Mondo Cane 2
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Mondo Cane'' (literally "Doggish World" or "Dog's World", a mild Italian profanity) is a 1962 Italian mondo documentary film and directed by the trio of Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara, and Franco E. Prosperi, with narration by
Stefano Sibaldi Stefano Sibaldi (June 11, 1905 – July 2, 1996) was an Italian actor and voice actor. Biography Born in Livorno, Sibaldi was considered to be among the most successful of the early actors and dubbers of the 20th century. He began his acting care ...
. The film consists of a series of travelogue scenes that provide glimpses into cultural practices around the world with the intention to shock or surprise Western film audiences. These scenes are presented with little continuity, as they are intended as a kaleidoscopic display of shocking content rather than presenting a structured argument. Despite its claims of genuine documentation, certain scenes are either staged or creatively manipulated to enhance this effect. The film was an international box-office success and inspired an entire genre of mondo films in the form of exploitation documentaries, many of which also include the word ''mondo'' (meaning "world") in their title. The musical score by Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliviero gained considerable popularity outside of the film itself. Its main theme, " More", won a Grammy Award and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song, and was covered by such artists as
Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
,
Andy Williams Howard Andrew Williams (December 3, 1927 – September 25, 2012) was an American singer. He recorded 43 albums in his career, of which 15 have been gold certified and three platinum certified. He was also nominated for six Grammy Awards. He hos ...
, and
Roy Orbison Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician known for his impassioned singing style, complex song structures, and dark, emotional ballads. His music was described by critics as ...
.


