Italian Cinema Today

With a gift for melding disparate clips into compelling documentaries, he has captured the spirit of Italian cinema from the 1930s to the present. Marco Spagnoli is one of Italy’s most prolific film journalists, having made numerous documentaries on the country’s beloved film icons and reporting in-depth about cinema for a variety of publications.   Among his most compelling works is the 2011 documentary “Hollywood Invasion,” which zooms in on Italian and European cinema during the “Dolce Vita” decades from 1950-80. Utilizing NBC newsreels to tell his story, Spagnoli offers an extraordinary take on this period in cinematic history.   The film features rare clips of Hollywood stars like Gregory Peck, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe roaming about Italy in the 1950s, as well as tantalizing behind-the-scenes glimpses of several American productions. Marilyn Monroe in a scene from  “Hollywood Invasion”  You’ll have a front-row seat to the creation of iconic moments like...

The lightheartedness with which Walter Chiari graced the screen was a defining trait in his life. It led to dramatic professional successes as well as personal travails that seemed better suited for one of his movies. Born Walter Annicchiarico in Verona to Pugliese parents on March 8, 1924, Chiari spent his teenage years excelling in sports, earning championships in boxing, bocce and swimming. During the early 1940s, he worked as a radio technician and bank clerk. While at the bank, he became known for his imitations of Adolf Hitler, which ultimately got him fired. That proved to be a blessing in disguise, motivating him to give acting a try. He started out in theater while maintaining side jobs as a cartoonist and writer. At the start of World War II, Chiari enlisted in the Italian navy and contributed to the newspaper L’Orizzonte as a satirical cartoonist. In January 1944, he participated in an amateur stage competition in which he revived his imitation of Hitler. The performance was...

Producer Dino De Laurentiis was one of the most prolific filmmakers ever, having produced or co-produced more than 600 films during a career that spanned seven decades. His legacy continues not only through the work of his children and grandchildren but also through a new generation of filmmakers in his Italian hometown. De Laurentiis was born in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius on Aug. 8, 1919, in the city of Torre Annunziata, located just minutes from the ruins of Pompeii. As a child, he worked at a local pasta factory owned and operated by his father. That experience had a profound effect on him, shaping a lifelong passion for food and an appreciation for business. At the age of 17, he decided to leave home for the big city. He arrived in Rome and enrolled in the prestigious film school, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. After attending the school for about a year, he managed to produce one film in 1940, The Last Combat , before having to leave Rome temporarily for m...

After watching Italian films, the two things I love doing are traveling around Italy and indulging in the country's amazing regional food. Celebrity chef and Food Network star Giada De Laurentiis has found a way to showcase all three in her new series "Giada in Italy". The show airs every Sunday on the Food Network at 12:00 eastern/11:00 central and features the gorgeous chef cooking her way through Italy. Giada is the granddaughter of Silvana Mangano and Dino De Laurentiis, a power couple of the Golden Age of Italian cinema. Giada carries on her grandmother's looks and grace as well as Dino's passion for food. Giada's mother Veronica De Laurentiis is an actress and advocate for women. She recently started her own show, "Dillo a Veronica" in which she profiles ordinary women who have overcome the struggles of life. To read the history of the three generations of De Laurentiis women, check out an article that I posted last year about the  legac...

Everywhere you turn in Italy, there is history. Every town you visit has its own story just waiting to be told. Every step you take has been taken for thousands of years. So when I visited the seaside town of Lavinio (near Anzio and Nettuno) and noticed a memorial stone written in English, I knew that I was about to learn something fascinating. The stone reads as follows: THE 6TH (BANFFSHIRE) BATTALION THE GORDON HIGHLANDERS TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES ON THE ANZIO BEACHHEAD 22 JANUARY – 4 JUNE 1944 BYDAND The Battle of Anzio began in January of 1944 when Allied Forces landed on the shores of neighboring seaside towns, Anzio and Nettuno. “Operation Shingle” was aimed at defeating German forces in the area. Initially, the attack was a surprise and the allied forces were able to move inland. But shortly thereafter, the German forces regrouped moving every available troop to higher ground, which provided a clear view of the allied positions. What followed wa...

Silvana Mangano is one of Italy's most memorable leading ladies. She was born in Rome on April 21, 1930, and grew up amid conditions of poverty during World War II.   She persevered through those tough times, training as a dancer.   Then in 1946, she won the Miss Rome beauty pageant, a victory that gave her the push she needed to discover her destiny. Just three years later, she landed a role in one of the most influential films of Italian cinema, "Riso Amaro" (Bitter Rice) by Giuseppe De Santis. The film was one of the first of the Neorealist film movement and received an Academy Award nomination in 1950. Produced by Mangano's husband, the prolific filmmaker Dino De Laurentiis , "Riso Amaro" is a multi-layered story that called on Mangano's talent and sex appeal to portray a peasant girl who could manipulate just about anyone with her beauty. The story follows three main characters through the rice-planting season in northern Italy during World W...