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From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE Continue reading 13. The "Second Wave" of Comedy Actors part ten From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE Continue reading 13. The "Second Wave" of Comedy Actors part ten From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
The director returns to a popular world in SERAFINO, which is 1966 won first prize (ex-aequo) at the Moscow Film Festival. On a script written by Giovannetti, Benvenuti, De Bernardi and Pinelli, Germi tells a story about a small Ciociaro town of farmers and shepherds, cut off from the modern world.
Continue reading 12. Pietro Germi Vs. Moralism part four From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
In 1966, Germi won the Gold Palm (ex-aequo) at the Cannes festival with SIGNORE E SIGNORI (LADIES AND GENTLEMEN), in which he moves his criticism of manners to the Veneto bourgeoisie, using the town of Treviso as his geographical and social setting. Veneto writer Luciano Vincenzoni collaborated closely with the director on
Continue reading 12. Pietro Germi Vs. Moralism part three From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
FAUSTINA (1969), Luigi Magni’s first film as a director, is to be sure given a modern setting but ancient Rome plays an important part. The main characters, in fact, are “tombaroli”, that is those people who steal from Roman and Etruscan tombs, who are specialized in archeological plunder and then sell the
Continue reading 11. Comedy Dresses Up part four From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
The Gassman-Tognazzi team worked much better than the Gassman-Sordi team: both were actors, for example, with a fondness for disguises, impersonations, for “re-inventing” themselves from top to toe, and the arrogance, presumptiousness and impetuosity of Gassman’s character type contrasted nicely with the falsely submissive slyboots played by Tognazzi. In I MOSTRI (THE
Continue reading 10. Vittorio Gassman From Great Tragedian To Subtle Comedian part four From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
With I SOLITI IGNOTI (UNKNOWN, AS USUAL), a new Italian film star was born and the star was a comedian: Vittorio Gassman. The following year confirmed it with LA GRANDE GUERRA (THE GREAT WAR), again by Monicelli, which has already been discussed with regard to Sordi, who was teamed up with Gassman.
Continue reading 10. Vittorio Gassman From Great Tragedian To Subtle Comedian part three From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
Gian Luigi Polidoro is, among the directors of comedy, one of the ones who has sought to innovate within the tradition. An example of this is PERMETTETE, SIGNORA, CHE AMI VOSTRA FIGLIA? (YOU MIND, MADAM, MY LOVING YOUR DAUGHTER?: 1974), based on a script written by Rafael Azcona, Leo Benvenuti and Pietro
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part seven From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
Perhaps the comedy the least “Italian-style” (by no accident, it was made in Paris) is LA GRANDE ABBUFFATA (THE BIG FEED: 1973) by Marco Ferreri, where the black humor dear to the director attains the maximum effect: to joke about a collective suicide organized by four food-loving friends in a secluded villa,
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part six From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
While, as has been observed,the interchange between film comedy and stage comedy was rare in Italy, that between films and literature was instead quite intense. One of the directors most skilled in translating the written word into visual imagery, Alberto Lattuada, was the first to bring to the screen the particular world
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part five From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
Sometimes, but rarely, the Italian-style comedy turned to the theater as a source of inspiration (it is even so the exception andnot the rule as is instead the case with the frequent passing of stage hits from Broadway to Hollywood). Such was the case with LIOLA which Alessandro Blasetti directed in 1964
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part four From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
The director who contributed the most to turning Tognazzi into an important actor, also internationally, was not Salce however, but Marco Ferreri. UNA STORIA MODERNA: L’APE REGINA (A MODERN STORY: THE QUEEN BEE), which won the award for the best actress, Marina Vlady, at the 1963 Cannes Festival, was based on an
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part three From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
He could have gone on like that for who knows how long without the film that established him as a complete actor: IL FEDERALE (THE FEDERALIST), directed by Luciano Salce in 1961 and written by him with Castellano and Pipolo. In 1944, in Nazi-occupied Rome, Primo Arcovazzi is a modest non-com in
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part two From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
More and less the same age as Sordi (1920) and Manfredi (1921), Ugo Tognazzi, born in Lombardy in 1922, is the third popular name around which the Italian-style comedy developed over the last twenty years. Unlike the others, however, he didn’t serve his apprenticeship in the movies: in 1950, when he appeared
Continue reading 9. Ugo Tognazzi: From the Farce To the Comedy of Manners part one From: COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE by Ernesto G. Laura
That Manfredi refused to limit herself to a set character does not mean, however, that he denied those Ciociaria peasant roots which go to make up an important part of his personality. His Marino Balestrini, a village barber, in STRAZIAMI, MA DI BACI SAZIAMI (TORTURE ME, BUT FILL ME WITH KISSES: 1968)
Continue reading 8. Nino Manfredi Outside the Set Character part five |
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