The ANNOTICO Report
Thanks to Nicola Linza

We are going to talk about "The Best of Youth", that will be coming soon to
the US,  a very thoughtful finely woven movie about the struggle to
transform society, that only Italians seem to be able to give the depth and
realism.

Please see the Miramax Plot Summary, and Slate's Brief Review below.

But first let me take a brief detour and talk about "A Chi", sung by
Fausto Leali in the movie,
and is the Italian version of  "Hurt", a song that was made famous by Timi
Yuro's fantastic version  in 1961 (#4)

Timi's "Hurt" was covered by many including an admiring Elvis Presley, and
then Juice Newton, a country #1, but was never bettered. Willie Nelson was
one of her admirers, and she reciprocated by doing an album of his songs.

"Hurt", was one of the most moving songs, sung by one of the most honest
voices, I ever heard!!

Timi was born Rosemarie Timotea Aurro (thus, Timi Yuro) in Chicago in 1941.
She moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1952, where she sang in her
family's Italian restaurant. She was influenced by some of the great Blues
singers, and sang with such "soul", that many people mistakenly thought
that she was black, and her voice so mammoth, and her delivery so
astonishingly mature, some even thinking she was a man.

She was aptly described as the Little Girl (she was petite), with the very
BIG Voice.

Timi signed a contract with Liberty Records in 1959. She worked with
songwriter/producer Clyde Otis and put 11 songs in the top 100 from 1961 to 1965.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/
stores/artist/glance/-/73573/%2Bamzrank
/002-9141127-2576850

Distributed by Miramax,
Founded by the Weinstien Bros, who then sold themselves to Disney,
and are now currently negotiating a divorce from Disney.

Spanning four decades, from the chaotic 1960s to the present, director
Marco Tullio Giordana's passionate epic THE BEST OF YOUTH follows two
Italian brothers, Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo (Alessio Boni) Carati
from Rome,  through some of the most tumultuous events of recent Italian
history, including the years of Red Brigade terrorism and Tangentopoli.

In a final period of hopeful innocence, free-spirited Nicola (Luigi Lo
Cascio) travels the world and settles for a life as a successful
psychiatrist, while his tragically introverted and idealist brother Matteo
(Alessio Boni) joins the Italian police with the hope of righting society's
wrongs.

Their politics and personalities are inextricably intertwined as the world
around them violently shifts and they are pushed together and pulled apart
by the tides of history and their own divergent dreams

Winner, Jury Prize, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival

http://www.miramax.com/thebestofyouth/#

Slate
By David Edelstein
March 3, 2005

Why are American plays, movies, and TV shows are so inept at weaving
together the strands of the political and the personal? Maybe it's
because—to borrow the title of an incisive E.J. Dionne book—Americans hate
politics. Or maybe it's because we prefer—and have always preferred, at
least since the days of Fenimore Cooper—our sagas to focus on loners,
mavericks, outcasts, people standing up to "the system."

But as that late counterweight to libertarianism, Arthur Miller, endlessly
reminded us, we are social creatures—interdependent and responsible in even
our smallest actions for the welfare of all. Too bad that's a pinko heresy
in a land of vigilantes and winners who take all.

The Best of Youth (Miramax), Marco Tullia Giordana's six-hour,
made-for-Italian-television saga of two brothers and their extended family,
is one of those projects American filmmakers occasionally attempt but never
bring off. It's a story of evolving individuals and momentous social
changes and of how those two elements interact.

But there's no one-to-one correspondence between the personal and the
political—i.e., it's not 1967 and the hero is a pot-smoking hippie
listening to Hendrix and then it's 1982 and he's an investment banker. The
characters' attitudes and fashions do shift with the times, but the
developments are subtle and unpredictable. More important, these characters
struggle to transform society; they have too much integrity to let society
transform them.

The brothers are Nicola and Matteo, played by Luigi Lo Cascio and Alessio
Boni. It's the early '60s, and it's the sharp-cheekboned heartthrob Matteo
who seems the more interesting at first. He's an "A" student who feels
injustice more deeply than anyone else, and he develops a fixation on a
lovely institutionalized girl named Giorgia (Jasmine Trinka).

In good '60s romantic fashion, he ends up springing her from a mental
hospital, where she's on a steady diet of electroshock, and tries to bring
her to her father in Ravenna. But Matteo fails Giorgia and ultimately
abandons his brother and two pals, who've planned a post-graduation trip to
the north—the way north, maybe even the North Pole. In despair, he joins
the army and then the police force, while his brother Nicola, the medical
student, becomes immersed in the activist counterculture.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2114315/

LA MEGLIO GIOVENTU (2003)
Directed by  Marco Tullio Giordana
Writing credits by Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli

Cast overview,
Luigi Lo Cascio ....  Nicola Carati
Alessio Boni ....  Matteo Carati
Adriana Asti ....  Adriana Carati
Sonia Bergamasco ....  Giulia Monfalco
Fabrizio Gifuni ....  Carlo Tommasi
Maya Sansa ....  Mirella Utano
Valentina Carnelutti ....  Francesca Carati
Jasmine Trinca ....  Giorgia
Andrea Tidona ....  Angelo Carati
Lidia Vitale ....  Giovanna Carati
Camilla Filippi ....  Sara Carati
Greta Cavuoti ....  Sara Carati (8 Years Old)
Sara Pavoncello ....  Sara Carati (5 Years Old)
Claudio Gioè ....  Vitale Micavi
Riccardo Scamarcio ....  Andrea Utano
  (more)

Also Known As:  The Best of Youth (International: English title)
MPAA: Rated R for language and brief nudity. (parts 1 & 2)
Runtime: 400 min / Canada:366 min (Montréal World Film Festival) /
Canada:383 min (Toronto International Film Festival) / France:358 min
(Cannes Film Festival) / Italy:336 min (theatrical version) / USA:366 min
(theatrical version)
Country: Italy; Language: Italian : Color

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