Italy Film

Italy’s golden position within the film industry began in 1905, when Filoteo Alberini released La Presa di Roma (The Taking of Rome). This film ushered in the Italian “super-spectacle,” an extravagant recreation of historical events through film. Throughout the early 20th century, most Italian film followed this melodramatic pattern, and many Italian film stars were consequently thought of as superhuman. Before WWI, celebrated actors like Francesca Bertini (1888-1985), Pina Menichelli (1890-1984), and Lyda Borelli (1884-1959) epitomized the Italian diva.

Seeing Is Believing

No one ever accused Benito Mussolini of missing out on an opportunity. Recognizing film’s potential as propaganda in the late 30s, Mussolini revived an industry that had been in decline since the golden age of the silent era by creating the gargantuan Cinecittà Studios , Rome’s answer to Hollywood. Yet the boost to the industry came at a price: Mussolini also enforced a few “imperial edicts” that dictated the production of films, one of which even forbade laughing at the Marx Brothers’s 1933 film, Duck Soup. Films created under fascist rule between the years 1936 and 1943 glorified Italian military conquests (linking them to Classical Roman success) and portrayed comfortable middle-class life. This era of Italian film is often referred to as the era of telefoni bianchi (white telephones) in reference to the common prop. Rare compared to their black cousins, these phones were a symbol of prosperity, and during the short-lived glory days of Italian Fascism, these films kept the chaos in other parts of Europe out of sight, out of mind. A few renegade leaders in the film industry, however, opposed fascist rule. Luigi Chiarin i, for instance, was instrumental in the founding of Italy’s Centro Sperimentale della Cinematografia, the film school that despite funding by Mussolini’s government, slowly shifted away from propaganda and became the alma mater of many neorealist directors.

Neorealism

The fall of fascism brought the explosion of neorealismo in cinema in the 1940s, which rejected contrived sets and professional actors, emphasizing instead on-location shooting and “authentic” drama based in reality. These low-budget productions created a film revolution and brought Italian cinema international prestige. Neorealists first gained attention in Italy with Luchino Visconti’s (1906-76) French-influenced Ossessione (1942). Because fascist censors suppressed this so-called “resistance” film, it wasn’t until Roberto Rossellini’s (1906-77) film Roma, città aperta (1945) that neorealist films gained international exposure. The film began his Neorealistic WWII Trilogy, which also included Paisà (1946) and Germania anno zero (1948). Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 Ladri di biciclette (The Bicycle Thief) was perhaps the most successful neorealist film. The film’s simple plot explored the human struggle against fate. A demand for Italian comedy gave birth to neorealismo rosa, a more comic version of the intense and often dismally authentic glimpse into daily Italian life. Actor Totò (1898-1967), the illegitimate son of a Neapolitan duke, was Italy’s Charlie Chaplin. With his dignified antics and clever lines, Totò charmed audiences and provided subtle commentary on Italian society.

The Golden Age

la commedia all’italiana, during which the prestige and economic success of Italian movies was at its height. Mario Monicelli ( I Soliti Ignoti, 1958; La Grande guerra, 1959) brought a more cynical tone to the portrayal of daily Italian life, which was in a stage of rapid transformation and social unease. Italian comedy struggled to portray cultural stereotypes with as much wit as its public demanded. Actors Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, and Alberto Sordi gained fame portraying self-centered characters lovable for their frailties. By the 1960s, post-neorealist directors like Federico Fellini (1920-93) and Michelangelo Antonioni (1912-2007) valued careful cinematic construction over mere real-world experience. With the Oscar-winning La Strada (1954), Fellini went beyond neorealism, scripting the vagabond life of two street performers, Gelsomina and Zampanò, in the most poetic of terms. Fellini’s 8½ (1963) interwove dreams with reality in a semi-autobiographical exploration of the demands of the artist that has earned a place in the international cinematic canon. His La Dolce Vita (1959) was condemned by both religious and political authorities for its portrayal of decadently stylish celebrities in 50s Rome on the Via Veneto. The film coined the term paparazzi and glamorized dancing in the Trevi Fountain , an act that is now legally off-limits.Antonioni’s haunting trilogy, L’Avventura (1959), La Notte (1960), and L’Eclisse (1962) presents a stark world of estranged couples and isolated aristocrats. His Blow-Up was a 1966 English-language hit about miming, murder, and mod London. Controversial writer-director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-75) may have spent as much time on trial for his politics as he did making films. An ardent Marxist, he set his films in the underworld of shanty neighborhoods, poverty, and prostitution. His later films include scandalous adaptations of famous literary works including famous works, Il Decameron (1971) and The Arabian Nights (1974).

Introspection

Aging directors and a lack of funds led Italian film into an era characterized by nostalgia and self-examination. Bernardo Bertolucci’s (b. 1940) Il conformista (1970) investigates fascist Italy by focusing on one “comrade” struggling to be normal. Other major Italian films of this era include Vittorio de Sica’s (1901-74) Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini (1971) and Francesco Rosi’s Cristo si è fermato a Eboli (1979), both of which are adaptations of classic post-war, anti-fascist novels. In the 80s, the Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio, catapulted to fame with La notte di San Lorenzo (1982), which depicted an Italian village during the last days of WWII, and Kaos (1984), a film based on stories by Pirandello. Inheriting the commedia all’italiana tradition of the golden age, actor-directors like Nanni Moretti (b. 1953) and Maurizio Nichetti (b. 1948) delighted audiences with macabre humor in the 80s and early 90s. Both men usually choose projects that required them to play neurotic, introspective, or ridiculous characters. In his psychological comedy-thriller Bianca (1984), Moretti stars as a slightly deranged high school math teacher, and in Volere Volare (1991), Nichetti plays a confused cartoon sound designer who turns into an animated figure.

Buongiorno, Principessa!

Oscar-winners Gabriele Salvatores (for Mediterraneo, 1991) and Giuseppe Tornatore (for Nuova Cinema Paradiso, 1988) have earned the attention and affection of audiences worldwide. Oscars have been bestowed upon a handful of other contemporary Italian filmmakers, as well. In 1996 Massimo Troisi’s (b. 1953) Il Postino won Best Original Score and was nominated in four additional categories, including Best Picture, Screenplay, Director, and Actor. Three years later Roberto Benigni (b. 1952) won several Oscars for La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful), which juxtaposed the tragedy of the Holocaust with a father’s devoted love for his son. Most recently, Nanni Moretti snagged the Palm D’Or at Cannes in 2001 for the film, La Stanza del Figlio (The Son’s Room), and Leonardo Pieraccioni (b. 1965) released Il Paradiso all’improvviso (Suddenly Paradise) to international acclaim in 2003.