''Stay as You Are'' ( it, Così come sei), also known as ''Stay the Way You Are'', is a 1978

erotic Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, scu ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

, directed by

Alberto Lattuada Alberto Lattuada (; 13 November 1914 – 3 July 2005) was an Italian film director. Career Lattuada was born in Vaprio d'Adda, the son of composer Felice Lattuada. He was initially interested in literature, becoming, while still a student, a ...

, starring Nastassja Kinski,

Marcello Mastroianni Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni (28 September 1924 – 19 December 1996) was an Italian film actor, regarded as one of his country's most iconic male performers of the 20th century. He played leading roles for many of Italy's top di ...

Barbara De Rossi Barbara De Rossi (born 9 August 1960) is an Italian actress who has combined a career in international cinema with longstanding popularity in Italian television. Biography Barbara De Rossi was born in 1960 in Rome to an Italian wine importer and ...

, and

Ania Pieroni Ania Pieroni is a former Italian actress, known for ''The House by the Cemetery'' (1981), ''Tenebrae'' (1982) and ''Inferno'' (1980). Film career Pieroni started her film career by taking a small part in the 1978 Alberto Lattuada film ''Stay ...

. An Italian–Spanish co-production, it follows the May–December romance between a vivacious young coed and a middle-aged professional who is unhappy in his marriage.

New Line Cinema New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after ...

gave the film a limited theatrical release in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

on 21 December 1979. The film was scheduled for release by Cult Epics in May 2015 on DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

Plot

While in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

on business,

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

landscape architect Giulio Marengo meets an alluring college student, Francesca, and spends the night with her. She is the foster daughter of an agriculturist named Bartolo who has looked after her since the death of her mother, Flora. Later, a friend of Giulio's sees Francesca in a restaurant and implies that she might be Giulio's daughter. It is a possibility since Giulio had been going out with Flora the year before Francesca was born. Shocked by the idea, Giulio tries to cool his relationship with Francesca. Meanwhile, he is distracted by the revelation that his unmarried daughter Alexandra, who is about the same age as Francesca, is pregnant. Giulio tries unsuccessfully to get to the truth of his alleged paternity, and finally decides to tell Francesca the reason for his conflicting behavior. She flatly dismisses the insinuation, however, saying she regards Bartolo as her only true father. She then accompanies Giulio on an uninhibited holiday in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, where Alexandra has gone to try to sort things out with ''her'' lover. Upon returning to Florence, Giulio must get back to Rome to attend to his business affairs, but that night, Francesca insists they see the movie '' Vampyr'' together, and he falls asleep. Upon waking up, she is nowhere to be seen, indicating that their love affair has run its course.

Cast

as Giulio Marengo * Nastassja Kinski as Francesca *

Francisco Rabal Francisco Rabal Valera (8 March 1926 – 29 August 2001), better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter born in Águilas, a town in the south-western part of the province of Murcia, Spain. Throughout his career, Raba ...

as Lorenzo *

Mónica Randall Mónica Randall (born 1942) is a Spanish film actress. Randall has made some 110 appearances in film and TV since 1963. She appeared in numerous Spaghetti Westerns in the 1960s in films such as '' One Hundred Thousand Dollars for Ringo'' and ...

as Luisa Marengo *

as Cecilia *

as Alexandra Marengo *

José María Caffarel José María Caffarel Fábregas (10 November 1919 – 6 November 1999) was a Spanish film actor. He appeared in more than 170 films between 1957 and 1998. He was born in Barcelona and died in Madrid, Spain. Selected filmography * ''The ...

as Bartolo *

Giuliana Calandra Giuliana Calandra (10 February 1936 – 25 November 2018) was an Italian film, television and stage actress, journalist and television hostess. Life and career Born in Moncalieri, Giuliana Calandra debuted in 1963 Pier Paolo Pasolini's '' La r ...

as Teresa *

Maria Pia Attanasio Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 * Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, d ...

