Italian Film

What would you say if you were asked to name Italian film's most important directors? The chances are three names would come to mind - Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Franco Zeffirelli - with others such as Roberto Rosselini and Bernaldo Bertolucci following hard on their heels. Among their works are many classic films, such as Fellini's La dolce vita, Visconti's Death in Venice, and Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet. A closer look at the lives and works of these directors reveals some interesting connections and surprising achievements.

Federico Fellini (1920-1993)

An internationally acclaimed director honoured in 1993 with an Academy lifetime achievement award, Fellini was born in Rimini and worked as a cartoonist before starting a career in film at the age of twenty. He worked with Roberto Rossellini (1906-1977) on such films as Paisà. His first films as director were Luci del varietà (1950, Variety Lights) in which a stage-struck girl abandons the troupe with which she made her name and seeks the bright lights of the city, and Lo sceicco bianco (1952, The White Sheikh) in which the wife in a honeymooning couple becomes infatuated with an actor. Childhood interests and biography were reflected in I vitelloni (1953, The Young and the Passionate). His interest in travelling shows was also revealed in La strada (1954, The Road), the story of a peasant sold to an itinerant strong man. The film starred his wife, Giulietta Masina, and Anthony Quinn in a role that secured the Mexican-born actor an international reputation. Among his later films were Giulietta degli spiriti (1965, Juliet of the Spirits), Fellini-Satyricon (1969), Amarcord (1974), Il Casanova (1976), La città delle donne (1980, City of Women), Intervista (1987), and La voce della luna (1990, The Voice of the Moon). Fellini wrote about his work in Fellini on Fellini (1976).

Luchino Visconti (Luchino Visconti di Modrone, 1906-1976)

The famous director of Death in Venice was born into an aristocratic family in Milan. Initially interested in art and horse-breeding, Visconti turned his back on aristocratic life and by the age of thirty had become a Marxist and begun to work as an amateur designer in the theatre. He travelled to France to work with Jean Renoir on the films Les Bas-fonds and Une Partie de campagne. His first film as director, Ossessione (1942), adapted from The Postman Always Rings Twice, caused a sensation because of its realism and concern with social problems. In fact the film came to be seen as the forerunner of cinema neorealism. But Visconti moved away from naturalism towards historical and literary films such as Senso (1954) and The Leopard (1963), and an adaptation of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice (1971). Visconti's talents were not limited to film and, in the theatre, he directed many successes, including plays, operas, and ballets.

Franco Zeffirelli (1923- )

Zeffirelli is another Italian film director not to have started out in the career which would make him famous. Instead he studied architecture in Florence before becoming an actor and stage designer, often working with Visconti. During the 1950s he was one of Italy's leading opera and stage designers. The draw of cinema was evidently too great though and Zeffirelli worked on films by both Visconti and Rossellini, before directing his first film in the 1960s. Renowned for their visual richness, Zeffirelli's films include The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Romeo and Juliet (1968), which earned him an Academy Award nomination, Hamlet (1991), and Jesus of Nazareth (1978), and the opera films La Traviata (1983) and Otello (1986). However, he has never entirely abandoned his theatrical roots and has worked at La Scala, Covent Garden, Glyndebourne, and the New York Metropolitan Opera, as well as directing and designing plays at Stratford-on-Avon and the Old Vic, and ballet at La Scala (1985). He published his autobiography, Zeffirelli, in 1986; in 1993 he became a member of the Italian senate.