Carlo Verdone, at Indiana University With Four Of His Films

I feel like I’m in on this wonderful best kept secret here at Indiana University’s fifth annual Film Symposium on New Trends in Modern and Contemporary Italian Cinema. Last night in the University’s intimate movie theater Carlo Verdone and a not exactly packed house watched one of Verdone’s films from the ’90s, one that is relatively easy to find in the US, Sono Pazzo di Iris Blond (I’m Crazy About Iris Blond). Verdone spoke a little before and after the film, as he will for the next three evenings and three more films, hand-picked by the auteur himself, Il MIo Miglior Nemico, Io, Loro, e Laura, and Posti in Piedi in Paradiso.

Though Verdone’s English seems great (I’m an ESL teacher, Carlo, I can tell) he was obviously more comfortable speaking in Italian, and so he spoke with a translator about his career and the film. The fact that Iris Blond, made in 1996, is a bit dated did not escape Verdone, and he wondered aloud what we must have thought about it (“not my best film”) the story of a guy who creates a singing sensation in that decade, with that ’90’s hair and music, in Italy, nonetheless. As if American ’90s music doesn’t seem antiquated enough, the ’90s all’Italiana seems even farther away. Hey, that’s what happens when you put 20 years on music and fashion in any era; it can’t be helped. Verdone was wistfully reflective explaining that he’d chosen to show us Iris Blond because it meant a lot to him, and not having watched it himself for years, it was very emotional to watch it again.

Verdone admitted what we Carlo Verdone fans have always known, the melancholy sadsack that he plays in all his films is a little autobiographical. The beset Roman in all the Verdone films, popping antidepressants, attending therapy sessions, getting over heartbreak, and not ever getting the respect that he deserves is an adorable Verdone trademark.

This evening’s film, Il Mio Miglior Nemico is one of my favorites. It stars Gabriele Muccino’s brother, Silvio Muccino, who plays a guy looking to screw up Verdone’s life when his mother is fired.