Ladyhawke

Ladyhawke (1985) is a medieval fantasy adventure film directed by Richard Donner, starring Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer. Broderick plays Philippe Gaston, a young thief known as “the Mouse”, who escapes from the dungeons of Aquila and becomes unwillingly caught up in a tragic curse. Rutger Hauer plays Captain Etienne Navarre, a former soldier who travels with a hawk, while Michelle Pfeiffer plays Isabeau, the woman Navarre loves. The lovers have been cursed by the jealous Bishop of Aquila so that Isabeau becomes a hawk by day and Navarre becomes a wolf by night, leaving them always together but never fully human at the same time. With Leo McKern as the monk Imperius and John Wood as the Bishop, the film combines romance, sword-and-sorcery adventure, religious superstition and fairy-tale tragedy, all set against a highly visual medieval world.

Ladyhawke was filmed almost entirely in Italy, using castles, mountain landscapes, medieval villages and studio-built interiors to create the world of Aquila and the lovers’ journey. Abruzzo gives the film some of its most dramatic landscapes, especially Campo Imperatore in the Gran Sasso area, where the open highland scenery is used for travel and pursuit scenes, and Rocca Calascio, the ruined mountain fortress used as the refuge of the monk Imperius. The towers and exposed ridge of Rocca Calascio make it one of the film’s most recognisable locations, giving Imperius’ home a lonely, wind-beaten quality high above the surrounding landscape. Several medieval towns and castles in northern Italy were also used. Torrechiara Castle near Parma, Castell’Arquato in the province of Piacenza and Soncino in Lombardy all contribute to the fortress, village and Aquila material, including scenes connected to Philippe’s escape, the Bishop’s power and the film’s walled-town atmosphere. Castel del Monte in Abruzzo is associated with distant views of Aquila, while Passo Giau and Lake Antorno near Misurina in the Dolomites provide additional mountain and wilderness scenery. The final church setting was based on San Pietro in Tuscania, but the interior used for the climax was largely recreated at Cinecittà Studios in Rome. This gives Ladyhawke a rich Italian location identity: real castles, Romanesque architecture, mountain ruins, forests, plains and Dolomite scenery are combined with studio construction to create a medieval fantasy world that feels both historical and dreamlike.