Italian Cinema Today

Photo Credit: Archivio Luce Cinecittà Luchino Visconti’s 1957 film, “White Nights” (“Le notti bianche”), offers a thoughtful and poignant exploration of themes such as loneliness, desire and emotional vulnerability. Based on Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novella of the same name, it transports the tale from 19th-century St. Petersburg to a dreamy mid-20th-century Italian setting. While Visconti remains largely faithful to Dostoevsky’s narrative, his characteristic style infuses the film with emotional depth, striking visuals, and a focus on class and societal constraints.   The story follows a young man named Matteo, played by Marcello Mastroianni, who lives a solitary life in a small Italian town. One evening, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Natalia, portrayed by Austrian-Swiss actress Maria Schell, who is also feeling isolated. Although she is initially reluctant, Natalia eventually confides in Matteo about her love for a man who has promised to return and marry her, but he ha...

Her beauty captured the attention of producers on two continents, but her talent kept her working through seven decades. Born Virna Pieralisi in Ancona on Nov. 8, 1936, Virna Lisi began acting as a teenager and was cast in her first starring role in the 1953 melodrama “...e Napoli canta!” (Napoli Sings). Although the role opened doors, most directors were not yet able to see beyond her striking beauty and therefore cast her in roles based more on her looks than her acting ability. One of those early parts was as an extra opposite Alberto Sordi in Antonio Pietrangeli’s 1956 “Lo scapolo” (The Bachelor) .  In 1961, she starred in Francesco Maselli’s drama “La donna del giorno” (The Doll That Took the Town) as Liliana, a struggling model who makes up a story about being assaulted by three men. The film was released in the United States, where Hollywood executives saw her and believed they had discovered the European version of Marilyn Monroe.  Lisi made her American debut a few y...

Alida Valli was born Alida Maria Laura Altenburger von Marckenstein-Frauenberg in Pola, Istria, on April 29, 1921. Christened a baroness, she became a movie star at 15. Valli made her screen debut as a lead in Mario Bonnard’s 1937 comedy “Il feroce Saladino.”  In an interview featured in Mimmo Verdesca's 2020 documentary, “Alida Valli: In Her Own Words,” she explained how her last name was changed to Valli. “The writer Amedeo Castellazzi and the director Mario Bonnard found it (Valli) in the phone book. Because Altenburger was a foreign name, it was a bit too long, and so Alida Altenburger didn’t sound right,” she explained. Valli entered the film industry during a period when Italy’s Fascist government was constructing Cinecittà while producing its own propaganda films. Known as Telefoni Bianchi (White Telephones), the films of this era imitated American comedies and featured upper-class families, opulent Art Deco sets, and the namesake telephones, which symbolized the well-to-do...

The beauty of Italian cinema is that its past continues to flourish while new filmmakers emerge creating their own masterpieces. When I talk to contemporary filmmakers, they give credit to their predecessors, acknowledging and respecting the foundation those maestros painstakingly built. This weekend, two beautiful stories have come out of Italy paying tribute to two icons of the past and the really special part of this is that both filmmakers are still living and very involved with the new generation of Italian filmmakers. The 2015 Masters of Light at TDC is celebrating legendary cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno with screenings of five of his films "illustrating his artistry and genius" .. and the announcement of a museum dedicated to the work of Franco Zeffirelli was just made in his hometown of Florence. Giuseppe Rotunno Rotunno is one of the most prominent cinematographers of all time. Throughout the decades, he has collaborated on great masterpieces o...