How Not to Rise to the Occasion

In this World Cup-crazed summer, the timing of a Manhattan retrospective on Italian historical cinema has felt at times like a sly joke about the absence of Italy from soccer’s big stage. The four-time world champions may have failed to qualify for this Mondiale, but for anyone missing the wrist-taped and tasseled flops of the Azzurri, Lincoln Center has kindly offered up its own gallery of Italian ignobles to compensate.