The bitter love – Wikipedia

The bitter love (Original title: The white sheikh , Alternative title: The white sheikh ) is an Italian film comedy by the director Federico Fellini from 1952.

The bitter love Is the first film in which Fellini directed alone because he shared the director with the experienced Alberto Lattuada at his first work as a director, light of the variety (1950). At the same time, this is also the feature film that together with the following The idlers (1953), A day in the district court (1953) and American in Rome (1954) the popular Italian actor Alberto Sordi helped the big breakthrough. In The white sheikh Sordi plays for the first time the childish, irresponsible, fig, the little man dominated by the mother or wife, will play a role that Sordi will play in the entire 1950s (and often later).

That and Ivan , A freshly married couple from southern Italy are on a honeymoon and arrive in Rome in the morning. An uncle of Ivan, who lives in Rome, was able to arrange a private audience at the Pope the following morning through his relationships with the Vatican. While Ivan rests in the hotel, Wanda, who is a passionate reader of photo novels, goes to the editorial team of her favorite newspaper. Since she is an extraordinary admirer of the photooman The white sheikh shows that she is invited with the team to go to Fregene, where some episodes are to be recorded.

In the meantime, Ivan has noticed the disappearance of his wife and desperately searches for her. He does everything possible to hide his relatives in Rome, who want to get to know the bride, the disappearance of Wanda. He walks through the city, invades a parade of Bersaglieri (it is a festive day), after all he is looking for help from the police, but is almost crazy because of its confused history and its striking behavior. He can flee.

Wanda finally gets to know her idol: the white sheikh. This is from a certain Fernando Rivoli Played, a childish chatter who plays the great seducer, who is actually dominated by his wife and is looking for her protection. Wanda can initially be involved in Fernando when it goes too far and Wanda discovers his true nature (she also realizes how “unromantic” is actually the recordings for the photo novel), and to make matters worse by Rivoli’s wife. is disappointed to Rome disappointed. Out of despair, she tries clumsy to take her life by jumping into the Tiber. She is “saved” and hospitalized. There she is picked up by Ivan, who spent the night with a maternal prostitute in desperation.

The young couple moves and sets off to the postponed papal studio with other couples and Ivan’s relatives, ready together, perhaps to get through life with a little melancholy.

The film is a bitter comedy about the power of illusions in Italy of the post -war period. “The feature film underlines how precarious dream factories are (here it is the photo novel, the same applies to the film). […] The thematic and stylistic universe of the author – the dreams of the little people, the longings of the province, the sentimentality and the irony, the desire for introspection, the ‘visionary’ – begin to adopt form. ” ^[2]

• The original idea for the film came from film author Michelangelo Antonioni, who did not work on the script.
• The figure of prostitutes Cabiria (Fellini’s wife Giulietta Masina) is reused and further developed the nights of the Cabiria (1957) in his feature film, which was published five years later.
• With this film, the collaboration between Fellini and the composer Nino Rota begins. Rota will work in all films of Fellini until his death in 1979.

1. ↑ Education certificate for The bitter love . Voluntary self -control of the film industry, May 2011 (PDF; test number: 27 825 V).
2. ↑ Fernaldo di Giammatteo: Italian cinema dictionary (= Universal economic 2 Dictionaries ). Editori Riuniti, Rome 1995, ISBN 88-359-4008-7, free translation here.