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| Luigi Comencini: La ragazza di Bube / Bebo's Girl (IT/FR 1963). Claudia Cardinale (Mara Castellucci), George Chakiris (Arturo Cappellini, named Bube), |
Buben tyttö / Bubes flicka.
IT/FR 1963. Prod.: Franco Cristaldi per Lux Film, Ultra Film, Vides Cinematografica, Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France S.A.
Director: Luigi Comencini. Sog.: from the novel of the same name (1960) by Carlo Cassola. Scen.: Marcello Fondato, Luigi Comencini [uncredited]. F.: Gianni Di Venanzo – b&w. M.: Nino Baragli. Scgf.: Piero Gherardi. Mus.: Carlo Rustichelli. Int.: Claudia Cardinale (Mara Castellucci), George Chakiris (Arturo Cappellini, named Bube), Marc Michel (Stefano), Dany Paris (Liliana), Monique Vita (Ines), Carla Calò (Mara’s mother), Emilio Esposito (Mara’s father), Mario Lupi (Lidori).
111 min
Finnish premiere: 6 Nov 1965 – Adlon – O.Y. Fox Films A.B.
Restored in 4K in 2022 by Cinecittà in collaboration with Cristaldifilm, from the original camera and sound 35 mm negatives.
By courtesy of Cristaldifilm.
DCP with English subtitles from Cinecittà Luce.
Il Cinema Ritrovato, Bologna 2025: Life First! The Cinema of Luigi Comencini.
Viewed at Cinema Modernissimo, 25 June 2025.
Bologna 2025: "The novel La ragazza di Bube by Carlo Cassola that won the Strega Prize in 1960 was one of the era’s bestsellers. A film adaptation was inevitable, also because films about Fascism and the Resistance had been in vogue in Italy for several years. The story tells of a working-class girl engaged to a former partisan who is arrested for a murder that took place during the tumultuous days following the liberation. It is the portrait of a woman, a fact which Marcello Fondato’s screenplay accentuates through the deliberate choice of recounting the story as a long flashback told in her words. Comencini’s direction emphasizes this reflection on the past and enters into dialogue with the cinema of the post-war years. On the one hand, its remoteness is emphasized by the use of flashback and Carlo Rustichelli’s melancholy leitmotif. On the other, the film’s style is both lively and refined: the close ups with dense backgrounds, the use of the almost virtuoso scenes (the dialogue in the cinema foyer with the lights gradually being dimmed), the high contrast chiaroscuro cinematography by Gianni Di Venanzo (along the lines of his previous work on Salvatore Giuliano and 8½), and scenes such as the deposition at the trial, shot as a static long take without reverse shots. Claudia Cardinale plays a problematic and nuanced heroine, staring into space or with her eyes downturned. She inhabits the post-war period but simultaneously reveals to us how remote those years now are. She is a character closer to the women of Antonioni’s cinema than those of neorealism."
AA: In Luigi Comencini's La ragazza di Bube Claudia Cardinale stars in the strongest role of hers that I have seen. Produced by Franco Cristaldi, photographed by Gianni Di Venanzo and the score composed by Carlo Rustichelli, this is a high profile production in all ways.
It takes place in the years of the painful transition from Fascism to democracy, and the society is full of open wounds.
In these circumstances the Bildungsroman of Mara Castellucci (Claudia Cardinale) takes place. She is the subject, the driving force of her life, facing painful choices, revising them and committing herself finally to her fiancé Bube who faces 14 years in prison for murder.
The love story is unique in many ways. Bube the fearless partisan fails miserably in emotional intelligence. Mara keeps rejecting him if he does not improve. But when it is a matter of life and death, Mara is true blue and does not care what people are saying. She is a warm-hearted heroine of spirit, independence and willpower.
Mara has no education but she possesses a grandeur of spirit and courage. She is a real woman who selects the clumsy and awkward Bube although she is also courted by the aspiring writer, the gentle and sophisticated Stefano (Marc Michel). Luigi Comencini is a great director of women. He has wisdom and understanding in the mysteries of the heart.
My favourite scene in the movie is one that reminds me of Young Mr. Lincoln. In a mob hunt sequence, a Fascist priest is being harassed and about to be hanged. But Bube, the authority among the crowd, takes him in his arms – and brings him to the police station. He alone is able to save him. When Bube is on trial, the priest is brought to testify and gives an honest account of Bube's character.
I am ashamed to confess that I don't know Italian history very well, but a film like this helps me understand a bit more, especially about the crucial election about the Italian constitution – monarchy or republic.
Luigi Comencini handles both the epic historical scenes and the psychological growing-up story of the young woman extremely well. It is both living history and a story of real human beings of flesh and blood. One of the all time great Italian films in the same way as Il mulino del Po.
I love this film for personal reasons, and was in tears from the beginning.
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