Cinema of Italy

The history of Italian cinema began a just few months after the Lumière brothers had discovered it, and it was precisely with a few seconds of film in which Pope Leo XIII was blessing the camera.

Pink neorealism and Comedy

It has been said that after "Umberto D." nothing more could be added to neorealism. Was it for this or for other reasons, effectively neorealism formally ended with this film. Following works turned toward lighter atmospheres, perhaps more coherent with the more satisfactory general conditions, and this genre was called the pink neorealism. It was the filone that allowed better "equipped" actresses to became real celebrities: the encouraging figures and measures of Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Silvana Pampanini, Lucia Bosé, together with other types of beauty like Eleonora Rossi Drago, Silvana Mangano, Claudia Cardinale, Stefania Sandrelli populated the imagination of Italians just before the so-called "boom" of the 1960s. Soon the pink neorealism was replaced by the Commedia all'Italiana (Italian Comedy), a unique genre that, born on an ideally humouristic line, talked instead very seriously about important social themes.

Related Topics:
Sophia Loren - Gina Lollobrigida - Silvana Pampanini - Lucia Bosé - Eleonora Rossi Drago - Silvana Mangano - Claudia Cardinale - Stefania Sandrelli - 1960s

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In these years, on the more commercial side of production, exploded the phenomenon of Totò, a neapolitan actor that is reputed as the major Italian comic. In his films (often with Peppino De Filippo, quite always with Mario Castellani) a sort of neorealistic satire was expressed in the means of a guitto as well as with the art of the great dramatic actor he also was, like (too late but finally at least) Pier Paolo Pasolini would have shown. A "film-machine" (dozens of titles per year), his repertoire was frequently repeated, but never ennoying (if not the austere Film critics). His personal story (a prince born in the poorest rione of Naples), his unique twisted face, his special mimic expressions, his gesture, created an inimitable personage and made of this man one of the most beloved Italians in his country.

Related Topics:
Totò - Peppino De Filippo - Mario Castellani - Guitto - Pier Paolo Pasolini - Film critics - Naples

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Italian Comedy is generally considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's I soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street) and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorzio all'Italiana (Divorce Italian Style - 1961) and for long time this definition was used with a derogatory intention.

Related Topics:
Mario Monicelli - Big Deal on Madonna Street - Pietro Germi - 1961

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Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Alberto Sordi, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti, Nino Manfredi, were among the stars of these movies, that described the years of the economical reprise and investigated the costumes of Italians, a sort of self-ethnological research.

Related Topics:
Vittorio Gassman - Ugo Tognazzi - Alberto Sordi - Claudia Cardinale - Monica Vitti - Nino Manfredi

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In 1961 Dino Risi directed Il sorpasso, now a cult-movie, then Una vita difficile (A Difficult Life), I mostri (The Monsters, a.k.a. 15 From Rome), In nome del Popolo Italiano (In the Name of the Italian People), Profumo di donna (Scent of a Woman).

Related Topics:
1961 - Dino Risi

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Monicelli's works include La grande guerra (The Great War), I compagni (Comrades, a.k.a. The Organizer), L'armata Brancaleone, Vogliamo i colonnelli (We Want the Colonels), Romanzo popolare (Popular Romance) and Amici miei.

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