Reviews of the "Taming of the Shrew" should attract all fans of Italian comedies. This is a film directed by Castellano and Pipolo, which was released in 1980. He gained great fame not only in his homeland, but also in the Soviet Union. The picture is still loved by domestic viewers; it is regularly shown on central television channels. In this article we will talk about what this tape is about, about the actors who played the main roles, the impressions that the film left with the audience.
Plot
In reviews of The Taming of the Shrew, numerous viewers who immediately fell in love with this tape noted that they were primarily attracted to a fascinating story. She was both hilarious and romantic.
According to the plot of the film "The Taming of the Shrew," the 40-year-old farmer Elia, played by Adriano Celentano, is at the center of the story. He lives in the village of Ravignano, located in the Lombardy region. The hero is a convinced bachelor, who for many years could not be obtained by any woman. This is not surprising. Elia has a hostile attitude towards the representatives of the opposite sex and a rude character.
Moreover, such a character does not prevent him from loving everything living. He enjoys talking with animals, sincerely worries when one of his cows calves, and arranges a real hunt for poachers.
Night guest
His calm and measured life changes on one rainy night. On the threshold of the house of Elia, the beautiful Lisa Silvestri appears. She drove past the village, but her car broke down. Initially, the girl intended to stay for one night, and in the morning to go further on the road, but the unsociable owner intrigued her. Lisa decides to linger. She enters into an unspoken duel with Elia, using all her female charms to tame the unsociable person.
The complex and controversial character of the protagonist of the movie "The Taming of the Shrew" in 1980 strangely attracted this spoiled and exalted city woman. Soon, she even enters into a duel with her friend for Elia. But the farmer is not so simple. At first, he does not react at all to her spell, but by the end of the comedy The Taming of the Shrew, it still surrenders. Elia falls in love with the charming Lisa.
Directors
The film "The Taming of the Shrew" in 1980 was shot by the famous duet of Italian directors, known under the pseudonyms Castellano and Pipolo. Their real names are Franco Castellano and Giuseppe Moccia.
This was not their first job. It is also known that filmmakers collaborated with Soviet film masters. In 1973, they wrote the script for the comedy Eldar Ryazanov "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia."
At the beginning of this story, an elderly Russian immigrant dies in a hospital in Rome. Before her death, she tells her granddaughter Olga that all her fortune remained in Leningrad. It is hidden under the lion. Olga goes in search of treasure, but it turns out that many random people who also want to get a share of the treasures found out about this secret. As a result, two orderlies, a solid doctor, an Italian mafioso, an ordinary city dweller, and Olga herself arrive in the city on the Neva on the same flight. In Moscow, a guide joins them, which complicates the already difficult searches.
Best work
A couple of directors Castellano and Moccia shot their most famous films with Adriano Celentano in the title role. In 1979, the crime comedy Velvet Pens was released. The protagonist of this picture is engineer Qwilleran, who invented armored glass for jewelry stores, literally ruining robbers and insurance companies after that. As a result of an absurd accident, he finds himself in a family of thieves who take him for one of his own. He really has to pretend to be a lover of robbing safes and banks in order to get the attention of a charming thief.
In 1981, two pictures of these directors came out immediately. In the movie "Ace", a card cheater wants to end up with a dangerous game forever, but at the last moment he is drawn into a major business that does not end there.
In the film "Madly in Love", Celentano plays the driver of a Roman bus spoiled by female attention. Once he meets the princess of a small principality, which conquers his heart, but it is not easy to win a girl.
At the same time, the directors of The Taming of the Shrew themselves admitted that their film was one of the best in their careers.
Adriano Celentano
The main role in the film is played by the cult Italian actor Adriano Celentano. He brilliantly succeeds in the role of the unsociable farmer Elia Codogno, who is ready to do anything to resist the female charms.
In the film "The Taming of the Shrew" Adriano Celentano, Soviet viewers remembered for the episode in which he crushes grapes with his feet, competing with a mechanical machine. Thus, he is trying to prove that a machine cannot replace a person. He manages to defeat the mechanism, Elia only makes sure that farm workers do not need to be reduced.
Celentano was born in Milan in 1938. He became famous not only as an actor. The whole world knows him also as a pop singer, composer, TV presenter, musician and even director.
He is considered one of the most influential and successful performers in the history of Italian music. During his career, Celentano sang about 600 songs, released 41 studio albums. Their total circulation amounted to 150 million copies. In addition, he starred in more than 40 films.
