Skip to main content

The Timeless Talent of Stefania Sandrelli

On screen since the tender age of 14, she has captivated audiences for more than 50 years with a compelling combination of strength and vulnerability.

She achieved stardom at just 14 years old playing the angelic cousin of a love-struck Marcello Mastroianni in Pietro Germi’s “Divorce Italian Style.” More than half a century later, she is still going strong and remains one of Italy’s most esteemed actors.

Stefania Sandrelli was born on June 5, 1946, in Viareggio in the province of Lucca in northern Italy. As a child, she studied music and dance. Then in 1960, she won a beauty pageant and was featured on the cover of Le Ore magazine. Her purity captivated the country and shortly thereafter, movie offers began pouring in. Just one year later, she made her cinema debut in three feature films: Mario Sequi’s Gioventù di notte, Luciano Salce’s The Fascist, and Pietro Germi’s Divorce Italian Style. She instantly became a star and before long was a key figure in Italy’s legendary commedia all’italiana. In 1963, she teamed up again with director Pietro Germi to portray Agnese in Seduced and Abandoned, a masterpiece of the genre.

The film boasts an unforgettable opening scene with a stunning Sandrelli in a fitted black dress walking through the narrow streets of her enchanting Sicilian village. As she heads to confession, a Sicilian troubadour accompanied by the mandolin tells her unfortunate story of giving in to lustful feelings for her sister's fiancé, Peppino. Upon entering the confessional, she breaks down in tears as she describes the tryst, only to have the priest further shame her with words like wicked and disgraceful. Peppino announces that he doesn’t want to marry a girl who gave into temptation, even if it was to him, and flees with his mother. A chase ensues as the singing narrator describes Agnese’s father’s determination to change Peppino’s mind and save his daughter’s honor. Peppino refuses to relent, and the family lawyer instructs Agnese’s pushover brother Antonio on how to shoot Peppino in a way that would be easiest to defend in court. Agnese learns of the plan and stops the murder from happening at the last minute. Sandrelli delivers a subtle yet forceful performance, going full drama at the end.


One year later, Sandrelli starred in Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well. In her role as Adriana Astarelli, a free-spirited starlet trying to make it in Rome’s unforgiving movie business, she revealed her fierce acting chops while portraying a complex character in a leading role. She propels the film forward with contradicting qualities of vulnerability and strength toward a devastating, unpredictable ending. The qualities of Adriana reappeared in many characters throughout her career. She often portrays strong-yet-vulnerable women struggling with male characters who mistake that vulnerability for weakness.


In 1970, she took on another career-defining role in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist. Sandrelli plays the wife of Marcello, a state employee of the fascist party ordered to murder a political rival and former professor. The film is set in Rome and Paris during Benito Mussolini’s reign. Known for its monumental cinematography by the legendary Vittorio Storaro, the film’s eerie atmosphere is accentuated with splashes of Storaro’s signature shades of reds, blues, and oranges. In a film of pure visual decadence, Sandrelli revels in her character’s innocence and Bourgeoisie lifestyle, which Marcello denounces for its petty thoughts and ambitions. Even so, she holds her own, living in his world of intellectuals where everyone has a dark secret.


Since those prolific decades of the ’60s and ’70s, Sandrelli has appeared in numerous contemporary hits, including Bertolucci’s 1996 Stealing Beauty, Gabriele Muccino’s 2000 The Last Kiss, and various Italian television series.

 All the films mentioned are available through Amazon. All four films by Pietro Germi, Antonio Pietrangeli, and Bernardo Bertolucci are available to stream on Filmstruck, an absolute treasure for old and rare films. Sandrelli's current release A casa tutti bene, directed by Gabriele Muccino, recently opened in Italy to rave reviews. In March, she will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at Italy's David Di Donatello ceremony.

