Cinema
Divorce Italian Style
Divorzio all'italiana
Pietro Germi · 1961
Synopsis
Agramonte, a small town in Sicily, around 1960. Baron Ferdinando Cefalù, an impoverished nobleman, is bored with his wife Rosalia and falls in love with his young cousin Angela. Divorce does not exist in Italy, but the penal code treats leniently a husband who kills an unfaithful wife to wash away his dishonour. Ferdinando then devises a plan: to push Rosalia into the arms of a lover, the painter Carmelo Patanè, so that he can catch her in the act.
Context
The screenplay is by Alfredo Giannetti, Ennio De Concini and the director, for whom it marks an unexpected move from drama to comedy. Marcello Mastroianni plays the baron, Daniela Rocca his wife and Stefania Sandrelli the cousin. The film targets article 587 of the Italian penal code, which granted mitigating circumstances to murder committed for honour and was not abolished until 1981. Received coolly at first by industry professionals, it was then a great popular success in Italy.
Who it is for
A black comedy in Italian, driven by a provision of the penal code since abolished, that of the honour crime.
Prizes and reception
Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1963, best comedy prize at Cannes in 1962, and Academy Award nominations for direction and for Marcello Mastroianni.