The Italian Cinema
The beginning of the Italian cinema was in 1896 when Vittorio Calcina
directed the first film in Italy: Humberto and Margarita de Saboya on
walk in the park. In the beginning, this film was like the other dumb
films just a documental short film about the social reality, but soon
after that narrated stories became more important and they had their
splendour in the year 1919.
The peninsular cinema started its development with the Roman's
conquest in 1905, when the director Alberini announced the end of the
divided Italy. The period of 1908-1916 is considered the gold age of
the dumb Italian cinema showing the worldly drama, the characters of
the films were played by important prima donnas, like Pina Menichelli,
Francesca Bertini or Lydia Quaranta. Since 1914 the most relevant
Italian films on an international level were the historical ones: "The
last days of Popeye", "Fabiol" and especially "Cabiria".On the
contrary, in the fascist period, when Mussolini was in power, the
cinema industry was totally unproductive in this country.
"The love song" was the first Italian film with sounds and was directed by Gennaro Righelli in 1930. It is also important to know about Francesco De Robertis (he was the teacher of Robert Rosellini), because with is work began the Neorealist period which means that stories are told in a documental style.
In the beginning of the 40s, a group of neorealist cineastes appeared and they were called the calligraphics: Renato Castellani (Under the sun), Aldo Vergano(The sun still goes out), Alberto Lattuada (Anna), Luigi Zampae , Giuseppe De Santis ( Roma at eleven), Pietro Germi( The lost youth, Italian divorce).
The Italian cinema industry appeared, because of this movement, headed
by the well-know directors Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini,
Victorio de Sica and Cesare Zavattini. The characters in this type of
films aren't heroes, but common people who response to the situation.
Vittorio de Sica, was a successful actor who started his director degree in the beginning of the 40s doing comedies like "Magdalena", "Cero in behaviour" and "Friday's lady". Since 1943 he worked on more serious subjects after he had met Cesare Zavattini, who would write the script of his films. "The children look at us" was the first and most famous film that they made together. After that they made a very famous collection of three films: Shine boots (1946), The thief of bicycles (1948), Miracle in Milan (1950) and Umberto D (1952).
After that, De Sica continued his trajectory with comedies the collaborating the most famous couple in the Italian cinema: Sofia Loren and Marcelo Mastroianni, they were acting in the films: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, Italian marriage and The sunflowers in Russia.
Visconti's first film "Obsesion" in 1947 and "The Duncat" (an
adaptation of Lampedusa's novel) were very successful and they were
followed by the important films "More the god twilight" and "The death
in Venice" which is a wonderful adaptation of Thomas Mann's book.
In the 50s, the Neorealism began to transform and at the same time the political situation changed, the cinema production was duplicated.
In the 60s, new promising persons of the Italian cinema appeared: Muchelangelo Antonioni ("The nuit", "The camelias's damme") introduced the experimental cinema; Mario Bava and Sergio Leone initiated the vanguard cinema; and Federico Fellini (critics have different opinions about what his master-piece is: La Strada in 1954, Eigth and Half or Amacord) whom Orson Welles called "the Fellini malician". Fellini's films were influenced by the poetic films of Pier Paol Pasolini, one of Pasolini's films is "La dolce vita".
We also have to consider the political and polemic cinema of Bellocchio.
BOCCACIO 70 is a film telling several stories directed by different
directors, the four most important are: Fellini, Visconti, de Sica and
Monicelli, the four were working on a Césare Zavattini's script.
Additionally, we have to remember the director Marco Ferreri, another important cineaste, famous for "The big lunch" and also because of "Stories of common madness" inspirited by Bukowsky's book. The brothers Vittorio and Paolo Taviani were also quite important, because they broke with the film conventionalism, we can emphasize "Saint Lorenzo night" and their first film "A man to burnt".
Finally, we have to remember Bernardo Bertolucci, a very great
director with a brilliant trajectory and one of the most
representative contemporary cineastes in Italy, he started to offer a
new perspective and broke with reality, his topics were surprising for
the classic audience. His first and amazing movie was "The last tango
in Paris" and that "The moon" broke even more with reality. "The last
emperor" (the film won 9 Oscars) and "The protector sky" are two of
his most important films. His last film "Dreamers", which is a debate
about the revolution in the spring of 1968, has been, from my point of
view, the most predictable and disappointing film of his whole
trajectory.
Another type of cinema which is applauded more by the audience than by
the criticism, is the production of Roberto Rosellini, who won with
"The life is beautiful" a group of faithful supporter. Nowadays, the
Italian cinema, like the French, is very far from the quality of the
great films that made this industry famous.
Ana Vidal