Giuseppe de Liguoro: A Pioneer of Early Italian Cinema

Giuseppe de Liguoro
Credit: Museo Nazionale del Cinema – Torino

Born in Naples on January 10, 1869, Giuseppe de Liguoro is credited with creating historical, epic films that reached beyond the borders of his country.

Among the iconic silent films he directed during the second decade of the 1900s are "L'Inferno" and "L'Odissea" (Homer's Odyssey), which were both made in 1911.

"L'inferno" was roughly adapted from the first part of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" and was Italy's first completed feature film. The project took over three years to make and was directed by de Liguoro, Adolfo Padovan and Francesco Bertolini.

The gruesome story, which in the original poem, begins on the night before Good Friday in 1300, is set in the depths of Hell as Dante is guided through the "Nine Circles" by the poet Virgil. During their journey, they come in contact with a whole host of characters from the three-headed Cerberus to the flying serpent Geryon. They witness the devil savaging eating people, harpies eating the bodies of those who committed suicide, a man forced to carry his own severed head and people covered in lava. As limited as the special effects crews of that time may have been, the visuals are quite stunning and give testament to their ingenuity.

The film premiered in Naples at the Teatro Mercadante on March 10, 1911. It was deemed an international success, grossing more than $2 million in the United States.

This year marks 700 years since the death of Alighieri. In remembrance, the Uffizi Galleries in Florence has made 88 images available on its website. The very first image is from Inferno. Click here to take a virtual tour.

Check out the film below accompanied by a modern soundtrack...

Directed by the same three filmmakers, "L'Odissea" was produced for the world's fair of Torino to mark the 50th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. It premiered in the United States the following year and was declared to have begun "a new epoch in the history of the motion picture as a factory of education" by The Moving Picture World, a trade journal for the American film industry.

Check out the film below and enjoy the stunning images and rich colors...

The legacy of de Liguoro was carried on by his children. His son Eugenio was a director who also acted occasionally in his father's films. His other son Wladimiro de Liguoro was also an actor and director, and married to actress Rina De Liguoro, who appeared in Luchino Visconti's "Il Gattopardo."

Giuseppe de Liguoro passed away in Rome on March 19, 1944 at the age of 75. He will forever be remembered as one of the early pioneers of Italian cinema.

Comments

7 Days - 7 Women: Interview with Actress Sabrina Impacciatore

Photo by Rossella Vetrano On Day 6 of our series, 7 Days - 7 Women, in which we are profiling seven strong, talented women working as filmmakers, writers or visual artists, we talk with actress Sabrina Impacciatore about the diversity of her roles. Whether she's playing a devoted mother trying to protect her child, Jesus Christ's "Veronica" in Mel Gibson's controversial film, "Passion of the Christ" or a young woman coming of age, Impacciatore escapes into the life and mind of each character she takes on, sometimes so deeply that she believes she is actually them. It's a fine line between reality and fiction, but she treads it carefully and anyone watching her performance benefits from her emotional connection to the character that she becomes. I spoke with Impacciatore at the 2010 Open Roads: New Italian Film series in New York City. We talked about her lifelong dream of becoming an actress. She also gave me some insight into the diff

Michelangelo Frammartino's "Il buco" — Unearthing our past

When a team of speleologists descended 700 meters into the Bifurto Abyss in Cosenza, Calabria, in 1961, they discovered that the underground caverns were the third deepest in the world and the deepest in Europe. Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino retraces that mission six decades later with a cast of locals and their livestock in his latest documentary, “Il buco” (“The Hole”). Inspiration for the film came while he was on location shooting his 2007 documentary, “Le quattro volte” (“Four Times”). Officials in the Pollino mountains, which stretch between Calabria and Basilicata, showed him what appeared to be just another sinkhole. Frammartino failed to understand their enthusiasm until they tossed a large stone into the void. It disappeared without making a sound. He was so overcome by the experience and the eerie landscape, he was haunted for years, compelling him to make his current film, one of many rooted in nature. “I was born in Milan, but my family is from Calabria. My pa

Anna Foglietta: Actress and Activist with Old School Elegance

One look at actress Anna Foglietta in her any of her roles, and the Golden Age of Italian cinema comes to mind. Among Italy’s most sought-after actresses today, Foglietta brings to the table a classic eloquence of yesterday while representing Italy’s modern woman. Born in Rome in 1979, Foglietta began her career in 2005 with a role in the RAI television series La squadra . Her character Agent Anna De Luca had a two-year run on the series as she was transitioning to cinema with Paolo Virzì’s 2006 ensemble project 4-4-2- Il gioco più bello del mondo . Since then, she has become one of Italy’s most diverse actresses, transforming herself into interesting, layered characters for comedies and dramas alike. Aside from a small part in Anton Corbijn’s 2010 film The American starring George Clooney, Foglietta’s work began reaching mainstream American audiences in 2015. As Elisa in Edoardo Leo’s 2015 comedy Noi e la Giulia , Foglietta showed her funny side playing a goofball pregn

A Conversation with Taylor Taglianetti, Founder of NOIAFT

A new platform has recently been launched that promotes the work of Italian Americans in film and television. The brains behind the initiative is a young, passionate woman who is taking the support that she received early on in her journey and paying it forward. With origins in Basilicata and Campania , Taylor Taglianetti is a proud Italian American from Brooklyn, New York. She is currently a senior at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in January 2020. She is majoring in Film and Television and minoring in the Business of Entertainment, Media and Technology. Taglianetti aspires to be a feature film producer and bring great stories to the big screen. In addition to running NOIAFT, she is currently a Development Intern with Silver Pictures, the production company that produced the Lethal Weapon and The Matrix series. Last summer, she was a development intern with Maven Pictures, the Academy-Award winning production company behind Still Alice and The Kids Are All Right .

Marco Giallini's latest film headed to America

He's an intense, articulate actor with dozens of diverse roles to his credit, and his latest film, Perfetti Sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers) is set to make its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. Roman-born actor, Marco Giallini shines in the roles he takes on, whether he is the oddball in a comedy, the sexy mystery man in a drama or the bad guy you’d love to hate in a thriller. In each case, Giallini reels us into his character’s fascinating world with his impressive range of performing. Born in Rome in 1963, Giallini grew up with a number of interests including music, motorcycles and soccer. Before he discovered his call to act, he explored his passion for music, starting his own band in the early 80’s called, I Monitors. Then in 1985, destiny knocked at his door, and Giallini enrolled in acting school. He studied theater and for nearly a decade, participated in local productions in Rome’s many venues. It was in 1995 that he made his debut in cinema wit

Italian Cinema Today

Search This Blog