Il merlo maschio
Encyclopedia
Il merlo maschio is an Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 motion picture, filmed in 1971 by director Pasquale Festa Campanile
Pasquale Festa Campanile
Pasquale Festa Campanile was an Italian screenwriter, film director and novellist. He was born at Melfi and died in Rome.- Director :* Un tentativo sentimentale * La nonna Sabella...

.

Story

The husband Niccolò Vivaldi, is a frustrated violoncello player (Lando Buzzanca
Lando Buzzanca
Gerlando Buzzanca is an Italian comedy actor.He left high school in Palermo when he was 16 years old, and moved to Rome to pursue his dream of becoming an actor...

), with a static career, and not receiving any praise form his orchestra director, begins to take photographs of his beloved wife in poses that slowly became pornographic. Soon after this he begins to show the images to his friend and colleague Cavalmoretti (Lino Toffolo) and in a secondo moment to all the other members of the orchestra, in an exhibitionistic crescendo that will led him to expose her wife (by an apparent accident with her dress) before all the public of Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...

's Arena
Arena
An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. It is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the...

, during the showing of Aida.

In this way he shouted out his frustration, and arrived to be envied, when He managed to expose her most admirable and unreachable good (nobody could stole him her wife, because in Italy there wasn't divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

). And the young, beautiful and dumb wife (Laura Antonelli
Laura Antonelli
Laura Antonelli is a retired Italian film actress, who appeared in 45 movies between 1965 and 1991.- Early years :Antonelli was born Laura Antonaz in Pola, then capital of the province of Istria, Italy ....

, a perplexed but pleasant woman from the countryside) that accepts to be carried inside a violoncello's case, in order to be shown over a bridge in Verona (an idea that seems a marvelous quoting of renown photograph by the dadaist artist Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...

).

Comment

This motion picture was filmed in Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...

, and it shows many situations in the environment of practicing symphonic orchestras that at certain moment of the year are allowed to play in Arena. Il Merlo Maschio represents the Commedia all'italiana
Commedia all'italiana
Commedia all'italiana or Italian-style comedy is an Italian film genre. It is widely considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's I soliti ignoti in 1958 and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'italiana .-Stars:Vittorio Gassman, Ugo...

.

Unlike most Italian comedy films in that epoch, always repeating the storyboards of the first erotic dreams of the symbolic teenager Pierino
Pedrolino
Pedrolino is a zanni, or servant character in the commedia dell'arte. His name is essentially the same as "Pete" or "Petey" in English—a diminutive form of the name Peter. He is normally portrayed as personable, charming and kind, to the point of excess—he blames himself for wrongs never done and...

, or the arousal reactions of secluded soldiers that watch for the first time the shapes of a beauty queen (Gloria Guida
Gloria Guida
Gloria Guida is an Italian actress and model. She is most famous for starring in sexy film comedies.-Biography:Gloria Guida was born in Merano, South Tyrol, to a family of Emilia Romagna origin. She moved with her family to Bologna as a child. She first began a singing career, starting in her...

, ecc.). The Male Blackbird is also a light and discrete sociologic
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 presentation of the theme of candaulism
Candaulism
Candaulism is a sexual practice or fantasy in which a man exposes his female partner, or images of her, to other people for their voyeuristic pleasure. According to Gugitz, the term is derived from ancient King Candaules who made a plot to show his unaware naked wife to his servant Gyges of Lydia...

, something very frequent today (husbands that buy transparent panties and bras for their wives) but that was very rare at those times: the apparently casual, but carefully planned exposing of the spouse by his husband (Candaulism is classified by psychiatrist as a mania
Mania
Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...

 or paraphilia
Paraphilia
Paraphilia is a biomedical term used to describe sexual arousal to objects, situations, or individuals that are not part of normative stimulation and that may cause distress or serious problems for the paraphiliac or persons associated with him or her...

).

External links

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