Vignettes

During the opening credits, a dog is being dragged and kicked into a dog pound filled with barking dogs. A statue by Luigi Gheno is dedicated to
Rudolph Valentino Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antonguolla (May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926), known professionally as Rudolph Valentino and nicknamed The Latin Lover, was an Italian actor based in the United States who starred ...
in his hometown of Castellaneta, Italy. At the event the narrator points out similarities in some local men's faces to Valentino's. In the United States, Rossano Brazzi has his shirt torn off by a crowd of female fans hunting for his autograph. At the beach in polyandrous Kiriwina, one of the Trobriand Islands in New Guinea, a large crowd of topless native women run after a handful of men, trying to capture them "not only for autographs". On the
French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend fro ...
, a small group of blonde bikini-clad young women on a boat drive by a ship with U.S. sailors, "wooing" them teasingly from the distance by sending them kisses, showing their tongues and flaunting their breasts. In a New Guinean Chimbu community, a woman whose child was killed breastfeeds a piglet whose mother died. Also in New Guinea, at a celebration that recurs every five years, in a matter of hours, dozens of pigs are slaughtered by beating on their heads with wooden poles, and eaten, after which the partly cannibalistic community returns to its perpetual state of hunger. Dogs, however, are fed some of the pork and treated with affection and respect. At the
Pet Haven Cemetery A pet, or companion animal, is an animal kept primarily for a person's company or entertainment rather than as a working animal, livestock, or a laboratory animal. Popular pets are often considered to have attractive appearances, intelligence ...
in
Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...
, dog owners mourn their departed beloveds. In Formosa (aka Taipei, Taiwan), dogs are grown, butchered and skinned for local
dog meat Dog meat is the flesh and other edible parts derived from dogs. Historically, human consumption of dog meat has been recorded in many parts of the world. During the 19th century westward movement in the United States, ''mountainmen'', native A ...
gourmets. In Rome, hundreds of chicks are tinged in many colors and then dried at 50 degrees Celsius to be included in Easter eggs; according to the narrator, of each 100 that undergo it, approximately 70 do not survive the procedure. For foie gras, geese in
Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...
are force-fed using funnels. In a farm 200 miles from Tokyo, Wagyu cattle are massaged and fed beer for three or four specialized restaurants in Tokyo and
New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...
. On New Guinean Tabar, the most beautiful women are locked up in small wooden cages and fed tapioca until they reach 120 kilos to be offered as wives to the village dictator. In a
Vic Tanny Victor "Vic" Tanny (born Victor A. Iannidinardo; February 18, 1912 – June 11, 1985) was an American bodybuilder, entrepreneur and physical culture advocate. He is considered a pioneer of the modern health club. Tanny was born into an Itali ...
health club in Los Angeles, overweight women work on losing weight to recover from a previous marriage. At a Hong Kong market, exotic animals are sold for food. At the New York restaurant The Colony, canned exotic animals are served for rich Americans. At a Singapore snake store, a snake is chosen and butchered for consumption. In the Italian village of Cocullo, on
Saint Dominic Saint Dominic ( es, Santo Domingo; 8 August 1170 – 6 August 1221), also known as Dominic de Guzmán (), was a Castilian Catholic priest, mystic, the founder of the Dominican Order and is the patron saint of astronomers and natural scientis ...
's day, the statue and its followers in the procession carry live snakes. In Nocera Terinese, on
Good Friday Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday (also Hol ...
, each “vattienti" beats their legs with glass shards and spill their blood on the streets where the procession will take place. A parade of the " Life Savers Girls Association", all from 16 to 20 years old, march toward the
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
beach, where they put on a lifesaving show, including CPR on young men. Due to the nuclear contamination on Bikini Atoll, swarms of dead butterflies drift at sea, birds hide in holes in the ground, a species of periophthalmus fish migrated to the trees,
sea gull The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...
s brood over sterile eggs, and disoriented turtles move inland and die in the desert. Birds nest in turtles' skeletons. In Malaysian underwater cemeteries, sharks get accustomed to human flesh. Their fins are dried on the beach and collected by disabled fishermen, who sell them to the Chinese as aphrodisiacs. A 12-year-old Malaysian boy has been killed by sharks, and the fisherman exact revenge by shoving toxic
sea urchin Sea urchins () are spiny, globular echinoderms in the class Echinoidea. About 950 species of sea urchin live on the seabed of every ocean and inhabit every depth zone from the intertidal seashore down to . The spherical, hard shells (tests) of ...
s into the mouths of sharks, releasing them again to slowly die. Rome: In the Capuchin Crypt, bones were arranged as ornaments, and on Tiber Island, the Sacconi Rossi ("Red Sacks") guard the bones of nameless victims of the past since around 1600, which on Fridays are cleaned by local families including children. On the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, people indulge life by drinking beer and suffer from the symptoms of hangovers in the morning. They sleep standing up, dance,
brawl Brawl or Brawling may refer to: * Brawl, a large-scale fist fight usually involving multiple participants *'' Brawl Stars'', a game desarrollated by Supercell, created at 2018 * Brawl, Scotland, a crofting community on the north coast of Scotland ...
, and fool around. Tokyo has a massage parlor for men who are drunk. In Macao, the dead are covered in make-up for the funeral. People burn money for the departed to take with them. In Singapore, where 60% of citizens are of Chinese descent, there is a hotel for the dying members of Chinese families. Relatives await their demise by making merry at restaurants in the plaza nearby. Cars are smashed at a junkyard of Los Angeles and reduced to cubes. A cube of crushed car metal is sold as art in a Paris art gallery. In Czechoslovakia, Yves Klein makes his paintings with the help of some female models and some musicians to express his favorite color, blue. (The artist had a heart attack while viewing the film at the Cannes Film Festival and died less than a month later.) In Honolulu, tourists are showered with leis and witness the Hula Dance. In Nepal, Gurkha soldiers perform a rite of passage by dressing up in women's clothing on anniversary of the execution of 300 Gurkha POWs by the Japanese Imperial Army during WWII. Gurkha soldiers behead buffalo bulls in a ritualistic contest of strength. In Portugal, there is a morning running of the bulls for working-class citizens and an afternoon bull-taunting inside a stadium for noble-born men in formal costumes. At
Goroka, Papua New Guinea Goroka is the capital of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. It is a town of approximately 19,000 people (2000), above sea level. It has an airport (in the centre of town) and is on the "Highlands Highway", about 285 km from L ...
, there are indigenous tribes who attend Catholic church services. The film concludes with a " cargo cult" of indigenous people in mountains high above the airport in Port Moresby, New Guinea. These people have erected icons of worship that resemble an airport runway, airplane, and control tower using
bamboo shoots Bamboo shoots or bamboo sprouts are the edible shoots (new bamboo culms that come out of the ground) of many bamboo species including ''Bambusa vulgaris'' and ''Phyllostachys edulis''. They are used as vegetables in numerous Asian dishes and b ...
.


