Difficult Directors: Marco Ferreri

When you watch the films of Marco Ferreri, chances are you will be taken aback if not repulsed. Between 1959 and 1996, he made nearly a film a year. Only ten or so are available on DVD and a few more on VHS. He had no major hits in the U.S. market but his films have been favorites in Europe. Eight were presented at the Cannes Film Festival, two winning prizes. Four others were nominated at the Berlin International Film Festival, with two winning prizes. Two films made it to the Venice Film Festival. The Italian Syndicate of Journalists gave him ten nominations.

I can’t imagine many American filmgoers showing much patience with Ferreri’s work. What would be so objectional? Pretentiousness comes to mind. Outrageousness might be even better, especially when you focus on two of his better known efforts: La Grande Bouffe (1973) and Don’t Touch the White Woman (1974). The films starred four major European actors: Michel Piccoli, Marcello Mastroianni, Philippe Noiret, and Ugo Tognazzi. These actors appeared in several of his other films, along with the likes of Catherine Deneuve, Gerard Depardieu, Roberto Bernigni, and Ben Gazzara.

My Introduction to Ferreri occurred in Italy in 1979. A Florence theater, the Universale, showed new films every few days. My friend had spoken about La Grande Bouffe and despite not being able to follow the French and Italia dialogue (no subtitles), it wasn’t difficult to understand what was happening. Four men decide to retreat to a villa and gorge themselves until they die. Philippe provides the villa; Ugo is a chef. They have ben sated by material pleasures and a bourgeoisie existence. It isn’t pretty.

Michel Piccoli is the first to go in what could be described as a scatological explosion. Marcello dies in his roadster after sleeping outside all night. Ugo has made a pate in the shape of a cathedral and expires after eating three fourths of it. Finally, Philipe, the most reticent of the four, dies after getting halfway through a gelatin shaped like a woman’s breasts.

What is repellant about the content is what can be most intriguing. What is the significance of choosing this way to die? How is the way each individual dies important? It seems as though Ferreri deliberately alienates audiences – unless they are accustomed and amused by his excesses. And that’s a large part of his films, their surreal and comedic nature. Two of his films have premises that illustrate this dual element: The Ape Woman (1964) and Bye Bye Monkey (1978).

Both films have a “monkey” theme. The first refers to a woman with a genetic condition which makes her hairy and ape-like (see picture). It is based on the life of Julia Pastrana (see picture) as well as the beauty and the beast story (and the film’s plot plays out like The Elephant Man’s [1982]). The key to this and his other films is Ferreri’s ability to draw the patient audience into his story and reveal his humanistic touch.

Bye Bye Monkey is by consensus the most bizarre Ferreri film. Gerard Depardieu is walking along a beach in New York City and finds the ‘corpse’ of King Kong (the big ape costume from the 1976 film) and a chimpanzee. He takes the chimpanzee home to raise as if it were a human child. The film taps into a general feeling in our culture that sees chimps as adorable and playful as children, dressed up, toilet trained, and even given speech lessons. (I remember a 1961 television show, “The Hathaways” with Peggy Cass and Jack Weston, whose family consists of the three Marquis Chimps.) But Ferreri isn’t dealing with this ‘family’ in a sentimental way. Depardieu works for a feminist theater group whose members mock him for caring for the chimp because they have liberated themselves from having a ‘family’. Ferreri’s work often uses role reversals of some sort to hammer home his meaning (a meaning that is elusive even for his fans).

His most surreal film (by using reversals of setting and chronology) is Don’t Touch the White Woman. It is a rendition of Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn, only Ferreri’s film takes place in Paris in the present time. He utilized a massive urban renewal project, a desolate landscape, to stand in for the Great Plain and Sioux reservations. The anachronistic jokes of Mastroianni coming into a modern Paris train station in 1870’s uniform and his troops riding horses down the Paris streets can’t fail to reach us with their comic absurdity. The major conceit of the outrageous premise is that it unites a critique of the Indian Wars of the 19th century with the Vietnam War, from which the U.S. had become recently disengaged. Thus, in the war room, as the Army staff makes plans for moving the Sioux from the Black Hills, there is a framed photo of Richard Nixon on the wall.

The presence of Buffalo Bill (Michel Piccoli) in the film deserves mention. He is shown primarily in a nightclub where his “act” is headlining the show. He uses his ability as a monologist to promote the American ideology of western expansion (a.k.a. Manifest Destiny). I found this appropriate given that William Cody is an entertainment pioneer whose Wild West Show captured America’s understanding of how it tamed the frontier. This poking of Bill-as-Entertainer anticipated, by a couple years, Robert Altman’s similar take in Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976).

The difficulties pile up.

1. Ferreri criticizes America. Yet, in interviews, he admits to being a nurtured on American movies.

2. The “Arthouse” label comes up all the time. Another way of saying “pretentious”, which is another way of saying “boring”. His films have no formula. Things happen, especially the unexpected. Most difficult directors have this quality. Ferreri pushes it to the limit. Only Peter Greenaway’s film strike me as being more difficult.

3. His films are not easy to get. Nine are available on Netflix, five of which are recent additions. A few others might be accessed on You Tube, but none are subtitled. This difficulty is the result of the difficulties mentioned in number 2.

4. His good reviews (outside Europe) are rarely enthusiastic and often apologetic for the nature of the content. One reviewer gave several of his films 0 stars out of 4.

5. I am one of his enthusiasts but am reluctant to recommend Ferreri’s films unless I know the person watching is up for something very different. One or two viewings is probably not enough to figure out the meanings of his work.