''The Skin'' ( it, La pelle) is a 1981 Italian

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

directed by

Liliana Cavani Liliana Cavani (born 12 January 1933, Carpi, Italy) is an Italian film director and screenwriter. She belongs to a generation of Italian filmmakers from Emilia-Romagna that came into prominence in the 1970s, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Pier P ...

and starring Marcello Mastroianni, Burt Lancaster,

Ken Marshall Kenneth Marshall (born June 27, 1950) is an American actor. Early life Marshall graduated from Saint Joseph High School in Saint Joseph, Michigan, in 1968. After playing violin in high school for musicals, Marshall tried his luck on stage, ...

Carlo Giuffrè Carlo Giuffrè (3 December 1928 – 1 November 2018) was an Italian stage, film and television actor and a stage director. He appeared in more than 90 films between 1942 and 2002. Biography Giuffrè was born in Naples, Italy and was the brothe ...

and

Claudia Cardinale Claude Joséphine Rose "Claudia" Cardinale (; born 15 April 1938) is an Italian actress. She has starred in some of the most iconic European films of the 1960s and 1970s, acting in Italian, French, and English. Born and raised in La Goulette, a ...

from

Curzio Malaparte Curzio Malaparte (; 9 June 1898 – 19 July 1957), born Kurt Erich Suckert, was an Italian writer, filmmaker, war correspondent and diplomat. Malaparte is best known outside Italy due to his works ''Kaputt'' (1944) and ''La pelle'' (1949). The f ...

's book ''La pelle'' (''The Skin''). It was entered into the

1981 Cannes Film Festival The 34th Cannes Film Festival was held from 13 to 27 May 1981. The Palme d'Or went to the '' Człowiek z żelaza'' by Andrzej Wajda. The festival opened with '' Three Brothers'' (''Tre fratelli'') by Francesco Rosi and closed with '' Honeysuckle ...

Plot

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, 1944. General Mark Clark, commander of the

United States Fifth Army The United States Army North (ARNORTH) is a formation of the United States Army. An Army Service Component Command (ASCC) subordinate to United States Northern Command (NORTHCOM), ARNORTH is the joint force land component of NORTHCOM.

, is negotiating with Eduardo Marzullo, a Camorra mobster, the delivery of 112 German soldiers captured during the four days of insurrection. Marzullo demands from the Americans a bribe of one hundred lire per kilo, susceptible to strong increases if not quickly paid, for each prisoner. The intermediary is the Italian liaison captain

who is also given the task of pleasing the aviator wife of an American senator, and of organizing a

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

style dinner that has as its highlight a fish: a "siren" of the Naples aquarium which looks like a cooked child. Meanwhile in the slums, mothers sell their children as prostitutes to the Moroccan soldiers, and Jim, the young American liaison captain friend of Malaparte, falls in love with a young girl. He discovers she is being exposed by her father for a fee as the only virgin existing in the city. Malaparte moves in this "hell on earth" scenario with detachment. He tries to explain to the woman, during an orgy of homosexuals, that it is the corrupting power of the Americans which has so reduced the moral qualms of the starving people of the city, who are now severely impoverished by the war.

Vesuvius Mount Vesuvius ( ; it, Vesuvio ; nap, 'O Vesuvio , also or ; la, Vesuvius , also , or ) is a somma- stratovolcano located on the Gulf of Naples in Campania, Italy, about east of Naples and a short distance from the shore. It is one of ...

suddenly breaks out in an eruption, during which the aviator undergoes a cruel rape experience from a group of drunken and upset soldiers, an experience that brings her to the same level of all the other innocent and defeated women around her. The story ends with the arrival of the Fifth Army in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

through the

Appian Way The Appian Way (Latin and Italian: ''Via Appia'') is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, ...

. Among the crowd that welcomes the Americans, and amidst the enthusiasm of the liberation, a poor man ends up crushed under a military tank.

Cast

* Marcello Mastroianni -

* Burt Lancaster - Gen. Mark Cork *

- Princess Consuelo Caracciolo *

- Jimmy Wren * Alexandra King - Deborah Wyatt *

- Eduardo Mazzullo * Yann Babilée - Jean-Louis *

Jeanne Valérie Jeanne Valérie (19 August 1941 – 25 September 2020) was a French film and television actress.Pallister & Hottell p.76 Selected filmography * ''Cigarettes, Whiskey and Wild Women'' (1959) * '' Web of Passion'' (1959) * '' The Loves of Sa ...

- Princess in Capri * Liliana Tari - Maria Concetta * Peppe Barra - Taylorman (as Giuseppe Barra) * Cristina Donadio - Friend of Anna * Rosaria Della Femmina - Jimmy's lover (as Maria Rosaria Della Femmina) *

Jacques Sernas Jokūbas Bernardas Šernas (30 July 1925 – 3 July 2015), commonly known as Jacques Sernas and sometimes credited as Jack Sernas, was a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career. Biography He was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, ...

- Gen. Guillaume * Gianni Abbate * Anna Maria Ackermann * Richard E. Carr - PVT Kaminski

References

External links

* *
Filmografia di Liliana Cavani
Detailed information on the film and its director. 1981 films Italian war drama films 1980s Italian-language films English-language Italian films 1980s English-language films Films set in Naples Films directed by Liliana Cavani Films scored by Lalo Schifrin 1980s war drama films 1981 drama films Italian World War II films Curzio Malaparte 1980s Italian films {{1980s-Italy-film-stub