The Witches (1967)

I Could Never Be Your Woman

For better or worse, when I think of anthology, I immediately think of Ryan Murphy. No one else has quite captured (and one time mastered) the art and often unevenness that comes with multiple truncated stories assembled into one film or show. The Witches (aka Le Streghe) is an Italian film featuring the work of five male directors focusing on stories centered around one woman, our supposed "witch" played in every vignette by Silvana Mangano. Until recently, I had never heard of Mangano, who first trained as a dancer and then model before acting. Of course, now I want to devour her filmography and know everything about her. Within a few minutes, I recognized that I was watching a star.

My husband loves watching the latest releases on the big streamers and because he is very handsome and charming I oblige instead of making him watch old French films, Jonestown or Woodstock ‘99 documentaries every night. I often spend the first act complaining about how everyone is too manicured or how we’ve lost the art of comedic leads (See: The Money Pit). I know I am not alone in saying that I miss the age of the classic Hollywood movie star. Hell, we rarely get films with original IP these days so I’m probably asking too much.

There is a special sauce in these classic stars that is not present in the new casting formula of hot uncanny valley faced woman or jacked-beyond-belief charming guy. Humphrey Bogart was not uncomfortably ripped in a prepping-for-a-Marvel-invite kind of way, and Joan Crawford did not fit a traditional beauty standard, but when she entered the frame you couldn't look away. I miss having that feeling. I want to stop saying aloud “These people aren’t funny”. I don’t want reliability. I want glamorous, sparkly, eccentric stars committed to their craft. And on that note can we please also stop making actors do dramatic readings of pop songs and eat hot wings to promote their projects? I’m begging.

It's a famine of beauty. My eyes are starving for beauty!

André Leon Talley

In each short film, Mangano plays a different trope of womanhood: a glamorous aging actress, a mute ingénue, and housewife and more, with a nuance that stuck with me. Yet many of these directors seem to want to paint her in such flattened strokes. It was a reminder of how women fascinate, titillate, and disgust men in equal measure. It's hard to escape this scenario as some stats say as high as 85% of films are directed by men. Even with an ample amount of research, which I'd argue most directors would count as their own narrow experiences, they often struggle to present dynamic women. Their biases are always at play. I still haven’t seen Anora as I am afraid that I will hate it for this very reason. All this being said, I ended up loving The Witches but mostly due to Mangano's ability to seamlessly shape shift into these five roles.

In the opener The Witch Burned Alive by Luchino Visconti, a famous actress makes what feels like a paid appearance at a friend's party. She quips to the host, "I couldn't miss the tenth anniversary of your husband's infidelity!" and her arrival leaves the guests speechless, then filled with gossipy theories. Things take a turn when she unexpectedly falls ill and everyone starts picking apart her appearance and peeling away her layers (literally removing her lashes) while she writhes in and out of consciousness. They treat her like an alien carcass they discovered on the side of the road, poking and prodding her with a mix curiously and with underlying revulsion. What makes HER so special? They all seem to be wondering. She somehow gains her footing again and is able to leave with her dignity, via helicopter, hidden behind sunglasses and a big fabulous designer coat. You can’t keep a good girl down.

Civic Spirit by Mauro Bolognini is such a quick little romp it feels like a short film that would play before a Godard film. It has the playful and tongue-in-cheek French New Wave energy and an editing style that just speaks to me. It precedes Monty Python but feels like one of their sketches with the rare female lead. Mangano has one goal and one goal only, to get to her date on time, her sick passenger, a bleeding nuisance of a man be damned. She speeds through traffic recklessly all while wearing a glamorous ballet pink bonnet resembling a blooming flower, Bravo!

The Earth Seen from the Moon by Pier Paolo Pasolini, a director who collaborated with Fellini on one of my favorite films – Nights of Cabiria, but also directed one of my most reviled films Salò,or the 120 Days of Sodom, brings a visually ambitious if sometimes icky short to the collection. Its bright palette and exaggerated leads give it the feeling of a live-action dark Disney movie, but the underlying plot is thin. Pasolini removes all agency from our central character who doesn't even speak. Throughout the short, she is a doll, and then a heel in her husband and son-in-law’s scheming. The creative direction for this short are a separating the art from the artist situation for me. These images would do numbers on Tumblr in 2011.

The Sicilian Belle by Franco Rossi is brief and forgettable.

An Evening like the Others by Vittorio De Sica is my favorite of the lot, a quiet fable wrapped in fantasy and the desires of women that remain unspoken to protect men's egos. While watching I kept thinking about how women are taught to hide the “messy” or “bad” parts of themselves. In "The Good Fight," a late Season four episode of Sex and the City, Carrie's life is upended when her boyfriend Aidan moves in with her and she realizes he's going to see her little freak behavior.

You guys, I miss walking into my apartment with no one there and it's all quiet and I can do that stuff you do when you're totally alone, things you would never want your boyfriend to see you do...My S.S.B., my Secret Single Behavior. Like, I like to make a stack of saltines. I put grape jelly on them. I eat them standing up in the kitchen reading fashion magazines.

Carrie Bradshaw

The verdict after all of the women at the table share their S.S.B. is that you can't do that stuff in front of men. When I look back at some of the stickiest women in the long line of incredible women that I have known in my life, my favorites have rough edges, quirks, and have made big sweeping mistakes. They live fearlessly as themselves and that's what makes them perfect: flaws.

Clint Eastwood plays Carlo, Mangano's husband, a man cut out of the pages of 60s Esquire: manicured, aloof, and the epitome of masculinity. Mangano plays Giovanna, a doting if not irritated housewife who longs for more emotion and passion from him. Their well-curated home is not enough and these satin sheets won't rumple themselves. She reminisces of the early stages of their marriage and the director cuts to a white room in soft focus (reminiscent of Ann Margaret’s room in Ken Russel’s Tommy) where they consume one another passionately. Carlo actually leaps into bed with her at the start but over time their embraces grow colder and she feels more alone, wanting to be desired again. If not by him, by someone.

In this short more than the others Mangano shows the silent negotiations that play in many relationships. At times she dreams of donning a spiky latex crown and just getting rid of him. In others she misses him, but even in her hallucinations he grows jealous anytime she’s too confident. He tries to play hero, and win her back as she flounces her beauty in the streets followed by waves of hungry hypnotized men. She finds their gaze is intoxicating. While she looks absolutely incredible in these scenes I couldn’t help but feel the director judging her for having these thoughts. There’s an underlying tone of distain.

As the film winds down she makes her way to a coliseum, wearing a multi layered satin gown that references the many sides of her. They read as the flag a matador holds as the men follow her in the streets loudly. At the center of the stadium she is bathed in a single light and she is finally the center of attention. The feeling that she craves from one man, she is getting from many. She strips off each layer to the delight of the crowd until there are none left.

In the final moments, reality sets in: this isn’t her, she’s just a wife, the woman behind Carlo. For many women relationships are a concession, part of a larger complacency. An understanding that to keep order, you often have to hide a little bit of yourself and what you actually want. I really hate that we’ve come to think that dreaming or wanting more can feel dangerous because its essential. I long for Giovanna to be free. Divorce Italian Style!

Ciao!