as Countess Archi * Raimondo Penne as Notary * Claudio Aliotti *

Massimo Bonetti Massimo Bonetti (born 28 March 1951) is an Italian actor and director. Life and career Born in Rome, Bonetti after several years as character actor debuted in a leading role in 1981, in Aurelio Chiesa's ''Bim Bum Bam''. Then, he obtained role ...

as the Horse Trainer * Mario Cecchi as the Gardener * Adriana Falco as Giulio's secretary *

Rodolfo Bigotti Rodolfo is a given name. Notable people with the name include: * Rodolfo (footballer, born 1992), Brazilian footballer Rodolfo José da Silva Bardella * Rodolfo Albano III, Filipino politician * Rodolfo Vera Quizon Sr. (1928-2012), Filipino actor ...

Production

Director

shot scenes for the film at various locations in and around Florence, including the Piazza San Giovanni, the

Piazza San Marco Piazza San Marco (; vec, Piasa San Marco), often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice, Italy, where it is generally known just as ''la Piazza'' ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (exc ...

, and the

Boboli Gardens The Boboli Gardens ( it, Giardino di Boboli) is a historical park of the city of Florence that was opened to the public in 1766. Originally designed for the Medici, it represents one of the first and most important examples of the Italian garden, ...

. The opening title sequence was shot on the grounds of Villa La Pietra. The musical score was composed by

Ennio Morricone Ennio Morricone (; 10 November 19286 July 2020) was an Italian composer, orchestrator, conductor, and trumpeter who wrote music in a wide range of styles. With more than 400 scores for cinema and television, as well as more than 100 classi ...

, who previously collaborated with the director on '' Matchless''. A soundtrack album was released in 1978 by

Cinevox Cinevox is an Italian record label specializing in the release of motion picture soundtrack albums. Founded in 1966 in music, 1966, the label has released more than 200 titles, including numerous works by Ennio Morricone, Pino Donaggio, and variou ...

, and again on 14 July 1995 by Prometheus Records. The soundtrack is notable for its inclusion of the love theme "Amore per Amore", as well as the two disco tracks "Dance On" and "Spazio 1999".

Reception

This film received positive reviews, especially for Nastassja Kinski's performance. According to the American poster for this film, Bruce Williamson of ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...

'' called it "A truly sexy film". ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine also praised Kinski's performance saying, "Kinski is simply ravishing, genuinely sexy and high-spirited without being painfully aggressive about it." Conversely,

Janet Maslin Janet R. Maslin (born August 12, 1949) is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for ''The New York Times''. She served as a ''Times'' film critic from 1977 to 1999 and as a book critic from 2000 to 2015. In 2000 Maslin ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called the film "dangerously smarmy at times—dangerous because its cheapness undermines Mr. Mastroianni's essentially serious performance, which is the backbone of the movie. The film works best when the story seems to generate its sexual encounters spontaneously. But there are too many times when the plot looks like a pretext for stringing together amorous interludes." Because Kinski was just 17 years old at the time, her many nude scenes created controversy. She has since disapproved of the nudity in the film on a number of occasions. Recalling the film in a 1981 interview with ''

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

'', Kinski said, "There was no one prepared to say, 'She shouldn't do that. There is no point.' No one to protect me. I was just a young girl, in Italy. It was stupid." In 2001, Kinski reiterated her dissatisfaction with her performance: "Let's put it this way, if that was my daughter, I wouldn't allow that. I wouldn't allow certain people to say certain things or to try certain things."

References

External links

* * {{Alberto Lattuada 1970s erotic drama films 1978 romantic drama films 1978 films Erotic romance films Films directed by Alberto Lattuada Films scored by Ennio Morricone Films set in Florence Incest in film Italian erotic drama films Italian romantic drama films 1970s Italian-language films Spanish erotic drama films Spanish romantic drama films 1970s Italian films