The Godfathers of Mondo
This 2003 documentary by David Gregory is probably the best place to begin for those unfamiliar with Jacopetti and Prosperi's Mondo Cane and the impact it had on world cinema in 1963. Utilizing recent interviews with the two filmmakers (they are no longer on speaking terms and are interviewed separately here), composer Riz Ortolani, cinematographers Benito Frattari and Giampaolo Lomi and others, Gregory charts Jacopetti and Prosperi's career path from the newspaper world to their entry into filmmaking. Clips from all of the films in the boxed set are used along with home movies and behind the scenes footage to illustrate and dispel some of the controversies and rumors that have followed Jacopetti and Prosperi throughout their careers. You'll witness the burning of a Buddhist monk that was actually faked for the filming of Mondo Cane 2. You'll see an on-camera execution of a terrorist (he killed 30 schoolchildren by setting a bus on fire) performed by mercenaries during the terrible genocide wars in Africa that almost got Jacopetti and his crew imprisoned under war crime charges; they got off by telling the court the scene was faked.
The DVD jacket for The Godfathers of Mondo features a quote from Pauline Kael that accuses Jacopetti and Prosperi as "perhaps the most devious and irresponsible filmmakers who have ever lived" and she could be right. So much of what they served up - rarely glimpsed footage from around the world of other cultures and rituals - is usually presented without any real historical context and typically accompanied by a commentary that teeters between pseudo-intellectualism and outright cynicism. Yet some of the incidents and scenes they documented - as horrible as some of them are like the senseless slaughter of animals on African game preserves - remind us that the world can be a cruel, inhospitable place and that the most dangerous species of all is man. We already knew that but The Godfathers of Mondo and all of the films in the collection are guaranteed to make you ponder the future of the human race.
Mondo Cane
Geese being force-fed as preparation for foie gras. The human paintbrushes of artist Yves Klein. Beer drinking cows in Japan. The effects of atomic radiation on sea turtles. Shark victims of the Malay Islands. These are just a few of the sights on display in the 1963 motion picture that started the whole "mondo" phenomenon. The fact that it blurred the line between "art film" and "exploitation cinema" was evident by its immense popularity in the United States and elsewhere; it not only received an Oscar® nomination for its theme song, "More" (recorded by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Matt Monroe), but ignited serious debate among major film critics of its era. Was it a documentary or something else entirely? The filmmakers, Jacopetti and Prosperi, would be the first to tell you they were making an anti-documentary, one that was the reverse of a picture postcard travelogue. Taken as a sarcastic social critique of the human race, Mondo Cane is often fascinating and relentlessly exploitive at the same time. Some of the staged scenes - and there are several of them like the actor Rossano Brazzi being attacked by amorous women in a department store - are easy to laugh off but real footage like the ritual slaughter of boars at a New Guinea tribal ritual is hard to watch. At the time of the film's release, movie audiences weren't used to seeing so many odd and unglamorous sights presented in such a lush pictorial style; the cinematography of Antonio Climati and Benito Frattari is truly a thing of beauty and brings even the more prosaic passages, like the Roman cemetery of the Capuchin monks or the beer drinkers of Hamburg, Germany, to startling life. In the latter section, for example, the photographs of both Weegee and Diane Arbus are recalled in the pained and haunting faces of these hopeless individuals, cavorting drunkenly for the camera, only to wind up vomiting into the gutter in the morning twilight. Climati and Frattari capture this nocturnal world in all its sleazy, Charles Bukowski-like glory and the images will stick with you long after the film fades from view.
Mondo Cane is presented full frame at 1.33:1/4:3 and comes with optional English subtitles and a choice of Italian or English audio. The extras include theatrical trailers, a TV spot, a poster and still gallery, an informative essay on the Mondo phenomenon by David Flint, and Benito Frattari's location stills. The interactive menus are cleverly designed with global iconography that incorporates Riz Ortolani's "More" theme song with a carnival barker narrator making his pitch, "Shocking, bizarre and grotesque....blood-stained, hilarious and startlingly different."
