Capolavoro

“The unforgettable classic that still nobody understands.”

— Tagline.

Capolavoro (Italian for "Masterpiece") is a 1964 black & white classic arthouse film directed by Emanuelle Pasorelli, featured in Grand Theft Auto V.

Description[]

Capolavoro is directed by Emanuelle Pasorelli and produced by CineCapra. The movie is spoken simultaneously in French and Spanish, while using footage from Grand Theft Auto IV (including the infamous heart of the Statue of Happiness Easter egg) and Red Dead Redemption. According to the poster, it was awarded with the title of Best Foreign Film in the Algonquin Film Festival and nominated for Best Marketing Campaign. Capolavoro also received award nominations in 1962; however, it is possible the film was premiered in festivals before its official release date.

In Grand Theft Auto V, Capolavoro is seen returning to the cinemas of Los Santos, reportedly to celebrate its 50th birthday as written by an LS24 article. Since the events of the game happen in 2013, this would make Capolavoro a production from the year 1963. Despite this, the in-game website Classic Vinewood, states that Capolavoro was produced in 1964. It is most likely a developer oversight. The film is also seen to be playing at Pollock Cinema in Ludendorff, North Yankton.

The movie is one of three films the protagonists can watch in cinemas, the other two being The Loneliest Robot in Great Britain and Meltdown.

Synopsis[]

“Directed by Emanuelle Pasorelli, this arthouse film makes little sense. A man, who may or may not be a thief, with a nagging wife hears a beautiful woman in his head, and both conspire to make him go mad as he lives in anguish over his role in his friend Luigi's death. Actor's mouths rarely move, yet the player can hear their voices, a technique the director used in several films. The ladder in the end symbolizes something, that is unknown of what.”

— classicvinewood.com

Influence & Themes[]

Capolavoro mostly references 1960s modernist European cinema, often parodying the exaggerated and sometimes incomprehensible direction found in the genre. Its most distinguishable influences might be from Federico Fellini's 8½ and Ingmar Bergman's Persona: the slow-paced, meticulous black and white cinematography, the use of a seemingly disjointed dream sequence as an introduction and the reflections on the nature of cinema, a major theme in both movies, are also explored in Capolavoro. The two intervening women might also be a reference to Elisabet and Alma in Bergman's Persona. The use of horses as recurrent symbolism is likely a nod to Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev.

While the film is mostly satirical towards modernist cinema, Capolavoro also presents some philosophical and psychological themes, mostly surrounding the concept of Anima and animus in Carl Jung's analytic psychology. In his work, Jung defines the anima as the unconscious feminine inner personality a man possesses, much like the mysterious woman that Antonio listens to during his dreams. This is further reinforced by her occasional embodiment in the form of a mime, suggesting that she is merely an imitation of Antonio's subconscious. Jung states that the contact with the anima is the "masterpiece", hence the name of the film.

The ladder Antonio is frequently seen climbing can be interpreted as a reference to Jacob's Ladder, perhaps representing Antonio's psychological ascent to his anima. The women's first line of dialogue, "Freud has a lot to answer for!", directly references Freudian psychoanalysis and its divergence from the aforementioned Jungian psychology.

Cast[]

Emanuelle Pasorelli
Dante Bianchini
Maria Mecacci
Tedaldo Giordano
Rafaelo Romano

Poster Credits[]

The credits on the posters for the movie are a generic list shared with Whose Placenta? and I Married my Dad, and as such do not match the actual film credits played in the cinemas in game.

Alejandro Aragada
Betsy Tubor
Didi Tuener
Pedro Flojorooder
Alex Krotowski
Costume Design: Peter Lloyd
Music: David Pointer
Editor: Andy Dufrane
Production Design: Bernie Gilmartin
Co-Producer: Troy Botuda
Executive Producers: Louise Madruga, Hansel Keyes, Peter Flossop, Jonathan Constantine, Louise Peters
Producers: Steve Kazansky, Helena Bers, Mark Petersburg
Writers: Jamie Felon & Susan Anderson
Designers?: Klaaz Kreutzenberg & Patricia Fozze
Director: Elton Katz

Reviews[]

Reviews left by users on Classicvinewood.com:

thimbledick - "What is with the horse?" - 5/10 stars
sippycup8 - "Or the fact that it's in two different languages." - 3/10 stars
richardsfan45 - "One of the great stories of our time!" - 8/10 stars
Unknown Man - "Well, I was dearly confused, but, I felt better than other people towards the end."