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Famed Italian movie studio Cinecitta is profiled by the New York Times today, as it tries to make itself a compelling option for Hollywood's filmmakers. Directors like Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti made Cinecitta the place to be in the 50s and 60s, but up until recently had not been successful. Wes Anderson's next movie, The Life Aquatic, is filming there, and most famously, Gangs of New York, was filmed there which had Martin Scorsese and Dante Ferretti replicate the Five Points in Rome.
Gothamist's good friend D.A. Miller just visited the studio and writes, "I toured Cinecitta, with Scorsese's Bronx, still not yet struck, standing cheek by jowl with Mel Gibson's Jerusalem, etc. You'd enter a warehouse in which the ceiling was from the Leopard, and the chandeliers from Death in Venice and Salo--with a new knickknacks from Cleopatra and Mr. Ripley."
Gothamist's favorite movie about Italian filmmaking: 8 1/2, of course. About Italian filmmaking: Cinema Paradiso, of course.
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Gangs of New York's sets weren't convincing to me. The color scheme was wrong--Mediterranean reds and greens seemed to predominate. A good example of NYC just a bit later than the movie's setting is "Darkness and Daylight in New York", published in 1897 and filled with 250 engravings of lower Manhattan slums in the late 1800s. (It's available at the NYPL on 42nd.) For the most part the outdoor engravings show a recognizable New York, except dirtier and filled with rag-clothed, underfed people. I have no doubt that there's a degree of historical accuracy in the shanties we see in the movie, but there's some essential New York quality missing. I wonder if the disparity is due to the movie being filmed in an entirely different climate region, using sets built by people accustomed to looking at Rome, not New York.
I think all the hoopla surrounding Cinecitta has to do with its mystique as a place where classic movies (particularly those of the "art" variety) were born. I know I have this conception of it based on Godard's Contempt -- all sweeping soundtracks, Brigette Bardot and master directors in their element. Cinecitta's much more hip than Toronto or some other place where it's possible to shoot movies.
As implied by the article, the cost incentives made it a better deal to shoot Gangs in Rome, so you'd think they'd have money for a crew person to piss and dirty up the set. Even though NYPD Blue shoots some exteriors in NY, the NY in it looks too clean still.