Ornella Muti - The Sensual Gaze

In 1981, on a Friday late night show (about ) at the Screen on the Hill in Belsize Park, I went to see a little heralded film called ’Tales of Ordinary Madness’. It was a film based on the short stories and other writings of Charles Bukowski with Ben Gazzara in the main role of the hard-drinking womanising poet. I wasn’t, at the time, terribly interested in poetry or poets. But something in the brilliant raw honesty of Bukowski’s language struck a chord as it must have done with millions of others over the years and as it must have done with Marco Ferreri, who directed the film. Bukowski was not a fan of the film. He felt that Gazzara looked too pleased with himself. It’s true. He did. But that was one of the things that made it work. The other was the tragic story of Cass that was at the heart of the film. ’The Most Beautiful Woman in Town’. I had rarely seen someone so captivating and, spoiler alert, someone whose absence registered more powerfully. This was life at its most