by Bruce E. Parry
The first time I saw Seven Beauties, I was appalled. I thought the protagonist (Pasqualino Seven-Beauties is his “nickname”) was the most narcissistic, depraved, amoral, cowardly, male supremacist, criminal character I had ever encountered. And I’m being polite.
The film is set in World War II. It begins with a series of horrific scenes of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, German and Italian fascist assemblies, bombings, aircraft crashes, combat, and bodies from the war. The music softens the impact of these scenes. A voiceover softens them further, reciting a litany of skepticisms, each ending with “Oh, yeah!” While showing a picture of Mussolini, the narrator intones, “The ones who say ‘Follow me to success, but kill me if I fail…so to speak.’ Oh, yeah!”
The montage ends with a cut from a bombing scene to a train being bombed and we see Pasqualino escape into the woods in Germany. He links up with Francesco, another escapee. From this point on, the movie tells his pre-war story in flashback, while he is attempting to evade the Nazi forces.
His real name is Pasqualino Frafuso and he has seven sisters who are not beauties, hence the nickname. In brief, he murders, is caught and confesses, pleads insanity, and is sent to a mental institution where he rapes a woman. Nevertheless, he is released into the army since his problems are only “behavioral” and the army faces manpower shortages. The movie implies that he was on his way to Stalingrad when the train was bombed and he escaped. Eventually he is captured by the Nazis and—in an effort to survive—seduces the murdering, dominatrix, sociopathic—and also not beautiful—female camp commandant. The scene where he is having sex with her was labeled by Roger Ebert as the least erotic sex scene ever portrayed in film. I have to agree.
This review is really whitewashed for brevity. The film is disgusting in its portrayal of his cowardice, the murder, his plea of insanity, the rape, his treatment of his sisters and much, much more. It is meant to offend and succeeds. It is a disturbing film. In many ways I think the film is talking to the viewer, not with the viewer. It is an intellectual film, not one that emotionally pulls you in with empathy toward any character. In fact the characters—and all are minor compared to Pasqualino—are not empathetic at all. And he’s a jerk.
On the other hand, the camera work and overall cinematography are superb. An entire study of the film could be made by analyzing the closeups throughout the film, particularly the study of eyes. Much of the camera work is with hand-held cameras, and it gives a really gritty feeling of being there.
But I am no longer appalled by it all. I watched the movie three times on my own and a fourth with my movie group and—I think—came to an understanding of what the movie is trying to do. When I began seeing Pasqualino as a representative of something else, I calmed down. I have come to see several levels in the film and I’m sure there are more that can be discussed. I should note that someone liked the film: it was nominated for four Academy Awards. The Director, Lina Wertmüller, was the first woman ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. I am beginning to see why.
The level that has most gripped me is that Pasqulino represents Italy and the whole movie is actually a metaphor (or is that a simile?) for the relationship between Italy and Germany before and during World War II. If it is, Wertmüller has a pretty dismal view of Italy in that period. Pasqualino is a fool and in one scene the only socialist portrayed in the film declares, “Italians are fools!” By implication, Wertmüller is portraying that admonition.
Let me note here that Wertmüller was seen as a Marxist in the 1970s. Her best-known film, Swept Away (1974), was a success and established her reputation in the United States. At the time, I remember thinking, “What kind of a Marxist?” but back then, anything that even vaguely supported the left was lauded as a step forward. I should note that at least one source noted that she was “influenced by Marx,” a substantial difference from being a Marxist. I don’t know if she considered herself a Marxist, but I do know that nearly 40 years later when I watched Seven Beauties for the first time, I had this Marxist orientation in mind and was enthusiastically anticipating the film.
I think that’s why I was so appalled. How could a Marxist portray such depravity and socially backward behavior without resolving it during the film? The answer is that there was no resolution for Italy within the period covered.
If this is a valid view of Wertmüller’s intent, she certainly has a dismal view of Italy. Pasqualino is a narcissistic, male supremacist who sees himself as the world’s greatest gift to women. All women adore him, he believes. From childhood, from his mother’s side, he believes he learns about women, what they want and how to love them. His sisters support him; he has no obvious source of income at all. They—and his mother—work in a mattress factory for money.
He has a perverted, macho sense that the most important thing in life is honor, which he defines as fear and respect stemming from the fact that he carries a gun. Later in the film, he is shown to be a coward. When confronted with the pimp who has led his eldest sister into prostitution, he shows the gun, but cannot use it and is beaten up. He then goes to kill the pimp. He wakes him from his sleep, but is so nervous, waving the pistol about, that he accidentally shoots and kills him. Then he’s really scared. He hacks up the body, packs it in suitcases and ships it to three different cities.
