8. SET IN CORTINA

From this point, after reading “TOFANA 10 A.M.” on the bathroom mirror of the hotel, Roger Moore, alias James Bond, jumps on the “Freccia nel Cielo” cable car that will take him up to 3,244 meters, to meet his contact. For Your Eyes Only (1981) by John Glen is just one of the dozens of films that revealed Cortina to the world. The next rendezvous is at the Olympic Ice Stadium. Meanwhile, James Bond, driving a bold, flaming red Lotus Esprit Turbo, speeds along the snow-covered road, with the Pomagagnon in the background. In the celebrated chase sequence, Agent 007 flees on skis with a motorcyclist in pursuit, all the way to the Olympic ski jump and the Eugenio Monti bobsled track (where stuntman Paolo Rigon died during filming). Since the days of silent films Cortina has been featured among the backdrops of international cinema. From Blind Husbands (1919) by Erich von Stroheim and the era of German Bergfilm by Fanck, Riefenstahl, and Trenker, to the iconic The Pink Panther (1963) by Blake Edwards, with the score by Henry Mancini. Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellers) is on the hunt for the gentleman thief “The Phantom” (David Niven). Ludovica Damiani recounts many of these stories in the book Set in Cortina: from the snow-covered Misurina of A Farewell to Arms (1957) by Charles Vidor, featuring Rock Hudson, Vittorio De Sica, and Alberto Sordi, to the stunt sequences in Cliffhanger (1993) by Renny Harlin, where Sylvester Stallone leaps onto the suspension bridge of the Dibona trail on Mount Cristallo. From Ladyhawke (1985) by Richard Donner to The Bear (1988) by Jean-Jacques Annaud, to a Western, The Great Silence (1967) by Sergio Corbucci, with Jean-Louis Trintignant and a score by Ennio Morricone, to documentaries like Vertigine (1950) by Michelangelo Antonioni, and Vertigine Bianca by Giorgio Ferroni, which officially celebrated the 1956 Winter Olympics.