Movie roles
He made his film debut in 1959 in the comedy musical Lucio Fulci "Guys and Jukebox". In 1965, his first film was released, in which he not only played the main role, but also became a director. Paired with Piero Vivarelli, Celentano directed the comedy Super Robbery in Milan.
Among his most famous acting works, one must also recall the comedy of Sergio Corbucci "Bluff", the tape Pasquale Festa Campanile "Bingo Bongo".
Celentano is now 81 years old. The last time he acted in films was in the early 2000s in the series "Inspector Gluck". At the same time, he continues his musical career. His last studio album was released in 2015.
Ornella Muti
The main female role in the film went to another Italian celebrity. Actress Ornella Muti in The Taming of the Shrew played the capricious city dweller Lisa Silvestri, who is ready to do anything to win the heart of the harsh farmer.
Muti is a famous Italian film actress. She was born in Rome in 1955. She is now 55 years old. She made her debut in a big movie in 1970 in the drama Damiano Damiani "The Most Beautiful Wife", immediately receiving the main role, which brought her fame and popularity.
Soviet viewers recognized and loved her precisely after the film The Taming of the Shrew. Ornella Muti played in the movie several dozen roles. Interestingly, in an interview with reporters, she admitted that during the filming of the film, she began an affair with Celentano, but their relationship lasted just as long as the filming process was going on.
Having become popular in the USSR, the Italian actress played the main role in the drama of Grigory Chukhrai "Life is Beautiful." At the moment, her last full-length movie work was her part in Woody Allen’s comedy melodrama Roman Adventures.
Dubbing actors
As you know, all the famous foreign actors who regularly appear on the domestic screen are constantly trying to fix dubbing artists. This is to make the viewer and the voice of a foreign movie star seem recognizable.
In this tape, Ornella Muti is voiced by the little-known Olga Gasparova. But the actor of the dubbing “The Taming of the Shrew,” who speaks in the voice of Adriano Celentano, is Rudolf Pankov.
This is a real master of voiceover. He was born in 1937 in Naro-Fominsk. In 1961 he became a graduate of VGIK. He studied in the creative workshop of the Honored Artist of the RSFSR Olga Ivanovna Pyzhova.
Work as a dubbing master began at the Gorky film studio. In Pankov’s voice, he speaks in all films adapted for the Russian audience, not only Adriano Celentano, but also Tommy Lee Jones, David Suchet, Anthony Hopkins and many other celebrities.
He has accounted for more than a hundred voiced films, series and video games.
Interesting Facts
In the title of the film we see an explicit reference to the William Shakespeare comedy play "The Taming of the Shrew." The picture is a free allusion to this immortal staging, only the main character in the Italian version becomes a man, not a woman.
Another interesting fact about "The Taming of the Shrew" is due to the fact that many scenes that adorned the film were cut from the chaste Soviet hire. Domestic viewers could get to know them only after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In particular, in the Soviet version of the tape there is no initial scene, you can not see how the hero Adriano Celentano worries about a cow that calves, and how he organizes a real hunt for poachers.
The fight in the restaurant between Lisa and her friend, who also wants to trick farmer Elia, as well as an erotic scene in which the heroine of Ornella Muti tries topless to seduce the protagonist, has been eliminated.
Moreover, the penultimate scene in Elia’s house right after his wedding, a funny scene with a pig, as well as one of the final scenes in which a shaking chandelier was shown, was removed from the ending.
Spectator Impressions
Reviews about the "Taming of the Shrew" from the majority of viewers are positive. And from those who saw the tape for the first time many years ago, and from those who discover it for themselves in our time.
Viewers and film critics note that the creators of this picture are not new to their genre, which immediately becomes visible to the naked eye. Their inexhaustible optimism, stormy imagination and cheerful enthusiasm do not cease to amaze. Especially their films have always been distinguished by cheerful and witty dialogs. The paintings of Castellano and Pipolo are always full of buffalo, gags, a lot of tricks and unexpected plot twists. This tape was no exception to the rule.
A special mention deserves an acting duet. Celentano and Muti in this film played vivid and memorable roles, for which they immediately fell in love with Soviet viewers.
Negative
Negative reviews about the "Taming of the Shrew" are negligible, but they still occur.
Audiences who do not like the film criticize the shown relationship between a man and a woman. In their opinion, the heroine of Muti behaves too arrogantly and defiantly, and the character of Celentano should not be so arrogant and down to the representatives of the opposite sex.