Production

In the beginning, as Cavara (who took the helm for European and Euro-Asiatic zone) and his supervisor Stanis Nievo' interviews revealed, ''Mondo Cane'' was a unique project conceived with ''La donna nel Mondo'', and worked at the same time (1960–62).


Reception

''Mondo Cane'' was an international box-office success and inspired the production of numerous, similar exploitation documentaries, many of which also include the word "Mondo" in their title. These films collectively came to be recognized as a distinct genre known as mondo films. In addition, the film's success led Jacopetti and Prosperi to produce several additional documentaries, including ''Mondo Cane 2'', ''
Africa addio ''Africa Addio'' (also known as ''Africa: Blood and Guts'' in the United States and ''Farewell Africa'' in the United Kingdom) is a 1966 Italian mondo documentary film co-directed, co-edited and co-written by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Pro ...
'' and '' Addio zio Tom'', while Cavara directed ''
La donna nel mondo ''Women of the World'' (original title ''La donna nel mondo'') is a 1963 Italian mondo film, also described as a "shockumentary", written and directed by filmmakers Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara and Franco Prosperi. It was rushed into release ...
'', ''Malamondo'', as well as the anti-Mondo drama ''
Wild Eye ''The Wild Eye'' ( it, L'occhio selvaggio) is a 1967 Italian drama film directed by Paolo Cavara. It was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival. Cast * Philippe Leroy as Paolo * Delia Boccardo as Barbara Bates * Gabriele Tint ...
'' (Occhio selvaggio).


Accolades

The film was nominated for two awards for the 1962 film season. It won the
David di Donatello 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 ...
for Best Production (Migliore Produzione) by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano, which it shared with '' Una vita difficile''. It was also nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 15th Cannes Film Festival, which it lost to ''
O Pagador de Promessas ''O Pagador de Promessas'' (, ''Keeper of Promises''The title translates literally as ''The Payer of Promises'', but the film has been known by several other names in the English-speaking world, such as ''Keeper of Promises'', ''The Given Word'' a ...
''. The theme song, " More", was written by Riz Ortolani and Nino Oliviero, and was given new lyrics in English by Norman Newell. In
1963 Events January * January 1 – Bogle–Chandler case: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation scientist Dr. Gilbert Bogle and Mrs. Margaret Chandler are found dead (presumed poisoned), in bushland near the Lane Cov ...
, the song was nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Original Song The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is presented to the ''songwriters'' who have composed th ...
, where it lost to "
Call Me Irresponsible "Call Me Irresponsible" is a 1962 song composed by Jimmy Van Heusen with lyrics written by Sammy Cahn which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1963. According to the Mel Tormé book ''The Other Side of the Rainbow with Judy Garland o ...
" from the film '' Papa's Delicate Condition''.


