Tales of Ordinary Madness

Original title: Storie di ordinaria follia

1981
1h 41m

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

3.1K

YOUR RATING

Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

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Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.Poet/lecturer Charles Serking awakens from his alcoholic haze long enough to take a bus back to L.A. and plunge into an orgy of drink and sexual depravity.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

3.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 9 wins & 3 nominations total

Videos1

Trailer 2:11

Trailer

Photos28

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
As told by his fellow actor and friend Massimo Ceccherini on a podcast, the actor Carlo Monni is credited in the opening credits but isn't actually in the movie. He was supposed to play a role and was on set for the whole production but he had some personal issues that put him in strong emotional distress and made him incapable of acting. Marco Ferreri kept his name in the credits as an act of friendly affection.

Quotes
Charles Serking: [First lines. Off-camera from a theater lecture stage] Well, here I am.
[Jeers are heard from the unseen audience and an unseen voice yells out, "Fuck you, turkey"]
Charles Serking: Ayyyyy... watch it. I've been working out with weights.
[More jeers and another unseen voice yells out, "Are you drunk?"]
Charles Serking: Ill just drink my wine and leave. Right...
[More jeering]
Charles Serking: Okay, let's begin. Forget the bullshit and get into the so-called art... Style...
[Audience is restless and an unseen voice yells out, "We love you, Charlie!" as he guzzles wine from a brown bag]
Charles Serking: Style is the answer to everything... a fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without style. To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art. Bullfighting can be an art. Boxing can be an art. Loving can be an art. Opening a can of sardines can be an art.
[the audience bcimes restless again and an unseen voice cries, "Come on!"]
Charles Serking: Not many have style. Not many can keep style. I have seen dogs with more style than men - though not many dogs have style. Cats have it in abundance.
[He guzzles more wine from his brown bag]

Crazy credits
'Copyright' is spelt as 'copyrigth'.

Connections
Featured in The Films of Marco Ferreri: A discussion with Rolando Caputo (2008)

Soundtracks
Smile Away The Rain
Written by R. & M. Berardi
(r) Mureo Music Pub

User reviews28

Review

Featured review

Sensual and dirt... Bukowskian

The movie is based on the novel of Charles Bukowski... and the film contains its spirit. "Storie di ordinaria follia" is deliberately sensual and "dirt", the main carachter (Ben Gazzara) takes directly inspiration from Bukowski himself -a drunk writer, who chooses to live among poors and neglected people, a man who lives sex like a philosophy, in order to taste the primal feeling of life...-.

The picture is worth watching -because Gazzara is very good and Ornella Muti as well, she's also so sweet and gorgeous...-. The film is interesting because it tries to capture Bukowski ideals and his pessimistic ways to see the world.

I think nevertheless that it is very difficult to film "materials" from a writer like him, because he's so excessive and outrageous... It's particularly difficult to translate his thoughts in pictures. The film is quite boring, the action is slow. Sometimes we have the feeling that there's no story. Marco Ferreri did doubtless better films (see "La grande bouffe" and "Don't touch the white woman").