Will ‘Temptation’ Appear in Venice?

Venice tempted moviegoers Monday with French sexual tragedy, Stalinist political drama and off-screen imponderable legalism a la Italiana.

The 45th Venice International Film Festival opened without a hitch but with a nagging question: Will Martin Scorsese’s controversial “The Last Temptation of Christ” be shown?

Answer: No one knows.

Scheduled for festival presentation Sept. 7, the film, which is the target of some religious groups in the United States, is the subject of an Italian lawsuit that must be resolved before it can be shown at the festival.

Doubtless the tension will build until the last moment, when, festival director Guglielmo Biraghi believes, the show will go on.

“It is an important movie. I like it and I am pleased to have selected it,” Biraghi said Monday. “It’s certainly not a blasphemous movie. It’s a very respectful film in its own way. Sure, we’ll have protests the day it’s shown, but they won’t be violent.”

Uncertainty over the film directed by Scorsese and written by Paul Schrader stole the opening-day spotlight from the first two movies in competition for the festival’s Golden Lion Award.

One was “Encore” (Once More) by director Paul Vecchiali, the story of a middle-class Frenchman who breaks up with his wife, takes a homosexual lover and contracts AIDS.

The second film shown Monday was “Dear Gorbachev” by Italian director Carlo Lizani, an account of the 1938 purge and execution of Soviet revolutionary Nikolai I. Bukharin by his friend Josef Stalin.

“Last Temptation” opened earlier this month in the United States and is not in competition here. Instead, it would be presented here as one of a number of movies shown in special events.

Based on a novel by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis, the movie portrays Jesus as the figure grappling with sexual and other human temptations. Citing protests from religious groups in the United States, Milan lawyer Pietro Blanco filed two lawsuits accusing the film of violating Italian constitutional prohibitions against blasphemy of any religion. Officials of the Roman Catholic Church in Venice also protested, saying the film distorted the image of Christ. They asked that the screening be canceled.

“The principal exhibition (print) is still in Paris being subtitled in Italian. It should arrive in another couple of days and when it does we will show it to the court,” Biraghi said.

He called the church’s complaint pro forma.

“The protest came from the local curia but was not signed by the cardinal. We’ve heard nothing from the Vatican, although there have been some complaints from officials of the Christian Democratic Party.”

The party, Italy’s largest, is linked closely to the church.

Even if magistrates conclude that screening the film would be against the law, it could be shown before the festival ends Sept. 9, Biraghi said.

“It is not a question of censorship or whether a judge will stop the movie, but rather a judicial inquiry to decide if showing it might be a crime,” said the festival director, a former film critic who became the festival director last year. “If they found it would be blasphemous, we talk to our lawyers, but my own inclination would be to show it anyway.”

Controversy is no stranger to the Venice festival. It began in 1932 as the Fascist era grew, and endured early, movie-sponsoring patrons such as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Nazi propaganda chief Josef Goebbels. In its latter years, the festival has thrived on sporadic accusations of blasphemy and overdone eroticism, but what is different this year is the attention focused on a movie that has not yet arrived.

“Never has there been a festival so talked about before it opened. Never has there been a film so few people have seen that was so discussed,” said Paolo Poroghesi, chairman of the Venice Biennale, under whose auspices the film festival is being held.

This year, about 50 new films were selected from around 300 international candidates, according to Biraghi.

Of them, 22 are competing for the Golden Lion, including four from the United States: “Things Change” directed by David Mamet; “The Moderns,” directed by Alan Rudolph; “Haunted Summer,” directed by Ivan Passer, and “Madame Sousatzka”’ directed by John Schlesinger, which is listed as a joint U.S.-British production.

American films being shown in other categories include “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” directed by Robert Zemeckis; “Mister North,” directed by Danny Huston; “Good Morning, Vietnam,” directed by Barry Levinson; “Big,” directed by Penny Marshall; “Hitting Home,” directed by Robin Spry, and “Dominick and Eugene” directed by Robert Young.