(Mimi the steelworker, wounded in honor)
Lina Wertmüller, 1972
For once a film that actually depicts the difficulty and complexity of political belief for a member of the Working Class! (My father was a skilled bender of metal tubes, a so called Pipefitter and a member of the Union, for a subcontractor of Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford and later for Electric Boat in Groton CT, so I grew up learning of the contradictions and ironies of this situation.) Wertmüller died today, on my birthday, and Mimi the Steelworker was my favorite of her many films. Her work was briefly in vogue in the US when I was a student in the late nineteen seventies, but her popularity here wasn't long lived. After The End of the World in our usual Bed in a Night full of Rain, her first film in English and shot in part in my present home city of San Francisco CA, few of her movies were released in this country. Still, she had a long and illustrious career, the director of some 24 feature films and numerous ones for television as well. Her husband, the brilliant production designer, Enrico Job died 13 years ago. She was 93 years old and I believe she Rests In Peace.
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