Film
Il mio corpo per un poker
Lina Wertmüller • IT 1968 • 99min
DCP • itOF+enUT
11.10.2023, 20:30 Leokino
»I have never allowed a man to kiss me. The only one who tried is dead.« (Belle Starr)
Fast horses, sweaty faces, sharp shooters - My Body for a Poker Game has everything an entertaining Italo Western needs. But here it’s not some dirty cowboy who thrashes, shoots and smokes his way through the film, but the beautiful bandit Belle Starr, who mainly fends for herself and has a bounty on her head. During the eponymous poker game against the gang leader Larry Blackie, an idiosyncratic relationship between passion and power games develops between the two outlaws. When it comes to a diamond heist, the thwarted lovers become bitter rivals.
Il mio corpo per un poker is the only female-directed Italo western that also features a woman as the lead. Wertmüller stepped in to replace the original director. Fortunately for the film, Wertmüller completely rewrote the script, eliminating crowd scenes and focusing instead on the hard-boiled female gunslinger. Between pithy sayings and fight scenes, Wertmüller took time for the psychological character drawing, adding an uncharacteristically complex figure to the genre. (Judith Salner)
Digital film introduction: Sabine Schöbel (*1962, PhD in film studies, cultural manager and experimental filmmaker).
About GRRRLS TRIPPIN’ – BON VOYAGE!
Director, Writer Lina Wertmüller • Cinematography Alessandro D’Eva • Edit Renato Cinquini • Cast Elsa Martinelli, Robert Woods, Luigi Montefiori, Bruno Piergentili • Music Charles Dumont • Producer Oscar Righini
Lina Wertmüller (*1928 in Rome; † 2021 in Rome) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Her films revolved around the battle of the sexes and dealt with socio-political themes. In 1977, the “comedy director” (FAZ) became the first woman to be nominated for an Oscar – for the controversial film “Seven Beauties” (1975). In 2019, two years before her passing, she received an honorary Oscar for her lifetime achievement.