Mondo Cane 2
Jacopetti and Prosperi were so unprepared for the international success of Mondo Cane that they felt pressured into making a sequel for their producer and distributor. Both admit now that Mondo Cane 2 (aka Mondo Pazzo) was a financial necessity and nothing more but the film follows the same formula as its predecessor and there are moments of interest among the purely exploitive material. Typical of the filmmakers' antagonistic approach to their subject is the opening segment shot in a London animal hospital where dogs have their vocal chords removed by surgeons for some unexplained experiment. When Mondo Cane was first released, it was banned in Britain due to accusations of cruelty to dogs (the English are famous for their love of the animals) so the filmmakers take their revenge by equating animal vivisection with English hypocrisy. Once again there are some absurd and completely pointless episodes "faked" for the camera such as the section on cross-dressing policemen in pursuit of sadists who prey on women. It's hard to imagine any of these homely lugs passing as women, much less attracting the attention of any potential sex pervert. And what about the scene where Mexican cops practice their sharpshooting skills in highly dangerous ways like shooting cigarettes out of their volunteers' ears!!! But for every staged scene, there's real footage of some bizarre custom or event that will have you covering your eyes. Take, for instance, the insect-eating festival in Mexico where everyone is chowing down on corn tortillas filled with squirming insects basted with hot sauce. Yum! Some of the footage, the filmmakers admitted, was actually acquired from other sources like the faked Buddhist monk burning, and compared with the first Mondo Cane the tone here is much more frivolous and cynical. Fashion shows where models appear with dogs dyed the same color as their outfits or Masai tribal women mixing mounds of sticky manure for everyday household usage is just not that compelling, despite the often striking cinematography of Benito Frattari. One sequence that does stand out, despite the heavy-handedness of its environmental message, features the white flamingoes of Magadi Lake in Africa in full flight - a sequence of great beauty that recalls the recent documentary, Winged Migration (2001). Of course, every moment of beauty in a Jacopetti-Prosperi film must be followed by the inevitable - death and disaster - so the passage ends with scenes of the flamingoes dying in slow agony from toxic wastes that have been dumped in the lake by a British soft drink company.
Mondo Cane 2 is presented in full frame 1.33:1/4:3 with optional English subtitles and a choice of Italian or English audio. There is a poster and still gallery, theatrical trailers and a TV spot for Mondo Cane 2. Be sure to check out the international trailer version which is a wild marriage of experimental stream-of-consciousness and comic shtick a la Saturday Night Live.
Women of the World
According to Jacopetti, the idea for this 1963 documentary on women was inspired by the writings of feminist author Oriana Fallaci who was eventually approached to collaborate with Jacopetti, Prosperi and Paolo Cavara on the project. The fact that she agreed makes you wonder if she had actually seen Mondo Cane but, not surprisingly, it was a stormy relationship at best that culminated in an argument on a yacht where Jacopetti tried to pitch Fallaci into the sea. As a result, Women of the World bears no relation to Fallaci's original intentions; Instead, it's a voyeuristic travelogue solely focused on "T & A" shots of women from Paris to Hong Kong and points beyond. The filmmaker's intentions are perfectly clear from the opening credit sequence which follows - in close-up - a woman's buttocks as she sashays across an airport terminal to the accompaniment of Nino Oliviero and Riz Ortolani's pop music score. The film doesn't get any deeper than this but it's great eye candy for the Playboy set and the color cinematography by Antonio Climati and Benito Frattari is often dazzling. Like the two previous Mondo films, Women of the World is episodic in nature, flitting from one culture to another with little rhyme or reason - a segment on Israeli women soldiers segues into public displays of affection on the streets of Paris during the "Fall of the Bastille" celebration. This catch-as-can quality reflects the filmmakers' prime objective - to utilize as much previously discarded footage and outtakes from the first two Mondo movies combined with new scenes like the incognito footage of prostitutes in Hamburg, Germany. The narration by Peter Ustinov (how did they ever get him to do this?) is rather playful and bemused compared with the first two Mondo films and if you turned off the sound you might think you were watching a National Geographic special at times with so many scenes depicting topless native women in third world counties. Yet, despite the often sensual and erotic nature of the images, there are also isolated passages that make you "suffer" for your pleasure - suspect and completely unnecessary scenes featuring Thalidomide babies, professional mourners in Orgosolo, Sardinia, and female impersonators in a Papua, New Guinea tribe. As long as it sticks to the nude beaches of the French Riviera or the young hula dancers of Tahiti, Women of the World is an amusing, sexist throwback to a more innocent time when "documentaries" featuring female nudity could actually play an art cinema.
Women of the World is presented in full frame 1.33:1/4:3 with optional English subtitles and a choice of Italian or English audio. Also included are a poster and still gallery and theatrical trailers.
Africa Addio
Often cited as Jacopetti and Prosperi's masterpiece, Africa Addio is also the personal favorite of both filmmakers. While the term "masterpiece" seems a bit extravagant and unqualified, this 1966 portrait of a continent in chaos is undeniably powerful and disturbing. The liner notes are correct in calling it "a picture postcard from hell" because that's exactly what it is - shocking images that flash before your eyes like exploding mortar shells. Firing squad executions. Truckloads of corpses being carted off for burial. A pile of amputated hands glimpsed on the ground. The death agonies of a hippo being speared by natives. Poachers slaughtering an entire herd of elephants with the aid of high-powered rifles and a helicopter.
