Enrico IV (Henry IV). 1984. Italy. Written by Marco Bellocchio. Screenplay by Bellocchio, Tonino Guerra, Luigi Pirandello. With Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale. Courtesy of VIGGO. In Italian; English subtitles. DCP. 95 min.
As befits a movie about acting, Bellocchio’s free adaptation of a Luigi Pirandello play from 1921 brings together two great stars of Italian cinema: Marcello Mastroianni, as the scholar who has lived for 20 years under the trauma-induced delusion that he Is the 11th-century Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV; and Claudia Cardinale, as the aristocratic woman he loved before his accident. Henry’s psychiatrist contrives an elaborate role-playing scheme to shock him out of his medieval reverie, staging a confrontation with his lady love both real and imaginary.