Franco Brusati, the director of “To Forget Venice,” belonged to what might be called the second tier of queer Italian directors. Active in film and television since the late 1940s, he was a versatile journeyman—playwright, screenwriter, director, and producer—who in 1968 achieved international recognition as the lead writer on Franco Zeffirelli’s hugely successful adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. If Zeffirelli, Visconti, and Pasolini formed the pantheon of Italy’s “tier one,” Brusati occupied the next rung: less flamboyant, more discreet, but no less significant.
Always a private man, Brusati revealed himself—if only obliquely—through his Best Foreign Language Academy Award–nominated To Forget Venice (1979). The film presents both a male and a female queer couple, and pointedly contrasts the tender, aesthetically framed depiction of gay intimacy with the raw, almost animalistic glimpse of heterosexual sex in its opening scene. In doing so, Brusati suggested that queer desire could be rendered with greater artistry and emotional resonance than the conventional heterosexual model.
The story follows Nicky (Erland Josephson), a middle-aged man living in Milan with his younger partner Picchio (David Pontremoli). They travel to visit Nicky’s sister Marta (Hella Petri), a charismatic former opera singer now residing in the family villa with her shy companion Claudia (Eleonora Giorgi). Completing the ensemble is Mariangela Melato—so often associated with Lina Wertmüller—playing a distant cousin whose presence adds a straight counterpoint to the queer pairings.
Chekhovian in tone, the group plans a trip to Venice, though the question lingers: will they ever arrive? The narrative is less about the destination than about memory, mortality, and the fragile bonds between people who live on society’s margins.
One lingering puzzle is Brusati’s choice of Erland Josephson, the great Swedish actor best known for his collaborations with Ingmar Bergman, as his leading man. Like many international productions of the era, To Forget Venice was shot with actors speaking their native languages or approximated dialogue, then dubbed in post-production for Italian release. Since dubbing was standard practice in Italian cinema—even for Italian performers—the decision likely mattered little to audiences, but it underscores Brusati’s ambition to lend his film a cosmopolitan gravitas.
I do have fond memories of this movie. It was my first deeply queer film and my first glimpse a gay relationship, albeit with an age disparity. It mattered to me. It’s beautifully acted and photographed (Romano Albani) and well worth seeing.
As for Brusati, he never had another international success and died from leukemia at the age of 70 in 1993. However, in the mid-seventies he also directed the sleeper hit “Bread and Chocolate” which featured Nino Manfredi as an Italian man who is working illegally in Switzerland.
“To Forget Venice” is currently not available for streaming and is not available on DVD/Blu-ray in the United States.
75 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code 1934-1967 – TheBrownees
75 Queer Films from the New Hollywood (1968-1980). – TheBrownees
