''La prima notte di quiete'' is a 1972
romantic drama film
Romance films or movies involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typica ...
directed by
Valerio Zurlini
Valerio Zurlini (19 March 1926 – 26 October 1982) was an Italian film director, stage director and screenwriter.
Biography
During his law studies in Rome, he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. Zurlin ...
. It stars
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon (; born 8 November 1935) is a French actor and filmmaker. He was one of Europe's most prominent actors and screen sex symbols in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he won the César Award for Best Actor for h ...
,
Sonia Petrovna,
Renato Salvatori
Renato Salvatori (20 March 1933 – 27 March 1988) was an Italian actor.
Born in Seravezza, Province of Lucca, Salvatori began his career in his teens playing juvenile, romantic roles. After working with directors such as Luchino Visconti, Rob ...
,
Alida Valli
Alida Maria Laura, ''Freiin'' Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), better known by her stage name Alida Valli (or simply Valli), was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, s ...
,
Adalberto Maria Merli
Adalberto Maria Merli (born 14 January 1938) is an Italian actor and voice actor.
Biography
Born in Rome, Merli is active on film and television and he has appeared in over 27 films since 1965. He had his breakout role in the 1968 RAI televisi ...
,
Salvo Randone
Salvatore "Salvo" Randone (25 September 1906 – 6 March 1991) was an Italian theatrical, television and film actor.
Born in Syracuse, Sicily, Randone debuted on stage in mid-1920s and, after some years in which he played roles of little we ...
and
Lea Massari
Lea Massari, born Anna Maria Massetani (born 30 June 1933) is an actress and singer from Italy.
Massari was born Anna Maria Massetani in Rome, but changed her name to Lea Massari when she was 22 after the death of her fiancé Leo. She studied a ...
. The version released in France and West Germany runs less than the Italian cut.
The film tells the story of a gifted but restless young man who cannot live up to the high traditions of his family and survives in obscurity, taking casual teaching jobs and living in a loveless partnership with a depressed woman. His aimless existence reaches a crisis point when he falls for one of his pupils, a beautiful but badly damaged girl.
Plot
While a teacher is on sick leave, despite his dishevelled appearance and an employment history with unexplained gaps, Daniele is hired to take a class in
Rimini
Rimini ( , ; rgn, Rémin; la, Ariminum) is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy and capital city of the Province of Rimini. It sprawls along the Adriatic Sea, on the coast between the rivers Marecchia (the ancient ''Ariminu ...
. To get to know his pupils, he asks them to write a free essay or, if they prefer, one on the writer
Manzoni. To his surprise, only one chooses the latter, the quiet and very attractive Vanina, who increasingly absorbs his attention. He talks to her when he can and gives her the book ''
Vanina Vanini
''Vanina Vanini'' is a short story published in 1829 by Stendhal (1783–1842), the pen name of Marie-Henri Beyle. Set in the 1820s during the early Risorgimento, when Italy was under Austrian control, it concerns the love affair of a young Roman ...
'' by
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, ; ), was a 19th-century French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' (''The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de P ...
. In his free time, he leaves his partner Monica to herself (they sleep apart) while he gets to know a group of local men who enjoy drinking, gambling, recreational drugs, fast cars and easy women. Prominent among them are a crooked businessman Gerardo, who drives an ostentatious
Lamborghini
Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. () is an Italian brand and manufacturer of luxury sports cars and SUVs based in Sant'Agata Bolognese. The company is owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary Audi.
Ferruccio Lamborghini (1916–1993) ...
and is the lover of Vanina, and Spider, a gay pharmacist who is secretly a devout Catholic and lover of poetry.
Daniele takes the withdrawn Vanina to see a wall painting by
Piero della Francesca
Piero della Francesca (, also , ; – 12 October 1492), originally named Piero di Benedetto, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. To contemporaries he was also known as a mathematician and geometer. Nowadays Piero della Francesca i ...
and on the way back they share a kiss. When Spider's birthday comes round, after going to a disco where Vanina sulks and will not dance, the group end up at Gerardo's luxurious house. In revenge he shows a home movie, which starts innocently with Vanina on holiday but turns into a sex tape. She switches off the electricity and Gerardo asks everybody to leave. Next day Vanina does not turn up at school and Daniele goes to the house of her mother, who with threats warns him to stay away from her daughter. Going home, he faces trouble from Monica, who tolerates his evenings out with other men but not his growing obsession over his pupil. In addition, Spider has fallen in love with him and has found a book of poems he wrote called ''The First Night of Stillness''. When Spider asks the significance of the title, Daniele says it is taken from
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as treat ...
: after you die, you have your first night without dreams.
Another friend Marcello, a real estate agent with empty properties to sell, takes Daniele to a solitary house by the sea he has allowed Vanina to hide in. After Daniele and Vanina have made love, they are woken by a furious Gerardo who has been looking for his runaway lover. He tells Daniele that Vanina was a child prostitute, managed by her mother, who has been enjoyed by most men in town and some women too. Daniele then gets the better of him in a fight and he leaves.
