We All Loved Each Other So Much

Ettore Scola's film covering thirty years and the story of a generation. Three men meet as partisans in the Second World War: Gianni will study law, Antonio is a hospital porter, Nicola teaches in the provinces. When the war ends all three believe the same thing: the country is going to change. The film follows the next thirty years and shows that none of them arrives where they meant to. Gianni marries into money, Nicola loses his family over his passion for cinema, Antonio stays where he was. All three love the same woman, Luciana. Its best-known passage is a reconstruction of the shooting of Bicycle Thieves, and Nicola being disqualified from a television quiz over his answer about that film. It is dedicated to Vittorio De Sica, who died before it was finished. Italian cinema is inside the narrative too: Fellini and Marcello Mastroianni play themselves. Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman and Stefania Sandrelli star. An important work for anyone who loves Italian cinema and stories built on political disappointment. For a viewer unfamiliar with the cinema and politics of the period, some of the references pass by.