The portrayal of Pasqualino, his sister, the mafioso who is “advising” Pasqualino and the women around him, all portray Italy in the pre-war period as a shallow, self-absorbed, frightened and very individualistic society, with Mussolini as absolute ruler. Nowhere is there portrayed the class struggle that took place in Italy from the post-World War I period to the end of World War II. The only sense of the class struggle comes from a prisoner who got over 28 years for being a socialist. Pasqualino only got 14 for being an axe murderer.
The scenes when he is captured by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp, represent the relationship between Germany and Italy. The Germans openly refer to the Italians as subhuman. It is clear who the real murderers are and it’s not the Italians.
At the end of the film, Pasqualino returns home. Everyone is, of course, amazed that he has survived. He finds a young woman who loves him and proposes to marry her with the aim of having lots of kids as what he sees a defensive measure to protect himself and his family in the future. And that’s the only change. It’s as if Italy returns to its old self and old ways, but without any real sense of social change. I will return to this later.
This emphasizes another important level the film: that of the need to survive. It is clear that the sense of the film is that no matter what, one must survive. The transformation in Pasqualino is from a man who ostensibly puts honor first to one who puts survival first. His attorney in Italian jail (before he goes in the army) puts it starkly: “Its your honor or your life.” Even then, he chooses life, although the decision is much less stark than it becomes in the German concentration camp.
The question of honor and survival is raised in a number of ways throughout the film. Besides the incident in the jail I alluded to, there is a scene in the woods early in the film where people in clean clothes are lining up to be murdered by their Nazi guards. Pasqualino and Francesco observe this and then run away, as any sane person would do. Francesco feels bad that they didn’t stand up to the Germans, but Pasqualino points out it just would have been suicide. Later, some characters decide to die rather than put up with more of the degradation of the German concentration camp. Finally, it is Pasqualino’s ultimate decision to seduce the commandant in order to live that brings on the final degradation: he is forced by the commandant to kill his Italian comrades. In the end, he is even made to kill his friend Francesco. It is a Sophie’s Choice (1982) kind of situation where he is damned if you do and dead (along with a lot of other people) if you don’t.
This point is also made in the 1951 book, Sparticus, by Howard Fast. The role of the slave is to stay alive, no matter what. I think this is a central theme of this film as well. Are there times when it is preferable to die than to endure? Obviously Pasqualino makes the decision for life over honor. Does Wertmüller mean that to be a portrayal of Italy as well? When Pasqualino returns home, the woman who loves him and who he will marry has also become a whore, but that no longer concerns him. She, too, has chosen life over honor. Has Italy opted for life over honor?
The problem I have with both the film as metaphor for Italy and as posing the question of honor vs. life is that it is posed in an individualistic way. There is no class struggle, there is no solidarity among workers. There is no attempt to forge a solution to their plight in the concentration camp where the prisoners work in unity to escape or otherwise thwart the Germans. since I expected Wertmüller to be at least influenced by Marx, I expected there to be some sense of social action. The only attempts to portray that option were the presentation of the aforementioned socialist and an anarchist in the prison. Otherwise, the solutions proffered—and the impossible situation Pasqualino is put in—are singularly individualistic.
Compare this to The Great Escape (1963) where the prisoners in a German camp plan an execute an escape by tunneling out of the camp. There is no question that some—perhaps many—will die or be recaptured, but there is always the chance that some—perhaps many—will escape. That idea is absent from this film, although it seems to be raised by its obvious absence. Why, when they outnumber the Germans do people line up to be killed in the woods? Why do the prisoners not try to come up with a plan to resist their concentration camp masters? The oppression and divisions the Germans foster among the prisoners are obvious, and it is exactly by putting Pasqualino in that position that he is forced to kill his comrades in order that he and other Italians may live.
And, as I said above, the film also historically ignores the brave struggle of he resistance during the Mussolini period that resulted in a strong Communist Party emerging after the war. That didn’t happen by default. It happened because the Communists were the core of the resistance to fascism and people flocked to them, building a party that was a major political force in the post-war period.
The film chose to portray what it did in a specific way. When the questions addressed by the film are posed in such a way, they lead to the conclusion that there is no honor, only survival. In fact the real presentation of honor in the film is infantile. Where is the honor of resistance that the Italian people displayed gallantly? In the film, there is no trace of that honor at all.
So by the time I had watched the film with the movie group, I no longer hated Pasqualino. I recognized him as a character laid out and played out by Lina Wertmüller, the writer and director. I see why it was award-worthy in the eyes of the Academy. I must say that it provoked deep discussion in the movie group. I, however, await the film that has a social viewpoint and message: there is honor in life and both life and honor are worth struggling for.
