''A Leap in the Dark'' ( it, Salto nel vuoto, and also known as ''Leap Into the Void'') is a 1980
Italian film
The cinema of Italy (, ) comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Since its beginning, Italian cinema has influenced film movements worldwide. Italy is one of the birthplaces of art cinema and the stylistic aspect of film h ...
written and directed by
Marco Bellocchio
Marco Bellocchio (; born 9 November 1939) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor.
Life and career
Born in Bobbio, near Piacenza, Marco Bellocchio had a strict Catholic upbringing – his father was a lawyer, his mother a schooltea ...
. It stars
Michel Piccoli
Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli (27 December 1925 – 12 May 2020) was a French actor, producer and film director with a career spanning 70 years. He was lauded as one of the greatest French character actors of his generation who played a wide vari ...
and
Anouk Aimée
Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus (born 27 April 1932), known professionally as Anouk Aimée () or Anouk, is a French film actress, who has appeared in 70 films since 1947, having begun her film career at age 14. In her early years, she studi ...
, who won the
Best Actor
Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play.
The term most often refers to th ...
and
Best Actress
Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress awar ...
prizes respectively at the
1980 Cannes Film Festival
The 33rd Cannes Film Festival was held between 9 and 23 May 1980. The Palme d'Or went to the '' All That Jazz'' by Bob Fosse and ''Kagemusha'' by Akira Kurosawa.
The festival opened with '' Fantastica'', directed by Gilles Carle and closed with ' ...
.
The film also won the
David di Donatello for Best Director
The David di Donatello Award for Best Director (Italian: ''David di Donatello per il miglior regista'') is a film award presented annually by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano (ACI, ''Academy of Italian Cinema'') to recognize the outstanding direc ...
and was selected as the Italian entry for the
Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
at the
53rd Academy Awards
The 53rd Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored 1980 in film, films released in 1980 and took place on March 31, 1981, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles beginning at ...
, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Plot
Judge Mauro Ponticelli has been raised by his older sister Marta. However, Marta has been having mental problems and fantasizing about committing suicide, which concerns him greatly. Mauro himself is very busy with his job and is in turn complexed by his life to the limits of hermitism.
Marta seems to recover when Mauro introduces her to Giovanni Sciabola, a young brilliant actor with a criminal record: the two turn friends and Giovanni takes Marta out with him very often. Mauro then finds himself becoming jealous of their relationship and, feeling even betrayed, dreams of being able to kill her by pushing her from the window of their home. Fearing that being close to Giovanni Marta might squander large sums of money, Mauro signs an arrest warrant against the young man, who, after vandalizing Mauro's office, runs away.
The friendship with Giovanni restored Marta's security, and she decides to leave her brother's house. Realizing that Marta has gained an autonomy that he had never hoped she could obtain, Mauro completely loses his lucidity and commits suicide by throwing himself through the window of his house, in the way he had imagined to get rid of his sister.
Cast
*
Michel Piccoli
Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli (27 December 1925 – 12 May 2020) was a French actor, producer and film director with a career spanning 70 years. He was lauded as one of the greatest French character actors of his generation who played a wide vari ...
- Mauro Ponticelli
*
Anouk Aimée
Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus (born 27 April 1932), known professionally as Anouk Aimée () or Anouk, is a French film actress, who has appeared in 70 films since 1947, having begun her film career at age 14. In her early years, she studi ...
- Marta Ponticelli
*
Michele Placido
Michele Placido (; born 19 May 1946) is an Italian actor, film director, and screenwriter. He began his career on stage, and first gained mainstream attention through a series of roles in films directed by the likes of Mario Monicelli and Marco ...
- Giovanni Sciabola
*
Gisella Burinato - Anna
*
Antonio Piovanelli - Quasimodo
*
Anna Orso
Anna Maria Orso (December 11, 1938 – August 14, 2012) was an Italian film actress whose career in international and Italian cinema spanned more than fifty years.
Career
Orso made her film debut in '' The Bible: In the Beginning'', a 1966 r ...
- Marilena
*
Pier Giorgio Bellocchio
Seaside pleasure pier in Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th century.">England.html" ;"title="Brighton, England">Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th ...
- Giorgio
Criticism
The film was favourably reviewed by the eminent critic
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...
in ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' : " The protagonist of ''Leap'' - a judge, Mauro Ponticelli, played by the usually suave French actor
Michel Piccoli
Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli (27 December 1925 – 12 May 2020) was a French actor, producer and film director with a career spanning 70 years. He was lauded as one of the greatest French character actors of his generation who played a wide vari ...
- is mean in perverse,
Bunuelian ways...Mauro has always been protected and cared for by his older sister, Marta..He has no intention of growing up...
erunusual behaviour has actually been a sign that she is rebelling - that she's struggling to free herself from her deathly bondage to him... The movie is about family entanglements and the functions of madness...Mauro is a craven fraud...Mauro the judge is a worm : a spoiled worm wriggling in its comfortable nest...Piccoli is able to give this mesmerizing performance despite the fact that he and
Anouk Aimée
Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus (born 27 April 1932), known professionally as Anouk Aimée () or Anouk, is a French film actress, who has appeared in 70 films since 1947, having begun her film career at age 14. In her early years, she studi ...
are dubbed into Italian...Anouk Aimée is usually strikingly beautiful and a little blank - not quite in contact;.. But she's a magnificent camera subject, and her remoteness fits the situation here..''Leap Into the Void'' is a film about people who are out of control made by a director who's in as close to total control as a moviemaker is ever likely to be..there's greatness in it."
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...
reprinted in ''Taking It All In
''Taking It All In'' is the seventh collection of movie reviews by the critic Pauline Kael and contains the 150 film reviews she wrote for ''The New Yorker'' between June 9, 1980, and June 13, 1983. She writes in the Author's Note at the beginning ...
'' p 418-421
Awards
*
David di Donatello Awards
The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's ''David'', a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the ''Accademia del Cinema Italiano'' (The Academy of Italian Cinema). There are 26 award cat ...
**1980:
David di Donatello for Best Director
The David di Donatello Award for Best Director (Italian: ''David di Donatello per il miglior regista'') is a film award presented annually by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano (ACI, ''Academy of Italian Cinema'') to recognize the outstanding direc ...
to
Marco Bellocchio
Marco Bellocchio (; born 9 November 1939) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor.
Life and career
Born in Bobbio, near Piacenza, Marco Bellocchio had a strict Catholic upbringing – his father was a lawyer, his mother a schooltea ...
*
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...
**
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC.
* January 9 – ...
:
Best Actress Award
Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress award ...
to
Anouk Aimée
Nicole Françoise Florence Dreyfus (born 27 April 1932), known professionally as Anouk Aimée () or Anouk, is a French film actress, who has appeared in 70 films since 1947, having begun her film career at age 14. In her early years, she studi ...
**
1980
Events January
* January 4 – U.S. President Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
* January 6 – Global Positioning System time epoch begins at 00:00 UTC.
* January 9 – ...
:
Best Actor Award
Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play.
The term most often refers to the ...
to
Michel Piccoli
Jacques Daniel Michel Piccoli (27 December 1925 – 12 May 2020) was a French actor, producer and film director with a career spanning 70 years. He was lauded as one of the greatest French character actors of his generation who played a wide vari ...
See also
*
*
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leap In The Dark
1980 films
1980 drama films
Italian drama films
1980s Italian-language films
Films directed by Marco Bellocchio
Films with screenplays by Vincenzo Cerami
Films scored by Nicola Piovani
1980s Italian films