Word: cucinotta
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Neruda (Philippe Noiret), the communist poet in political exile on an Italian isle, introduces the postman (Troisi) to the verbal rapture of metaphors; aids him in winning over the sultry, feral Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta); then abandons Mario to return home. But the film's true poetry is in Troisi's face--gaunt and ethereal, like that of a Jesus in a Neapolitan pageant. The audience needs no subtitles to read the feelings in this man's brave, troubled heart...
Three days before his oral argument, Cucinotta is in the kitchen of his suburban home, stirring spaghetti sauce and expounding on the U.S.'s adversary system of justice. "People like me are the champions of liberty," he says. "Think if I lose. Does it mean that the Government can willy-nilly threaten harsher sanctions if a defendant doesn't drop the attorney of her choice? Think of the Spanish Inquisition! Or the Tower of London! Not everybody in there was guilty. Or the Willingboro Ten!" His wife Santa gently corrects him: "It's the Wilmington...
...truly believes his cause is to help save the adversary system. The son of a Sicilian-born father, who is a doctor, and an Irish-American mother, Cucinotta keeps little American flags around the house. After learning that the Supreme Court would hear his case, he went to Washington to look at the court building. "I was moved. I kissed the steps," he says. "Well, not really." He kisses his hand and slaps the kitchen stove. "Like that...
...next day Cucinotta returns to Washington to practice his oral argument before lawyers from the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. Firing the kind of probing questions that the Justices are sure to ask, the N.L.A.D.A. coaches blow holes in Cucinotta's platitudes. "Grand gestures about the adversary system," says one. "But I didn't hear your points. You were too cosmic." Cucinotta looks deflated. He has been awake since 2:30 a.m. thinking about his argument. "My head is spinning," he says...
Over the next 48 hours, Cucinotta rebuilds his confidence as he reworks his argument. An hour before the big moment finds him munching an apple in the court's lobby. He has shaved his mustache and put on a dark blue suit, and by now he is flying. "Equal justice under the law!" he exclaims, waving the apple at the frieze on the ceiling. "Equal justice...