Jacopetti and Prosperi were drawn to Africa in the early sixties by a friend who encouraged them to film what was happening there. The end of colonialism and British rule brought a radical change to the continent. Nations which had been under the thumb of an empirical regime for generations were suddenly independent but with no prior experience or model of how to govern themselves in a democratic manner. As a result, many African governments quickly became unstable, succumbing to tribal infighting, military dictatorships or widespread anarchy. When Jacopetti and Prosperi arrived on the scene, the continent was already in a state of political disintegration, a situation which dictated the filmmakers' approach to their subject; they simply hopped from one hot spot to another, documenting the atrocities they witnessed. The viewer is thrust into one horrific situation after another with little understanding of the history or cultural significance behind what they are witnessing - a common criticism of Africa Addio. At the same time, the filmmakers captured true history in the making - as grim and tragic as it is - and in some instances, their footage is the only surviving record of what happened in these rarely-seen regions of Africa. Seen today, these scenes of death and destruction resulting from the genocide wars of Zanzibar, Kenya and the Congo have lost none of their power to shock so if you are faint-of-heart, you've been warned. CNN, it's not.
One of the most notorious incidents in the film is the on-camera execution of a terrorist named Gancha who was accused of setting fire to a school bus (30 children and a schoolteacher died). There is also an intense scene where Jacopetti and his crew are attacked, hauled out of their car by rebels, and dragged off to be executed. We learn later that the only reason they avoided their fate is because a soldier persuaded the rebel leader to spare them because "They're not whites [meaning English]. They're Italians."
Africa Addio ignited controversy wherever it was shown in Italy and accusations of racism and shameless self-promotion were common. Yet, the film managed to find some champions among the major critics and even won the prestigious Donatello award. Outside of Italy, the film ran into major distribution problems. Theatres in France decided not to show it for fear of inflaming sentiment over issues of race (they were currently embroiled in the Algerian crisis). In the United States, Africa Addio was distributed in a completely redubbed English version which often changed or altered the original narration to reflect a different viewpoint or explanation for the scene depicted. Eventually, an edited version (deleting over 45 minutes of footage) entitled Africa - Blood and Guts was distributed to grind houses specializing in violent fare, a version both filmmakers have disowned.
Africa Addio: Director's Cut is presented in widescreen ratio 2.35:1/16:9 with optional English subtitles and a choice of Italian or English audio. There are no extras but as compensation you can also check out the accompanying disc - the English version of Africa Addio which does include theatrical trailers, a TV spot, a poster and still gallery and a U.S. Press book on DVD-ROM.
Addio Zio Tom
After being accused of being racists for their depiction of the dark continent in Africa Addio, Jacopetti and Prosperi angered their critics and detractors further with Addio Zio Tom (1971), a historical look at slavery and black-white relations in America. Jacopetti's initial intent was "to make a movie as if staging a newsreel back in past times," focusing primarily on the beginnings of the slave trade in the South and its legacy. Unlike any of their previous Mondo movies, however, Goodbye Uncle Tom is a wildly theatrical, over-the-top dramatization "based" on historical facts. Elaborate set pieces such as the slave ship galley scenes look like extracts from some grotesque opera. There is a staged, artificial quality to every scene as if the filmmakers were trying to mimic a Hollywood epic like Gone With the Wind (1939). The narrative tone is decidedly non-Hollywood, however, and almost seems to revel in the degradation and outrages depicted on the screen - galley ship slaves being subjected to starvation, gum disease, diarrhea, overcrowding and forced feedings. Other scenes are equally repellent and difficult to watch; the overweight plantation owner sizing up his "breeding stock," public beatings and castrations for unfaithful male slaves, the list goes on and on, a catalogue of atrocities which caused critic Pauline Kael to call the film "the most specific and rabid incitement of the race war." And you can hardly disagree with her from the evidence at hand. The film ends with a contemporary reenactment -set in a spotless, white suburban home - of the Nat Turner killings: Black revolutionaries trash the house and murder the occupants (the baby is smashed against the wall), leaving their corpses in a pile on the floor. Even Prosperi admits that "maybe we went a little too far" but neither he nor Jacopetti ever intended the narration to be perceived as their point of view. Looking back, Prosperi thinks that perhaps the film should have had a disclaimer at the head such as, "Attention! What you are about to see is the view point of men of those times."
One interesting note about the production: Much of it was shot on location in Haiti using local talent and sets built especially for the production. Jacopetti was able to secure permission for filming from the country's dictator at the time, Francois Duvalier "Papa Doc," and at times, the island's lush surroundings pass convincingly as Deep South locations (the cinematography is by Claudio Cirillo, Antonio Climati and Benito Frattari).
Addio Zio Tom is presented in widescreen 2.35:1/16:9 with optional English subtitles and a choice of Italian or English audio (the running time is 136 minutes). There are no extras but there is an accompanying disc, the English version entitled Goodbye Uncle Tom which runs 13 minutes shorter but includes these extras: a theatrical trailer, Behind-the-scenes 8mm footage with audio commentary by Giampaolo Lomi, a still gallery and poster art.
For more information about The Mondo Cane Collection, visit Blue Underground. To order The Mondo Cane Collection, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jeff Stafford