 - Jeannine Guilyard
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fortunato Verduci's latest project reflects his Calabrese pride

Calabrese actor and musician Fortunato Verduci has a new project; an enchanting music video celebrating the land he loves so much. Set at the Castle of Santo Niceto, an 11th-century Byzantine castle situated on a hilltop in Motta San Giovanni in the province of Reggio Calabria, Verduci and model Maryame Jafire recite a tale of love to the organetto-inspired song, “l'amuri effectu.” Directed by photographer and video editor Vincenzo Sanci, the song is performed by musicians Giuseppe Lucà, who is also a manufacturer of traditional Calabrian instruments, and Antonio Nicolò, a renowned expert in wind instruments who boasts collaborations with various international artists.   According to Verduci, the song is about love. “It talks about the sun and the moon, about an impossible love. When there is one, the other is missing,” he explained.” He goes on to say, “However, maybe the intense feelings of love can bring the sun and moon together. We wanted to insert the perfect opposite alrea
Post a Comment
Read more

Sunday Cibo & Cinema goes Old School: My Interview with Dom DeLuise

A few years before he passed away in 2009, I had the great pleasure of talking with actor and comedian extraordinaire Dom DeLuise. It was a phone interview for Fra Noi Magazine. My editor had asked me to choose an Italian American filmmaker that month. As I grew up in the '70s with my parents watching the films of DeLuise and Burt Reynolds, I've always had an affection for him, so I reached out to ask for an interview and was thrilled when his publicist granted my request. Our conversation will always remain a beautiful memory. He was so down-to-earth and enthusiastic. I discovered that his Italian origins hailed from the Basilicata region of Italy like mine, so it was a nice surprise to learn we had something in common. DeLuise has a list of film, television and stage credits that few could match. He worked with icons of television and cinema, becoming one himself, and also did the voices for cartoons such as "An American Tail" and "All Dogs Go To Heaven.&q
Post a Comment
Read more

Interview: Alessandro Borghi on Suburra, Italian Cinema Across the Globe and the Ties of Friendship

Actor Alessandro Borghi is emerging as one of contemporary Italian cinema’s great talents. Battling 4-for-4 in the hit film department with a whopping five projects currently in production, Borghi was born in Rome in 1986. He began his acting career 20 years later with the television show Distretto di polizia and went on to make numerous other appearances on popular TV series, including regular roles in the recent 2013 series L’Isola followed by the 2015 series Squadra Mobile .  The same year, he transitioned to film with Claudio Caligari’s posthumous hit Non essere cattivo (Don’t Be Bad), which was also Italy’s entry for Oscar consideration that year. Caligari’s tragic story of the bond of friendship between the two main characters, Vittorio and Cesare captivated American cinephiles when it premiered at Cinema Italian Style - an annual showcase of contemporary Italian cinema in Los Angeles. With Borghi as Vittorio and Luca Marinelli as Cesare, the two team up to explore a
Post a Comment
Read more

Italian Biblical Movies to Watch During Lent

Join me in beginning the Lenten season with my favorite adaptation of one of the Gospels-  Pier Paolo Pasolini's  1964 “Il Vangolo Secondo Matteo" (The Gospel According to St. Matthew) and a few classics that I recently discovered.  Considered by the Vatican to be among the best film adaptations of the Gospels, Pasolini's film was shot in the regions of Basilicata and Calabria. He cast his mother as Mary and many locals as extras. Spanish actor Enrique Irazoqui was cast in the role of Jesus. He was just 18-years-old when he landed the part. He had been in Rome at the time of casting and auditioned for the role. I contacted Irazoqui around this time last year to ask him about his experience making the film. He suggested that we have a conversation via Skype. Although the connection wasn’t very good, it was thrilling to talk directly with this actor whose film I had been watching for at least 20 years. He was very friendly and nostalgic in his recollections especially abou
Post a Comment
Read more

The Anthology Film Archives Presents: The Italian Connection: Poliziotteschi and Other Italo-Crime Films of the 1960s and '70's

June 19 – June 29 Influenced both by 1960s political cinema and Italian crime novels, as well as by French noir and American cop movies like "Dirty Harry" and "The French Connection," many Italian filmmakers in the late-60s and early-70s gradually moved away from the spaghetti western genre, trading lone cowboys for ‘bad’ cops and the rough frontier of the American west for the mean streets of modern Italy. Just as they had with their westerns, they reinvented the borrowed genre with their inimitable eye for style and filled their stories with the kidnappings, heists, vigilante justice, and brutal violence that suffused this turbulent moment in post-boom 1970s Italy. The undercurrent of fatalism and cynicism in these uncompromising movies is eerily reminiscent of the state of discontent in Italy today. ‘The Italian Connection’ showcases the diversity and innovation found in the genre, from the gangster noir of Fernando Di Leo’s "Caliber 9"
Post a Comment
Read more