La Luna (film)
Encyclopedia
- "La Luna" redirects here. For the song, see La Luna (song)La Luna (song)"La Luna" is the second single from Belinda Carlisle's third album Runaway Horses, released in 1989.-Charts:-Cover versions:* Puerto Rican singer Yolandita Monge covered the song in Spanish in 2002....
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La Luna, also known as Luna, is a 1979
1979 in film
The year 1979 in film involved some significant events.- Major events :* March 5 - Production begins on Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.* May 25 - Alien, a landmark of the science fiction genre, is released....
Italian film
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
and starring Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...
. The film concerns the troubled life of a teenage boy and his relationship with his parents, including an incestuous relationship with his mother.
Plot
Joe (Matthew Barry) is the son of famous opera singer Caterina Silveri (Jill ClayburghJill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...
). While Joe believes that Caterina's husband, Douglas Winter (Fred Gwynne
Fred Gwynne
Frederick Hubbard "Fred" Gwynne was an American actor. Gwynne was best known for his roles in the 1960s sitcoms Car 54, Where Are You? and The Munsters, as well as his later roles: Pet Sematary and My Cousin Vinny...
), is his biological father, the truth is that he was sired by Caterina's former lover, who is now living in Italy and working as a schoolteacher. Joe is moody and rebellious and needs a strong father figure to guide him and keep him in line, but Douglas is ineffectual and emotionally weak, and when Joe witnesses the sudden death of Douglas, it sends him over the edge. In hopes of boosting her singing career, which has fallen into a rut, Caterina decides to move to Italy with her son. There, Joe falls in with a dangerous crowd and becomes addicted to heroin. Heartbroken, Caterina hopes to lure her son back to a safer and healthier lifestyle. She tries in many instances to get closer emotionally to her son hoping that increased contact will prevail over the pull of the drugs. She even contacts the son's drug dealer to ask for sympathy for her situation. At one point, she sexually satisfies her son to prevent him from using drugs. Seeing no other alternative, she decides to drive to the location they originally lived, where her estranged lover lives with the hope that some sort of fatherly bond will cure her son. Along the way, tensions, some sexual, derail and prolong the trip. Eventually the son is dropped off at the ex's home but the father does not want to see him. With some sort of closure achieved for the boy, he returns to his mother who is preparing for an opera. Embracing, they reaffirm their love for each other, and together the son and his father, who has come to watch the performance, see Caterina sing her heart out.
Cast
- Jill ClayburghJill ClayburghJill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...
- Caterina Silveri - Matthew Barry - Joe Silveri
- Veronica LazarVeronica LazarVeronica Lazar is an Italian actress.She made her debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris , and also appeared in some of the director's subsequent films, La Luna , The Sheltering Sky , and Besieged . Lazar is probably best known for her role as the demonic Mater Tenebrarum in Dario...
- Marina - Tomas MilianTomas MilianTomás Milián is a Cuban-American actor best known for having worked extensively in Italian films from the late 1950s to the 1980s.-Career in Italy:...
- Giuseppe - Renato SalvatoriRenato SalvatoriRenato Salvatori was an Italian multi-purpose character actor.-Biography:Salvatori was born in Seravezza, Province of Lucca....
- Communist - Fred GwynneFred GwynneFrederick Hubbard "Fred" Gwynne was an American actor. Gwynne was best known for his roles in the 1960s sitcoms Car 54, Where Are You? and The Munsters, as well as his later roles: Pet Sematary and My Cousin Vinny...
- Douglas Winter - Alida ValliAlida ValliAlida Valli , sometimes simply credited as Valli, was an Italian actress who appeared in more than 100 films, including Mario Soldati's Piccolo mondo antico, Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case, Carol Reed's The Third Man, Michelangelo Antonioni's Il Grido, Luchino Visconti's Senso, Bernardo...
- Giuseppe's Mother - Elisabetta Campeti - Arianna
- Franco CittiFranco CittiFranco Citti is an Italian actor. He came to fame at the age of 26, playing the title role in Pier Paolo Pasolini's film Accattone...
- Man in Bar - Roberto BenigniRoberto BenigniRoberto Remigio Benigni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian actor, comedian, screenwriter and director of film, theatre and television.- Early years :...
- Upholsterer - Carlo VerdoneCarlo VerdoneCarlo Verdone is an Italian actor, screenwriter and film director.-Early life:Carlo Verdone was born in Rome to Mario Verdone, an important Italian film critic, and during his youth he earned a degree in Modern Literature at Sapienza University of Rome and a degree in Film Direction at the Centro...
- Director of Caracalla - Peter EyrePeter EyrePeter Eyre is an American actor.Eyre was born in New York City, New York, the son of Dorothy Pelline and Edward Joseph Eyre, a banker. He was sent to a public school in England at the age of twelve, and has been based in the country ever since. Although offered a place at the Royal Academy of...
- Edward