Cinema Can Overtake at Speed: Il sorpasso

Rome on the Ferragosto holiday, August 15th: while looking for a telephone, 40-year-old Bruno (Vittorio Gassman) ends up in the apartment of law student Roberto (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and invites him to join him on a spin in his Lancia Aurelia Sport. The fundamentally different characters and temperaments of the two men are reflected in their driving habits: while the hyperactive and extroverted playboy overtakes in daredevil fashion (il sorpasso is Italian for overtake), the hesitant, inhibited Roberto shakes with fear in the passenger seat. The two-day car drive along the Tyrrhenian coast becomes a journey of initiation. This infectious, fast-paced tragicomedy with its twist fashion inspired soundtrack is one of the highlights of the commedia all’italiana, a genre to which we dedicated a comprehensive and highly successful retrospective in 2019. This first modern road movie was a source of inspiration for many subsequent films, including Dennis Hoppers’s Easy Rider. (hjf)