Word: postino
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...OFTEN IS FILMMAKING A matter of life and death? It was just that for Massimo Troisi, star of The Postman (Il Postino). Enfeebled by a heart condition, the Italian actor was able to work only an hour or two a day on his dream movie, whose story imagined a friendship between Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and a simple postman. Two cardiologists and an oxygen tent stood by on the set for Troisi, 41, who couldn't walk more than a few feet before sitting down. A high school gym teacher had to serve as his body double for more than...
...would be wearing the shy, radiant smile that illuminates Il Postino, for last week the film received five nominations from the Motion Picture Academy in Hollywood. Though unsanctioned by the usual arbiters of artistic chic--film festivals and critics' groups--and something less than a breakout box-office hit of the Like Water for Chocolate variety, Il Postino became the first foreign-language film nominated for best picture since Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers 22 years ago. Troisi was cited for his performance, Radford for his direction. Both the screenplay and the score were also nominated. In a race...
...miracle," effuses Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax Films. It was surely a godsend to the bustling, Disney-owned distributor, which had no big hit in 1995 to match such previous successes as The Piano, The Crow and Pulp Fiction. But if luck is the residue of design, the Postino nominations were the result of a savvy Miramax marketing campaign...
...Antonio Skarmeta novel on which the film is based, and another 25,000 books of Neruda poetry. A CD of stars like Sting, Madonna and Wesley Snipes reading Neruda was later sent to Academy members with a videocassette of the film, as was a note telling them that Il Postino was ineligible for the foreign-language Oscar because the Italians had not offered it for nomination. If Academy voters wanted to honor the film, they'd just have to nominate it for Best Picture...
That they did says a few things: that a small, TV-size movie plays well to older, stay-at-home Academy voters; that in a subpar year for Hollywood films, the members will look abroad; and that emotional clout always helps sell a picture. Il Postino takes as its subject the volatile nature of a strong, unequal friendship. The movie makes poignant and palpable that most discreet of passions: devotion...