On the surface, that doesn\u2019t paint the most flattering picture of Sutherland. But it was those qualities that convinced Fellini to cast the Canadian-born actor in the title role of his dizzyingly debaucherous 1975 historical opus, Fellini\u2019s Casanova<\/em>. In the wake of Sutherland\u2019s passing, much attention has been paid to his more widely known work from that same decade (M.A.S.H<\/em>, Don\u2019t Look Now, Invasion of the Body Snatchers<\/em>) and over the subsequent 49 years (Ordinary People,<\/em> JFK<\/em>, The Hunger Games <\/em>series), but his sojourn to Italy and collaboration with Fellini deserves its share of love, as it boasts one Sutherland\u2019s most bizarre, most daring, and all-around best performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Loosely based on the real Giacomo Casanova\u2019s autobiography Historie de ma vie<\/em> (The Story of My Life<\/em>), the film looks at the adventures of the 18th-century Venetian writer and intellectual, particularly his myriad carnal escapades throughout Europe. In death as in life, Casanova\u2019s name became synonymous with sexual libertinism, which Fellini presents not as seductive life of transgression and freedom, but a hazy, grotesque, and hollow schlep towards anti-climax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 1975, Fellini had moved fully away from the neo-realism of his earliest pictures into full-blown fantasia, every one of his new efforts nothing less than a giant carnival. Yet these were not extravaganza\u2019s made up of escapist entertainment, but warped-mirror reflections of the world Fellini saw around him that revealed ugly truths. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Casanova<\/em>, a film which Fellini never really wanted to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea of Fellini doing a movie about history\u2019s most famous lover seemed like an eventuality, which partially explains his reluctance to do it. He would often use the project as a way to entice financers into funding other projects, although he finally agreed to make it at the behest of producer Dino De Laurentis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n De Laurentis, as always, sought to make the biggest blockbuster imaginable, so he was determined to cast Robert Redford in the title role, not realizing that Fellini did not view his hero as an erotic dynamo, but rather as pompous ass and naked social climber who coasts through life (save a couple catastrophes including a brief imprisonment for practicing black magic and a half-assed suicide attempt following a nasty breakup) on a mostly unearned reputation as a lothario; his neurotic devotion to his libido always undermines his artistic and philosophical efforts, to say nothing of his personal happiness. (Knowing how much trouble Fellini\u2019s own womanizing caused, it\u2019s obvious that his personal disdain for Casanova stemmed not a little from seeing himself in the man.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fellini nixed Redford, along with other English-language stars suggested by De Laurentis, such as Micahel Caine and Jack Nicholson. He wanted to cast his go-to leading man, Marcello Mastroianni, but the scheduling just didn\u2019t work out, even after De Laurentis walked away from the project and was replaced by fellow Italian megaproducer Alberto Grimaldi. Throughout this time, Sutherland\u2019s name kept popping up, although it\u2019s unknown who first suggested him. Per Sutherland himself, his involvement was entirely \u201cbuilt up from the simple repetition of the rumor.\u201d But he desperately wanted the part, not because the role of Casanova spoke to him, but because, like every serious actor of the time, he wanted to work with Fellini, undoubtedly the most acclaimed arthouse director of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sutherland openly campaigned for the role, sending a letter to Fellini gushing about how much he admired him, along with a bunch of roses. This didn\u2019t work at first, but after it became clear that Mastrioanni was a no-go, the director decided that Sutherland was his man, his reasoning bringing us back to the aforementioned description of the inhuman and oneiric qualities he found in the actor. Yet even with those qualities already at his disposal, Fellini chose to make Sutherland appear even weirder, having him shave the top of his head and wear a prosthetic nose and chin. The effect is\u2026 effective, with Sutherland\u2019s Casanova looking like a cross between a cartoonist\u2019s caricature and an early prototype of Pennywise the Clown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n (What makes all of this extra funny is that Fellini and Sutherland had not only met prior to this, they\u2019d starred in a damn movie together. Granted, they only share a single scene in Paul Mazursky\u2019s Alex in Wonderland<\/em>\u2014 an Americanized spin on 8 \u00bd<\/em><\/a>, in which Sutherland plays Mazursky\u2019s fictional stand-in and Fellini plays himself\u2014but it\u2019s the best and most famous scene in the film!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fellini\u2019s instincts proved correct, which really shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise given Sutherland\u2019s career trajectory up to that point. While it was true that the features which so singularly distinguished him\u2014the tall, lanky, scarecrow\u2019s frame; the equine facial structure housing those saucer eyes, beak of a nose, and The Man Who Laughed<\/em>-like lips; and that voice, so unlike anyone else\u2019s, intelligent, empathetic, capable of great gravitas and dignity even as it conveyed a sinister potential \u2014would have relegated him to playing weirdos and villains in any other decade, he had the fortune to break through in the \u201870s, the only time when leading men could look like everyman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Granted, Sutherland wasn\u2019t exactly an everyman; he recalled <\/a>being passed over for a boy-next-door role once because, in the producer\u2019s words, \u201cYou don\u2019t look like you live next door to anybody.\u201d But still, he got in when the getting was good, and by the time he was starring as the patron saint of would-be playboys he himself was something of a surprise sex symbol, thanks mostly to his steamy onscreen tryst with Julie Christie in Nicolas Roeg\u2019s brilliant familial horror drama Don\u2019t Look Now<\/em><\/a> (which, like the first act of Casanova<\/em>, memorably plunks Sutherland down amongst the shadowy canals and cobblestone streets of Venice). So stunning and realistic are the sex scenes in that film that the rumor persisted for decades\u2014indeed, still persists to this day\u2014that he and Christie are actually fucking (they\u2019re not).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same cannot be said of the sex scenes in Fellini\u2019s Casanova<\/em>, which play either like drunken circus acrobatics or dull missionary thrusting. This isn\u2019t to say the film paints Casanova as a poor lover\u2014he gets his partners off most of the time, although there are a couple of occasions where their pleasure (indeed, even their consent) is murky\u2014but he\u2019s more prolific than prodigious. What sets him apart is the sense of esoteric ceremony he brings to bed (most notably the use of a mechanical golden owl totem) with him. Those expecting an arthouse porno will be sorely let down, as Fellini\u2019s Casanova<\/em> takes after the director\u2019s effort from six years earlier, <\/em>Fellini Satyricon<\/em><\/a>, which screenwriter Bernardino Zapponi, who co-scripted both with Fellini, accurately described as \u201cchaste and anguished\u2026 like a funeral\u2026 [the characters] laugh when they should die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Sutherland lets the pompous facade of his character gradually fall away, revealing Casanova\u2019s true self: a petty, petulant, ultimately mediocre man who we nonetheless feel for because he at least never stopped dreaming.\u00a0Indeed, Fellini\u2019s Casanova <\/em>concludes with a dream, one in which Casanova imagines himself sharing a dance with the love of his life\u2014a plasticine automaton he once made love with. It\u2019s a brutally devastating final image, but one that also contains a cruel kernel of humor, Fellini pairing off one sperm-filled waxwork with another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/casanova2-1024x576.jpg\")
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