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LEISURE

Posing for bucks: Gladiator does it again!

Gore Vidal

On a recent visit to Rome, many scenes seen through a cinematic lens came flooding fast and furiously. Triggered by close-up views of trattorias with their red and white checked table linen, and historic cafes with crimson velvet banquettes and equally by wafting aromas of crispy fried vegetables in olive oil and steamy cooking and garlicky sauces from near-by kitchens, it was a throwback to campus days, movies and the sweet life.

On Stazione Termini platform, ages ago, didn’t the millionaire Rock Hudson look sheepish and confused warding off a bambino thrust into his arms by a babbling Gina Lollobrigida? Passers-by paused to watch the drama and looked disapprovingly at the handsome Hudson. Yes, Robert Mulligan’s fluffy comedy, “Come September” (1961) was just one movie with an Italian connection.

Another movie to make huge impression was Negulesco’s “Three Coins in the Fountain” (1954). Three moon-struck secretaries are out on a Roman holiday seeking rich husbands. They fling coins into the Nicola Salvi’s Fontana di Trevi and hope to return to the city and have their dreams come true.

Magically, the guys appear, and a happy conclusion ensues for all — including its moviemakers who smiled all the way to the bank.

On a more dramatic note, we had an avian view of Roman streets and buildings and sunbathing beauties on rooftops as reporter Marcello Mastroianni, in a helicopter, tailed another chopper carting a Jesus statue.

While St. Peter’s, the Coliseum and other sights flew by, audiences held their breath when a blonde sizzler in a low cut evening dress frolicked inside the Baroque style Trevi. Anita Ekberg’s iconic scene in Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (1960) created worldwide ripples.

To be sure, “glamour, models, artists, fashion” abound in that area between Piazza del Popolo, Trevi and Via Veneto. Starting out from Porta Pinciana, crossing the wide, square-like space named after director Fellini, and proceeding down Via Veneto, is like stepping back in time and into the symbolic footage of a great many films shot there.

On our visit, a surge of humanity was at Trevi tossing coins. Every inch of the place was taken. On the same square of the fountain, perhaps on a less crowded day, the naive princess Audrey Hepburn on a state visit gave her attendants the slip to do the town, followed by reporter Gregory Peck. It was here in this square she had her long hair cut at a small saloon. That much-celebrated scene from William Wyler’s “Roman Holiday” (1954), was filmed a stone’s throw away from Trevi.

From the same vicinity, the Piazza di Spagna, the legendary Spanish Steps and the 16th century Trinita dei Monti have found their way into scores of movies. Some halfway up in the middle, a young Hepburn once sat relishing a gelato in Wyler’s movie.

At the top, there are panoramic views of the city but I was more interested in the crowded piazza and steps below. Sure enough, an old flower-seller was there, beckoning tourists. Just like in the movies.

The 2000-year-old “temple to all the gods”, Pantheon delights moviemakers, audiences and visitors alike no matter how many times seen or done.

Facing the giant rotund structure is a famous sidewalk café, woven into many movies. Remember the broke Joe Bradley in “Roman Holiday” regally ordering “Champagne per la signorina, and cold coffee for me?” On our outing, we found actors dressed in handsome ancient Roman clothing, looking like extras from “Quo Vadis”, “Cleopatra” or “Gladiator” waiting to pose with tourists for a buck or two.

How can one be in Rome and not be romantic? In De Sica’s “Yesterday Today and Tomorrow” (1963), Sophia Loren entertains wealthy clients in her little apartment. From a nearby terrace, a wide-eyed young seminarian watches the goings-on. The novice flips for the buxom beauty. The novice’s worried grandmother tries to “save” him by shutting out Loren and her lover, Marcello Mastroianni. But it’s too late. Loren is performing a striptease to please her man…and the seminarian is now smitten beyond holy relief!

But well before he shot those scenes, De Sica made a post-WWII movie using the same sidewalk of Piazza Barberini and the tunnel for the neorealist classic, “The Bicycle Thief” (1948).

At that spot, the protagonist parks his retrieved-from-the-pawnshop bicycle and gets to work, pasting cinema posters. That’s when his bicycle is stolen. The startled man abandons the Rita Hayworth poster to catch the thief. The hopeless chase with a young son crying and running behind father moves the audience with the proverbial lump in throat but not before a host of post-war Rome scenes unfold in quick dramatic black and white succession.

In a more recent film, the Palazzo Taverna, a grand old palace located between Piazza Navona and the 139 AD Castel Sant Angelo, is where lives Henry Jame’s unhappily married heroine, Nicole Kidman in Jane Campion’s “Portrait of a Lady” (1996). Passing by the famous location, one senses the tension between her and the conniving husband, John Malkovich. When evening shadows, amber lights come on and the castle gorgeously reflects on the stream, the scene comes as a welcome distraction.

And so it goes on year after year, movie after movie. Even if realistic portrayals of the contemporary capital are few and far between, experts opine that no other world city has dominated the celluloid screen as much as Rome.

Movie directors may have captured a fair bit: from chases to pedestrian brawls to high society intrigues and shenanigans, from mysterious and bewildering suggestions to the easy make-believe. Now the municipal authorities have captured these memorable cinematic scenes in a book. Die-hard movie-buffs will pore over the book, Rome, The Great Movie Set, watch movies set in Rome, and gleefully hotfoot it to the locales.

De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief (1948)

Wyler’s Roman Holiday (1953)

Negulesco’s Three Coins in the Fountain (1954)

Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady (1996)

Fellini’s “Nights of Cabria” (1957)

Germi’s “Divorce, Italian Style” (1961)

Mankeiwicz’ “Cleopatra” (1963)

Mann’s “The Fall of the Roman Empire” (1964)

Reed’s “The Agony and the Ecstasy” (1965)

Frank’s “Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell” (1968)

Jarmusch’s “Night on Earth” (1991)

Bertolucci’s Beseiged (1998)

Scott’s Gladiator (2000)

Purcell’s When in Rome (2002)

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