A TRIBUTE TO ANITA EKBERG
On 11th
January, 2015 Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg (better known only as Anita Ekberg)
passed away at the age of 83 years. This Swedish actress, model, and sex
symbol, was best known for her role as Sylvia in
the Federico Fellini (Italian) film La
Dolce Vita (1960), which featured a scene of
her cavorting in Rome'sTrevi Fountain alongside Marcello Mastroianni. However, I haven’t seen that movie.
The first time I saw her was in ‘Woman Times
Seven’(Sette Volte Donna in Italian), which was Italian/French/American co-production anthology
film of seven different episodes,
directed by Vittorio De Sica, all starring Shirley
MacLaine, most of them based on aspects of adultery. It was during my college
days. I think, it was at ‘New Empire Theatre’. ‘Woman Times Seven’ was a very
short film and hence another film,‘Boccaccio’ was also screened along with WTS,
which also featured Anita Ekberg.
The seven episodes were titled
Paulette /Funeral Procession’, Maria Teresa/ Amateur Night’, ‘Edith/ Super
Simone’, Eve/ At the Opera’, ‘Marie/ Suicides’, and ‘Jeane / Snow’. It was star
studded film figuring Shiley MacLaine with Peter Sellers, Michael Caine, Lex
Barker, Adrienne Corri, Vittorio
Gassman and Anita Ekberg. In the episode - ‘Jeane / Snow’ Anita Ekberg, I think, had a very small
role. In that episode two friends meet for lunch on a winter afternoon. They notice a
handsome but seedy-looking man (Michael Caine) who appears to be following them.
Claudie (Anita Ekberg) suggests the two leave the restaurant and go their separate
ways to see which one of them he follows. As Paris is hit by a sudden blizzard,
Jeanne realises that the man is following her.
I
was simply fascinated by ‘Boccaccio 70’ (an omnibus film telling four different
tales and each story directed by four different directors, common theme being satire
of Puritanism and of morality). No, not fascinated by the entire film but by
one of the four stories (Le tentazioni del dottor Antonio- The Temptation of Dr. Antonio) in which there was this beautiful, tall, voluptuous, big –
breasted, giant of a woman in the film, I was in my teens, remember? So it was natural for to be so wonder-struck. There
is this character, an
elderly citizen who is fed up with too much immorality in the form of indecent
content in print. He goes about in his mission raising his objections wherever and
whenever he has issues with something immoral in society, filing complaints
after complaints with the authorities. One fine morning as looks out of his
bedroom window he horrified to find a huge hoarding that has come up in the
park below. It shows a huge Anita Ekberg lying provocatively beside a milk
bottle. It’s a billboard of Anita Ekberg advertising "Drink more
milk".
He doesn’t know how that billboard will go on to change his life. He
goes one authority to the other to have it removed, covering the Church, Municipality, Government, everyone, but to no avail. Throughout
the film, children are heard singing the jingle "Bevete più latte, bevete
più latte!" (Drink more milk! The movie was thankfully sub-titled in
English. ) The image begins to haunt him with hallucinations. Down comes, the
whole towering Anita, some fifteen times his height – out of that giant poster –
alive and all her tantalising self. She comes near him and lifts the tiny little
Dr. Antonio in her palm. Then she appears as a temptress and Dr. Antonio as St. George to spear the dragon – he is pursued and captured by the
buxom Swedish star in a deserted Rome (Rome and deserted? Unimaginable, isn’t it?) And
at one point, his umbrella falls between her breasts. Can you imagine his struggle
to retrieve his umbrella and then getting out from the precarious position that he was in?
It's a small tribute from your fan. RIP Madame Anita Ekberg.
Vinay Trilokekar
