|
|
The Cinema of Italy
The cinema of author of the 50s, 60s and 70s
Starting from the mid 1950s, the Italian cinema began to emancipate from neorealist tones, to face the existential themes from different points of view, more introspective than descriptive. It is useless to classify a movie genre so
deeply tied to their authors, a genre that began to develop during that decade and virtually ended with the death of Fellini in the early 1990s. Michelangelo Antonioni (with movies like "Le amiche", "Il grido" and the
trilogy "L'avventura" in 1960, "La notte" and "L'eclisse" in 1963) brought an existentialist cinema on the screen, introspective, extremely focused on the characters psyche rather than the actual
events. Fame and international recognition were finally established with the movies "Blow Up" (1966) and "Professione: Reporter". Fellini, with masterpieces like "Le notti di Cabiria" (1956) and "La
dolce vita" (1960), besides the already mentioned "I vitelloni" with Alberto Sordi, and "La Strada", with Giulietta Masina in the role of Gelsomina, becomes one of the highest referring points of Italian cinema in
the world. His unmistakable style is further enhanced by the artistic collaboration with writer and designer Cesare Zavattini and with the composer Nino Rota, whose soundtracks will become part of the collective imaginary. Some scenes
from his movies will become symbols of an era, for example the famous scene of Anita Ekberg, who in "La dolce vita", takes a bath in the Trevi fountain, has become since then an icon of the Italian cinema in the world. During
the 1960s Fellini begins a period of experimental movies with the monumental, dreamy and visionary 8 and ?, which will open an already brilliant phase of his career: future works like "Satyricon", "Amarcord", "Il
Casanova di Federico Fellini", "E la nave va", will consecrate Fellini as one the greatest artists of the movie camera of the 1900s. If Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica take different paths in the 1960s and 1970s,
the first as a niche author of documentaries and TV, the second as a successful actor and not only director, Luchino Visconti, the great aesthete for excellence, will continue to give unforgettable and prestigious creations to the Italian
cinema. After the brilliant pre-neorealism debut of "Ossessione" and the already mentioned "La terra trema" and "Bellissima", between the second half of 1950s and the beginning of the 1970s we will see an
uninterrupted series of masterpieces, among them "Senso", "Rocco e i suoi fratelli", "Il Gattopardo", "La caduta degli dei", "Morte a Venezia" and "Ludwig.
|
|
|
