Italian Cinema Today

One of Italy’s most adored comedy actresses, she is best known for her doomed love affairs in Lina Wertmüller ’s 1970s films on social class and politics. Mariangela Melato was born in Milan in 1941 to a Milanese mother and a German father who emigrated to Italy from Nazi Germany. When she was a teenager, she studied acting under Esperia Sperani, a fellow Milanese who rose to fame during the silent film era.   Melato began her acting career with small parts in television and film, but her breakout role came in Wertmüller’s 1972 “The Seduction of Mimi.” The story of a Sicilian worker cursed with bad timing, Mimi ( Giancarlo Giannini ) is forced to relocate to Torino. When he sees Fiorella (Melato) selling sweaters for a street vendor, it’s love at first sight. Before long, Fiorella becomes Mimi’s vivacious and talkative mistress and gives birth to their son.   Meanwhile, Mimi finds trouble at every turn and is transferred back to Sicily, where his wife is waiting for him along ...

  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...