Copyright Bruce E. Parry
https://bruceeparry.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/seven-beauties-1975/
The first time I saw Seven Beauties, I was appalled. I thought the protagonist (Pasqualino Seven-Beauties is his “nickname”) was the most narcissistic, depraved, amoral, cowardly, male supremacist, criminal character I had ever encountered. And I’m being polite.
The film is set in World War II. It begins with a series of horrific scenes of Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, German and Italian fascist assemblies, bombings, aircraft crashes, combat, and bodies from the war. The music softens the impact of these scenes. A voiceover softens them further, reciting a litany of skepticisms, each ending with “Oh, yeah!” While showing a picture of Mussolini, the narrator intones, “The ones who say ‘Follow me to success, but kill me if I fail…so to speak.’ Oh, yeah!”
The montage ends with a cut from a bombing scene to a train being bombed and we see Pasqualino escape into the woods in Germany. He links up with Francesco, another escapee. From this point on, the movie tells his pre-war story in flashback, while he is attempting to evade the Nazi forces.
His real name is Pasqualino Frafuso and he has seven sisters who are not beauties, hence the nickname. In brief, he murders, is caught and confesses, pleads insanity, and is sent to a mental institution where he rapes a woman. Nevertheless, he is released into the army since his problems are only “behavioral” and the army faces manpower shortages. The movie implies that he was on his way to Stalingrad when the train was bombed and he escaped. Eventually he is captured by the Nazis and—in an effort to survive—seduces the murdering, dominatrix, sociopathic—and also not beautiful—female camp commandant. The scene where he is having sex with her was labeled by Roger Ebert as the least erotic sex scene ever portrayed in film. I have to agree.
This review is really whitewashed for brevity. The film is disgusting in its portrayal of his cowardice, the murder, his plea of insanity, the rape, his treatment of his sisters and much, much more. It is meant to offend and succeeds. It is a disturbing film. In many ways I think the film is talking to the viewer, not with the viewer. It is an intellectual film, not one that emotionally pulls you in with empathy toward any character. In fact the characters—and all are minor compared to Pasqualino—are not empathetic at all. And he’s a jerk.
On the other hand, the camera work and overall cinematography are superb. An entire study of the film could be made by analyzing the closeups throughout the film, particularly the study of eyes. Much of the camera work is with hand-held cameras, and it gives a really gritty feeling of being there.
But I am no longer appalled by it all. I watched the movie three times on my own and a fourth with my movie group and—I think—came to an understanding of what the movie is trying to do. When I began seeing Pasqualino as a representative of something else, I calmed down. I have come to see several levels in the film and I’m sure there are more that can be discussed. I should note that someone liked the film: it was nominated for four Academy Awards. The Director, Lina Wertmüller, was the first woman ever nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director. I am beginning to see why.
The level that has most gripped me is that Pasqulino represents Italy and the whole movie is actually a metaphor (or is that a simile?) for the relationship between Italy and Germany before and during World War II. If it is, Wertmüller has a pretty dismal view of Italy in that period. Pasqualino is a fool and in one scene the only socialist portrayed in the film declares, “Italians are fools!” By implication, Wertmüller is portraying that admonition.
Let me note here that Wertmüller was seen as a Marxist in the 1970s. Her best-known film, Swept Away (1974), was a success and established her reputation in the United States. At the time, I remember thinking, “What kind of a Marxist?” but back then, anything that even vaguely supported the left was lauded as a step forward. I should note that at least one source noted that she was “influenced by Marx,” a substantial difference from being a Marxist. I don’t know if she considered herself a Marxist, but I do know that nearly 40 years later when I watched Seven Beauties for the first time, I had this Marxist orientation in mind and was enthusiastically anticipating the film.
I think that’s why I was so appalled. How could a Marxist portray such depravity and socially backward behavior without resolving it during the film? The answer is that there was no resolution for Italy within the period covered.
If this is a valid view of Wertmüller’s intent, she certainly has a dismal view of Italy. Pasqualino is a narcissistic, male supremacist who sees himself as the world’s greatest gift to women. All women adore him, he believes. From childhood, from his mother’s side, he believes he learns about women, what they want and how to love them. His sisters support him; he has no obvious source of income at all. They—and his mother—work in a mattress factory for money.
He has a perverted, macho sense that the most important thing in life is honor, which he defines as fear and respect stemming from the fact that he carries a gun. Later in the film, he is shown to be a coward. When confronted with the pimp who has led his eldest sister into prostitution, he shows the gun, but cannot use it and is beaten up. He then goes to kill the pimp. He wakes him from his sleep, but is so nervous, waving the pistol about, that he accidentally shoots and kills him. Then he’s really scared. He hacks up the body, packs it in suitcases and ships it to three different cities.
