair is not aspirational, it’s not something people covet. (As for The Little Coach, which the film sometimes flies by, no one even knows what that is.) But the main character in El Cochecito really does aspire to own one, which makes him an unusual character. But then this is a very unusual film. Rather than confinement, the wheelchair seems to Anselmo Proharán to offer freedom, escape. He’s a retired man, a somebody back in the day, a widower who now lives with his … Read more