Budapest Classic Film Marathon 2024: The Wayward Wife

Director: Mario Soldati

Written by Alberto Moravia
Screenplay by Mario Soldati, Giorgio Bassani, Sandro De Feo, Jean Ferry
Director of photography: G.R. Aldo, Domenico Scala
Music by Franco Mannino
Cast: Gina Lollobrigida, Gabriele Ferzetti, Franco Interlenghi

Programme section "Open Archives" / CSC-Cineteca Nazionale

The irresistible Gina Lollobrigida gives one of her best characterizations in the film adapted from the Moravia novel. The Wayward Wife is the story of a love that foundered on the rocks, a marriage made for want of better, desires and lies, with a woman at its centre whose dreams are of no real interest to anyone. Jean Cocteau praised this Modernist gem that cleverly blends temporal planes thus: “The film as a whole is part Maupassant and even part Marcel Proust; but the filmmaker’s skill and the economic use of dialogue and gestures save the operation. Every second exhibits a power without recourse to tricks or expediencies, a mastery before which we should all bow down.”

Supporting film: The Garden (6) 
Hungarian animation, colour, 1993, dir: István Orosz, Language: Hungarian, Subtitles: English, 6’

More information on the Budapest Classic Film Marathon's program at Uránia >>