The portrayal of Pasqualino, his sister, the mafioso who is “advising” Pasqualino and the women around him, all portray Italy in the pre-war period as a shallow, self-absorbed, frightened and very individualistic society, with Mussolini as absolute ruler. Nowhere is there portrayed the class struggle that took place in Italy from the post-World War I period to the end of World War II. The only sense of the class struggle comes from a prisoner who got over 28 years for being a socialist. Pasqualino only got 14 for being an axe murderer.
The scenes when he is captured by the Germans and taken to a concentration camp, represent the relationship between Germany and Italy. The Germans openly refer to the Italians as subhuman. It is clear who the real murderers are and it’s not the Italians.
At the end of the film, Pasqualino returns home. Everyone is, of course, amazed that he has survived. He finds a young woman who loves him and proposes to marry her with the aim of having lots of kids as what he sees a defensive measure to protect himself and his family in the future. And that’s the only change. It’s as if Italy returns to its old self and old ways, but without any real sense of social change. I will return to this later.
This emphasizes another important level the film: that of the need to survive. It is clear that the sense of the film is that no matter what, one must survive. The transformation in Pasqualino is from a man who ostensibly puts honor first to one who puts survival first. His attorney in Italian jail (before he goes in the army) puts it starkly: “Its your honor or your life.” Even then, he chooses life, although the decision is much less stark than it becomes in the German concentration camp.
The question of honor and survival is raised in a number of ways throughout the film. Besides the incident in the jail I alluded to, there is a scene in the woods early in the film where people in clean clothes are lining up to be murdered by their Nazi guards. Pasqualino and Francesco observe this and then run away, as any sane person would do. Francesco feels bad that they didn’t stand up to the Germans, but Pasqualino points out it just would have been suicide. Later, some characters decide to die rather than put up with more of the degradation of the German concentration camp. Finally, it is Pasqualino’s ultimate decision to seduce the commandant in order to live that brings on the final degradation: he is forced by the commandant to kill his Italian comrades. In the end, he is even made to kill his friend Francesco. It is a Sophie’s Choice (1982) kind of situation where he is damned if you do and dead (along with a lot of other people) if you don’t.
This point is also made in the 1951 book, Sparticus, by Howard Fast. The role of the slave is to stay alive, no matter what. I think this is a central theme of this film as well. Are there times when it is preferable to die than to endure? Obviously Pasqualino makes the decision for life over honor. Does Wertmüller mean that to be a portrayal of Italy as well? When Pasqualino returns home, the woman who loves him and who he will marry has also become a whore, but that no longer concerns him. She, too, has chosen life over honor. Has Italy opted for life over honor?
The problem I have with both the film as metaphor for Italy and as posing the question of honor vs. life is that it is posed in an individualistic way. There is no class struggle, there is no solidarity among workers. There is no attempt to forge a solution to their plight in the concentration camp where the prisoners work in unity to escape or otherwise thwart the Germans. since I expected Wertmüller to be at least influenced by Marx, I expected there to be some sense of social action. The only attempts to portray that option were the presentation of the aforementioned socialist and an anarchist in the prison. Otherwise, the solutions proffered—and the impossible situation Pasqualino is put in—are singularly individualistic.
Compare this to The Great Escape (1963) where the prisoners in a German camp plan an execute an escape by tunneling out of the camp. There is no question that some—perhaps many—will die or be recaptured, but there is always the chance that some—perhaps many—will escape. That idea is absent from this film, although it seems to be raised by its obvious absence. Why, when they outnumber the Germans do people line up to be killed in the woods? Why do the prisoners not try to come up with a plan to resist their concentration camp masters? The oppression and divisions the Germans foster among the prisoners are obvious, and it is exactly by putting Pasqualino in that position that he is forced to kill his comrades in order that he and other Italians may live.
And, as I said above, the film also historically ignores the brave struggle of he resistance during the Mussolini period that resulted in a strong Communist Party emerging after the war. That didn’t happen by default. It happened because the Communists were the core of the resistance to fascism and people flocked to them, building a party that was a major political force in the post-war period.
The film chose to portray what it did in a specific way. When the questions addressed by the film are posed in such a way, they lead to the conclusion that there is no honor, only survival. In fact the real presentation of honor in the film is infantile. Where is the honor of resistance that the Italian people displayed gallantly? In the film, there is no trace of that honor at all.
So by the time I had watched the film with the movie group, I no longer hated Pasqualino. I recognized him as a character laid out and played out by Lina Wertmüller, the writer and director. I see why it was award-worthy in the eyes of the Academy. I must say that it provoked deep discussion in the movie group. I, however, await the film that has a social viewpoint and message: there is honor in life and both life and honor are worth struggling for.
Copyright Bruce E. Parry
https://bruceeparry.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/seven-beauties-1975/
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