Influence

The film spawned several direct sequels, starting with Jacopetti and Prosperi's own '' Mondo Cane 2'' (also known as ''Mondo Pazzo''), released the following year. Much later, in the 1980s, two more emerged: ''Mondo Cane Oggi: L'Orrore Continua'' and ''Mondo Cane 2000: L'Incredible''.Kerekes and Slater, ''Killing for Culture'', 152–153. The films continued into the nineties with two follow-ups from German filmmaker Uwe Schier; despite the fact that they were the fifth and sixth installments, they were titled ''Mondo Cane IV'' and ''Mondo Cane V''.Kerekes and Slater, ''Killing for Culture'', 157–158. As well as encouraging sequels, ''Mondo Cane'' shock-exploitation-documentary- exquisite corpse style is credited with starting a whole genre: the mondo film. Examples include '' Mondo Bizarro'', ''
Mondo Daytona Mondo (Italian language, Italian, Ido language, Ido, and Esperanto for ''world''), may refer to: People *Michael Mondo, Papua New Guinean rugby league footballer *Mondo Guerra, American fashion designer *Armand Duplantis, Armand ”Mondo” Duplan ...
'', ''
Mondo Freudo Mondo (Italian language, Italian, Ido language, Ido, and Esperanto for ''world''), may refer to: People *Michael Mondo, Papua New Guinean rugby league footballer *Mondo Guerra, American fashion designer *Armand Duplantis, Armand ”Mondo” Duplan ...
'' (1966), ''
Mondo Mod Mondo (Italian language, Italian, Ido language, Ido, and Esperanto for ''world''), may refer to: People *Michael Mondo, Papua New Guinean rugby league footballer *Mondo Guerra, American fashion designer *Armand Duplantis, Armand ”Mondo” Duplan ...
'', ''
Mondo Infame Mondo (Italian language, Italian, Ido language, Ido, and Esperanto for ''world''), may refer to: People *Michael Mondo, Papua New Guinean rugby league footballer *Mondo Guerra, American fashion designer *Armand Duplantis, Armand ”Mondo” Duplan ...
'', ''
Mondo New York ''Mondo New York'' is a 1988 Mondo film directed by Harvey Nikolai Keith. The documentary film was inspired by the 1963 movie '' Mondo Cane''. Overview ''Mondo New York'' examines the lives and activities of Manhattan performance artists, and fea ...
'', and '' Mondo Hollywood'';Kerekes and Slater, ''Killing for Culture'', 107. later examples include the ''
Faces of Death ''Faces of Death'' (later re-released as ''The Original Faces of Death'') is a 1978 American mondo horror film written and directed by John Alan Schwartz, credited under the pseudonyms "Conan Le Cilaire" and "Alan Black" respectively. The fi ...
'' series. The film also inspired lampooning, including ''
Mr. Mike's Mondo Video ''Mr. Mike's Mondo Video'' is a 1979 American comedy film conceived and directed by ''Saturday Night Live'' writer/featured player Michael O'Donoghue. It is a spoof of the controversial 1962 documentary ''Mondo Cane'', showing people doing weird ...
'', written by '' Saturday Night Lives Michael O'Donoghue and starring members of the contemporary cast of the program. In 2010, Mike Patton released a musical album in tribute to the film, also called '' Mondo Cane''.


References


Bibliography

*Goodall, Mark. ''Sweet & Savage: The World Through the Shockumentary Film Lens''. London: Headpress, 2006. *Kerekes, David, and David Slater. '' Killing for Culture: An Illustrated History of Death Film from Mondo to Snuff''. London: Creation Books, 1995. * Stefano Loparco, 'Gualtiero Jacopetti - Graffi sul mondo'. The first complete biography dedicated to the codirector of 'Mondo Cane'. Il Foglio Letterario, 2014 - * Fabrizio Fogliato, ''Paolo Cavara. Gli occhi che raccontano il mondo'' Il Foglio Letterario 2014. (It contains ''Mondo canes original subject, never published before, and a developed critical analysis on great and artistic approach by Cavara in ''Mondo cane'' and ''La donna nel mondo'' (pp. 57–88; 187-212)


External links

* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, id=mondo_cane, title=Mondo Cane 1962 films Italian documentary films 1962 documentary films Films directed by Paolo Cavara Films directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti Films scored by Riz Ortolani Mondo films 1960s Italian-language films 1960s Italian films