Putting Vanina on a train to stay with her sister, Daniele goes home to tell Monica he is leaving her, to which she replies that she will kill herself. On his way to join Vanina, he stops at a bar to ring Monica, but she does not reply and as he leaves he is professionally beaten up by the lover of Vanina's mother. Rescued by Marcello, he is looked after by Spider. Injured and upset, he drives fast and erratically through the fog. Again getting no response from Monica's telephone, he decides to return to her but is hit by a truck and killed. The only character to go to his funeral, in the private chapel of his family's country mansion, is Spider. There he discovers that Daniele was the only child of a war hero who was killed at
El Alamein
El Alamein ( ar, العلمين, translit=al-ʿAlamayn, lit=the two flags, ) is a town in the northern Matrouh Governorate of Egypt. Located on the Arab's Gulf, Mediterranean Sea, it lies west of Alexandria and northwest of Cairo. , it had ...
.
Cast
*
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon (; born 8 November 1935) is a French actor and filmmaker. He was one of Europe's most prominent actors and screen sex symbols in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he won the César Award for Best Actor for h ...
as Daniele Dominici
*
Sonia Petrovna as Vanina Abati
*
Giancarlo Giannini
Giancarlo Giannini (born 1 August 1942) is an Italian actor and voice actor. He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Love and Anarchy'' (1973) and received an Academy Award nomination for ''Seven Beauties' ...
as Spider
*
Lea Massari
Lea Massari, born Anna Maria Massetani (born 30 June 1933) is an actress and singer from Italy.
Massari was born Anna Maria Massetani in Rome, but changed her name to Lea Massari when she was 22 after the death of her fiancé Leo. She studied a ...
as Monica, Dominici's partner
*
Adalberto Maria Merli
Adalberto Maria Merli (born 14 January 1938) is an Italian actor and voice actor.
Biography
Born in Rome, Merli is active on film and television and he has appeared in over 27 films since 1965. He had his breakout role in the 1968 RAI televisi ...
as Gerardo Pavani
*
Salvo Randone
Salvatore "Salvo" Randone (25 September 1906 – 6 March 1991) was an Italian theatrical, television and film actor.
Born in Syracuse, Sicily, Randone debuted on stage in mid-1920s and, after some years in which he played roles of little we ...
as the headmaster
*
Alida Valli
Alida Maria Laura, ''Freiin'' Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg (31 May 1921 – 22 April 2006), better known by her stage name Alida Valli (or simply Valli), was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films in a 70-year career, s ...
as Vanina's mother
*
Renato Salvatori
Renato Salvatori (20 March 1933 – 27 March 1988) was an Italian actor.
Born in Seravezza, Province of Lucca, Salvatori began his career in his teens playing juvenile, romantic roles. After working with directors such as Luchino Visconti, Rob ...
as Marcello
*
Nicoletta Rizzi
Nicoletta Rizzi (1 January 1940 – 17 January 2010) was an Italian television, stage and film actress.
Life
Rizzi was born in Milan in 1940. She was mainly active on television, where she was best known for the title role in the television se ...
as Elvira
*
Fabrizio Moroni as Fabrizio Romani, student
*
Sandro Moretti
Sandro is an Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swiss, Georgian and Croatian given name, often a diminutive of Alessandro or Alexander. It is also a surname.
Sandro may refer to:
Given name or nickname
Sports
* Sandro (footballer, born 1973), Brazi ...
as Leo Montanari
*
Liana Del Balzo
Liana Del Balzo (4 March 1899 – 26 March 1982) was an Italian film actress. She appeared in 90 films between 1935 and 1979. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and died in Rome, Italy. Even making her film debut quite late, in her fort ...
as Daniele's mother
*
Patrizia Adiutori as Valeria
*
Carla Mancini
Carla Mancini (born 21 April 1950) is an Italian film and television actress.Cox p.295 A graduate of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia she made numerous appearances in films of the early 1970s.
Selected filmography
* '' Rough Justice'' (1 ...
as female student
*
Krista Nell
Krista Nell (1946–1975) was an Austrian film actress.
Born Doris Kristanel, Krista Nell debuted in French cinema, then moved to Rome where became a minor starlet in Italian genre films, especially Spaghetti Westerns and commedie sexy all'ita ...
as Martine
Production
Delon and the director clashed during filmmaking.
Reception
The film was a mild success in France, but was the seventh most popular film of the year in Italy.
Notes
References
External links
*
Reviewat the ''
San Diego Reader
The ''San Diego Reader'' is an alternative press newspaper in the county of San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prima Notte Di Quiete, La
1972 films
1972 romantic drama films
Films about scandalous teacher–student relationships
Films scored by Mario Nascimbene
Films shot in Tuscany
Films shot in Venice
French romantic drama films
1970s Italian-language films
Italian romantic drama films
Titanus films
1970s Italian films
1970s French films