Swept Away vs. Swept Away (1974/2002)

Directors: Lina Wertmüller/ Guy Ritchie

Screenplays: Lina Wertmüller/ Guy Ritchie

Cast: Giancarlo Giannini as Gennarino Carunchio, Mariangela Melato as Raffaella Pavone Lanzetti, Riccardo Salvino as Signor Pavone Lanzetti

Madonna as Amber Leighton, Adriano Giannini as Giuseppe Esposito, Bruce Greenwood as Tony Leighton

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

Swept Away as a premise is a problematic one - in which a spoilt rich wife of a businessman and a working class male crew member of a sailing boat are stranded on an island - but only depending on how it's made. Bear in mind the original, which is more transgressive as the crew member Gennarino (Giancarlo Giannini) is a misogynist who uses the scenario to dominate over a businessman's wife Rafffaella (Mariangela Melato), is made by one of the few women working consistently in that era, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmüller whose willingness to tackle complex material I witnessed in Seven Beauties (1975), one part sex comedy as the lead is a woman crazed chauvinist, only to be set in World War II and evoke concentration camps as our lead is shipped off to a work camp, as bleakly as it should be depicted. That particular film made her the first woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, which is a big detail to consider). Wertmüller wouldn't just make a film like this, to be blunt, as a female artist unless that uncomfortable misogyny of Gennarino, as Rafffaella becomes seemingly subservient on the island, with even an attempted mock rape taking place, unless that's the point of discussion.

And Swept Away, tragically the only Lina Wertmüller film ever released in the United Kingdom during the DVD era, is complicated and uncomfortable, also a film made in the turbulence of seventies Italy and hence unlike any modern day film in that, like a lot of films from that era (even pure genre films), it's made in a country that was turbulent in its history at the time, and as a result unspooled in films like this. Gennarino is a communist and his punishment of Rafffaella is excused by him as punishing capitalism, Rafffaella shrill as Melato plays her as obnoxiously as possible at the beginning. His apparent justification is suspicious even before he's revealed to be a bad human being too. That he eventually falls in love with her adds to the tension.   

Now this is where we should introduce the 2002 remake, as probably the only reason the film was likely released in the UK (by Arrow Films before they were a boutique powerhouse) was because of the infamy of when Guy Ritchie and his then wife Madonna remade this film. Ritchie came to be through crime films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), and whilst he has made tangents in his career and a stint helming Disney's Aladdin (2019), probably the only infamous change from his bread and butter of crime stories were the notorious one-two punch of this film, and Revolver (2005), which is a crime film but a metaphorical attempt at a cerebral one, which would have to be covered for another day.

Madonna, not to be confused with the Virgin Mary, is the legendary pop musician whose entire career just in terms of flirting with cinema is worth an entirely different discussion, her chameleonic career even in music in general as much part of this. Ever since the Vogue music video she has kept knocking at the door of cinema¹, and as she has changed her appearance and tone with her music, likewise the cinematic interactions have too. This was an older Madonna, no longer the Marilyn Monroe stand-in of Vogue or the esoteric Kabala obsessed singer of the nineties, the time of embracing English culture through Ritchie, staring in one of the worst James Bond films ever made Die Another Day (2002), and having already worked with Guy Ritchie on The Hire, a series of BMW sponsored shorts². This was clearly meant to be a way for her to be depicted as an erotic woman too, as whilst its toned down from the original movie, Swept Away still has occasional sights of nudity contrasted with the male lead no longer being the hairy and burly Gennarino, but a very hunky co-star Adriano Giannini with his shirt usually off.

The remake is just okay for most of its length, pretty much a straight forward remake. Its notable Adriano Giannini replaces Giancarlo Giannini, replacing an everyday guy, whose Sicilian origins are explicably part of the tension against a Northern Italian woman, with a hunk for a romantic drama. Giannini was over the top but even in terms of a troubling story, the 1974 film was designed as such that his moral righteousness was being attacked, as he is able to make Rafffaella beg for fish as he is capable of surviving on the island whilst she cannot, shown as a hypocrite alongside little details fed to us onwards. Adriano Giannini is toned down, not a misogynist whilst deliberately cast to be attractive and be part of the goal to promote Madonna. And yes, before there's any confusion, Adriano is Giancarlo Giannini's son, which adds such a peculiar relationship with the films as they mirror each other even in terms of bloodline.

Madonna herself isn't good, let's get that out the way now. Mariangela Melato is over the top and exaggerated anyway, but Madonna is considerably wooden in comparison. The clear desire to worship her is where I have to ask what possessed Guy Ritchie and Madonna to remake such a dark and uncomfortable film thinking it's perfect romantic melodrama. The 1974 film could look at first like a sex comedy, but over two hours it's a slow burn of festering drama, taking its time before the leads even get on the island. The 2002 film, at only ninety or so minutes, is bright and sunny, even finding a way to turn into a music video where Madonna, in a fantasy on the island, turns into a cabaret singer backed by a full jazz band as she produces odd objects like a rabbit as a comparison to her song. As an attempt to show her as still glamorous, it is a paradox. She was and still is glamorous, but the film itself is deeply inappropriate as she is meant to be obnoxious, off putting at first, with the sense of this just being another dead end in a career in cinema which never hit the ground running.

Oh, and the remake still has it that Madonna is to be forced to be subservient to this macho man, even if it means her being slapped or recreating the mock rape scene, chased until he can pin her down in a sand dune, rip her clothes off and then denying her sex when she "changes" her mind. The original film clearly has layers and [Major Spoiler] there's a real sense Rafffaella is manipulating Gennarino as he thinks he has won her. The very egregiously wrong minded nature of the 2002 film only takes place halfway through, that it plays this premise as accurate as before, with these dark and discomforting moments, but eventually as a tragic romance.

That is where the film jut goes from merely existing, baring a spark in brightness seeing Bruce Greenwood of John From Cincinnati (2007) as Madonna's husband, to being a misguided and awful as its notoriety suggests. The original Swept Away leaves you with no one sympathetic but not in an empty nihilistic way, difficult but with a lingering sense of complexity. Swept Away the remake gets soppy and maudlin in this love based on submission being broken up, which just reads with so many wrong messages in the modern day. Certainly, this is not held as a high point for either Guy Ritchie or Madonna, who'd separate years later. For the original, this is just one point in the career of Lina Wertmüller, sadly under seen least here in England but highly regarded especially in the United States, getting a special Academy Honorary Award in 2019 with photos showing a ninety plus veteran with Quentin Tarantino and Greta Gerwig at the ceremony. Whilst her Swept Away will be too uncomfortable for some, and the acting exaggerated to an extreme, it's at least a complex take on politics, gender and class set within seventies Italy that you could only get from that era, and stands out as something to behold.

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1) I cannot attest to real knowledge of her music, as of 2020 not well versed in the slightest, but the films and music themselves are out there to consider and learn of.

2) The Hire shorts are of interest. A handful of legendary filmmakers - among them Ang Lee, Wong Kar-Wai, John Frankenheimer, Tony Scott etc. - allowed carte blanche to make car related chase and action films, as long as they use the BMV and make it look awesome, with all of them starring Clive Owen as the mysterious nameless driver who is the protagonist, whether he's driving Madonna around or, in Scott's, racing for the soul of musician James Brown from the Devil played by Gary Oldman.