Florence Festivities for “A Room With a View”

An iconic film set in turn of the century Florence is in the public eye this week thanks to the anniversary celebrations for “A Room With a View.”

The low-budget film adaption of the E.M. Forster novel, “A Room With a View,” was a sleeper, which became an Academy-award winning smash hit, one that has entered into universal consciousness. A line from the book may sum up the premise: “One doesn’t come to Italy for niceness, one comes for life.” The clash between convention and naturalism is personified by a young girl (Helena Bonham-Carter) of the Edwardian period looking beyond the restrictions of her daily life while on a visit to Florence with her spinster aunt (Maggie Smith).

One Florentine was part of the cast: handsome Luca Rossi, an actual horse and buggy rider from Piazza Duomo, took Lucy and her aunt on a memorable ride up to Settignano. A young Daniel Day-Lewis played Lucy’s fiancé in England, aptly named Cecil Vyse, bringing to mind the viselike grip to which he tried to subject the heroine along with the era’s constraint of women.

The commemoration will open with an October 4 lecture in English, “Rooms and Views: filming in Florence with Merchant Ivory” by Sarah Quill at the British Institute Library (Lungarno Guicciardini 9, 6 pm). Quill has a wide range of experience working as a stills photographer on feature films.

Director James Ivory will be present at several themed events in Florence, including the October 5 screening of the movie (Italian subtitles) at the Odeon (with Bonham-Carter and Julian Sands; 8:30 pm), and the “Tea with a View” at the British Institute Library (Oct. 7, 5 pm). Prior to this, he will receive the “Fiorino d’Oro (Golden Florin) award, a high city honor, from Mayor Nardella on Oct. 5 (Palazzo Vecchio, 3 pm).

Cinema La Compagnia (via Cavour 50/r) will follow up with an Ivory-Merchant film festival on October 6 and 7. Among the features are “Howard’s End,” (with Ivory and Bonham-Carter in attendance) on Oct. 6 at 7 pm; “Mr. & Mrs. Bridge;” “The Remains of the Day;” “Maurice,” and of course, “A Room with a View.” (rosanna cirigliano)