Olympic opener: color, whimsy, big-head composers
So it turns out that Italy has quite an impressive history.
The early minutes of the Olympic ceremony remind us of that. It has hints of fashion and film, art and opera and more. It referred to Verdi and Da Vinci and Armani and Fellini; it didn’t mention Mussolini, but time was limited.
It even played the Lone Ranger theme song, although in Italy (and most of the world) that’s a tune about an archer shooting an apple off his kid’s head.
(Italy, it should be noted, had made some of the greatest cowboy films in history, just none about masked men. It’s also pretty good at art and opera.) Read more…