The Young and The Passionate

They're young, but not very passionate because passion surely implies a conviction of some sort, and these people have none. They show us that young people get themselves into trouble when they accept no responsibilities, but because no one is hurt by the time the last reel rolls around, they also show us all the good fun that ambitious American youth is missing.

Fausto, Moraldo, Alberto, Leopoldo and Riccardo are five young men who live in a modest Italian sea-side resort of apparently little opportunity. They are shiftless and lusty, though they seldom show this latter quality to the camera. Their chief aim is thwarting their parent's attempts to civilize them by harnessing them with jobs. They just like to drink, laugh, dance, and sex.

As they continue to do these things, they come to understand how their activities have generated an emotional involvement with each other, with their girls and with their town. A baby is born, a husband may starts being faithful, a brother leaves town, a friend may sell a play he has written, but they are all still gay. One supposes they have learned to accept only the necessary responsibilities.

By contrast, one suspects young Americans burden themselves with unnecessary responsibilities. A comparable and excellent Hollywood movie, Rebel Without a Cause, showed the grief of American youth by explaining how well-meaning but misinformed parents led their progeny to dangerous irresponsibility. Jimmy Dean and Natalie Wood wanted to have good motives and fine ambitions, but their unhappy homes forced them to seek perverted thrills outside the home.

In Vitelloni, youth is struggling much less with its burdens than with itself, and there is no attempt at a psychological explanation. It does a remarkable job of showing young people as human animals, and how they resolve the problem of co-existence in society. Getting along is the problem, not getting ahead. Unlike Jimmy Dean and Natalie Wood, they don't surrender; the Young and the Passionate simply slow down. Their responsibility, they realize, is in the end only to themselves, which idea, one can readily see, has probably not hit America yet.

Vitelloni, directed with tenderness and humor by Federico Fellini, is technically superb in every respect. The actors, led by Franco Fabrizi, manage to separate themselves from the crowd and yet show how each contributes to the crowd. Each seems to develop a point of view. Leonora Ruffo matures from a squealing dumb Italian to a sympathetic character of real stature. And Nina Rota's music is excellent.

People expecting another big Brattle sex party, contrary to the advertisements, won't get it this week, but they'll see a very fine movie instead.