One pleasure delivered by classic Hollywood films is the magnificent, luminous close-up of a beautiful face. Back when there was a "silver screen" and movies were shown in palaces projecting images bigger than the houses of most of the audience, these kinds of close-ups were the equivalent of special effects in contemporary movies -- they were like big fiery explosions, expensive, and to be judiciously employed. William Wyler's Roman Holiday serves its viewers glamorous close-ups of its stars, a very young Audrey Hepburn (she was 23) and Gregory Peck. The screen seems to vibrate, to become tremulous when these images appear. In Hollywood's golden era, it was these privileged images that people paid to see. Roman Holiday is full of impressive vistas of palaces, churches, the Trevi Fountain in full spate, the Roman forum with its mighty columns, the glacial expanse of the Spanish Steps but it is the close-ups of the stars that carry the picture's meaning and allure.
The Italian producer, Dino de Laurentiis had the template of Roman Holiday (1953) in mind when he commenced negotiations with Federico Fellini, five years after the picture' release, for what would become (under a different production company) La Dolce Vita. Of course, Fellini wasn't interested in delivering the witty romantic comedy that Wyler (with a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo among others) made. But there are common elements to both pictures. La Dolce Vita presents images of glamorous celebrities most famously the voluptuous Anita Ekberg; Roman Holiday is about another kind of celebrity, a lonely and exhausted princess from some unnamed Ruritania, who flees into the Roman cityscape to avoid her ennervating royal schedule. In both films, the urban landscape of Rome is central to the picture's imagery. Most importantly, Gregory Peck's character, Joe Butler, is a gossip journalist employed by some sort of American-run tabloid; of course, Marcello Mastroianni plays a world-weary tabloid-sheet scandalmonger (who yearns to be a literati) in Fellini's 1960 film. Joe has a sidekick who is a professional photographer specializing in candid and embarrassing shots of celebrities -- he is a paparazzi before the term was coined after photographer character, Paparazzo, in La Dolce Vita. On a fundamental level, both pictures deal with moral and ethical issues arising around the cult of celebrity and the journalists and photographers who are parasitic on them.
Audrey Hepburn's princess has reached the end of her tether at the start of Roman Holiday. She's exhausted by a schedule of obligatory appearances at various charity functions and embassies -- we see her at the tail end of a whirlwind European tour. The film's opening scenes establish the brutal monotony of her existence when we see her greeting a long procession of dignitaries with complicated pedigrees and ludicrous names -- she loses a shoe and, then, has to dance with a succession of short, bald and old men. The countess, who is her lady-in-waiting, suggests that she be freed briefly from her schedule and allowed to do what she wants. When the princess begins to weep and resist, suffering a minor nervous break-down, a doctor is called to inject her with sedative. The drug is slow to act and the Princess escapes the palace (running along a surreally grandiose upper corridor overlooked by huge plaster giants and innumerable frescos). Wandering through the nighttime city, the princess feels the drugs kick in and she falls into a stupor on a bench overlooking the Roman forum. This is where the hero, Joe, finds her as he returns from a poker game with his cronies. Joe rescues the Princess taking her home to his small apartment where there is the standard Hollywood sexual tension about where the principals are going to sleep, heightened in this case by the fact that the drowsy Princess seems particularly vulnerable. In the morning, Joe hustles to his newspaper office and, in effect, peddles the story of his encounter with the princess to the press. Joe, then, enlists his buddy, Irving Radovich, played by a rambunctious and bearded Eddie Albert to surreptitiously take photographs of the Princess -- he has a tiny camera in a cigarette-lighter. The Princess is excited to have escaped the tedious bondage of her official duties. She tries to disguise herself by getting her hair barbered into a pixie hair-cut. (The royal family, in a panic, have dispatched an army of secret service officers all clad in black suits to scour Rome to find her.) With Joe as her squire, the Princess tours the famous sites of Rome -- the Spanish steps, the Trevi fountain, the coliseum -- and, of course, she and Joe fall in love. Their adventure ends in a big slapstick brawl, a bit like a Western barfight, on a dance-barge on the Tiber under the looming fortification of the Castello San Angelo. The platoon of secret service men catch up with the princess who is defended by Joe and his buddy. The paparazzo gets a picture of the feisty Princess clobbering a secret service man over the head with a guitar. Both of the romantic leads get tossed into the Tiber. Shivering in the cold, in wet clothing, they kiss but, then, the Princess asks to be taken home. The next day there is a press conference conducted in the vast and ornate palace. Joe and the photographer attend and the Princess now realizes that, perhaps, Joe had ulterior motives in attending to her. But the Princess' secrets are safe with Joe and the paparazzo hands her the portfolio of embarrassing pictures describing them as souvenir images of Rome. It's obvious that the sad Princess now must return to her royal duties and that she will never see Joe again.
Roman Holiday is a very popular movie in Japan. I think the picture's melancholy ending accounts for this in large part. Mono no aware is the Japanese sense of the ineffable sadness of things. I was surprised at how solemn and sad the ending of Roman Holiday is. Mostly, this is star vehicle for Peck and Hepburn and light, frothy romantic comedy. But the Princess' steely self-discipline and icy regal manner in the final scene, masking her heartbreak, is exceptionally affecting and imparts a seriousness to the movie that I didn't see coming.
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