Man and Wife

The seminal figure of the neorealism movement, Vittorio De Sica was born in Sora, Italy, on July 7, 1901. Raised in Naples, he began working as an office clerk at a young age in order to help support his impoverished family. He became fascinated by acting while still a youth, and made his screen debut in 1918’s The Clemenceau Affair at the age of just 16. In 1923, De Sica joined Tatiana Pavlova’s famed stage company, and by the end of the decade his dashing good looks had made him one of the Italian theater’s most prominent matinee idols. With 1932’s La Vecchia Signora, he made his sound-era film debut and went on to become an even bigger star in the cinema, appearing primarily in light romantic comedies throughout the decade. In 1939, De Sica graduated to the director’s chair with Rose Scarlatte. Over the next two years he helmed three more features (1940’s Maddalena, Zero in Condotta along with 1941’s Teresa Venerdì and Un Garibaldino al Convento, respectively), but his work lacked distinction until he, along with fellow Italian filmmakers Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti, began exploring the possibilities of making more humanistic movies documenting the harsh realities facing their countrymen as a result of World War II. With 1942’s I Bambini ci Guardano, De Sica revolutionized the Italian film industry, crafting a poignant, heartfelt portrait of a downtrodden culture free of the conventions of Hollywood production. Working with screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, who remained a central figure in the majority of his greatest work, De Sica employed non-professional actors and filmed not in studios but on the streets of Rome, all to flesh out the working-class drama of Zavattini’s script.

The war prevented De Sica from directing another film for four years, but finally in 1946 he resurfaced with the brilliant Sciuscià. His greatest film, Ladri di Biciclette, followed in 1948; a virtual textbook of neorealism in action, it featured all of the aesthetic’s key tenets: gritty production, almost improvisational acting, and a lean emotional compression, and it even added authentic documentary footage into the narrative to establish a greater sense of truth. (Like Sciuscià, Ladri di Biciclette won a special Academy Award; not until several years later was the Oscar category for Best Foreign Language Film officially established.) Three years later, De Sica returned with Miracolo a Milano. Its follow-up, 1952’s Umberto D., clearly ranked among his finest work, but when it proved to be a box-office disaster, he returned to the lighter material of his formative years with It Happened in the Park. The 1956 Il Tetto marked something of a return to neorealist form, but when it too failed commercially, De Sica’s career as a filmmaker was critically damaged. Unable to secure financing for subsequent projects, he turned his full focus to acting, starring in a string of pictures including 1957’s A Farewell to Arms (for which he earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor) and 1959’s It Happened in Rome. Over the course of his long career, he appeared in over 150 features. Finally, in 1960, De Sica returned to directing with La Ciociara, leading his star Sophia Loren to an Academy Award. The 1963 Ieri, Oggi, Domani also won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but in many regards De Sica’s reign as one of the world’s great directors was over. Features like 1966’s Caccia alla Volpe, 1967’s Sette Volte Donna, and 1970’s Girasoli were lightweight at best, and although 1971’s Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini won yet another Academy Award, it bore little relation to his neorealist classics. De Sica died in Paris on November 13, 1974, following complications from surgery.

(From http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=2:87213~T1)

Mario Monicelli (May 16, 1915 – November 29, 2010) was an Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all’Italiana (Comedy Italian style). Monicelli was born in Viareggio (Tuscany) and was the youngest son of the Mantuan journalist Tommaso Monicelli. His older brother Giorgio worked as writer and translator. Another older brother, Franco, was a journalist. He attended studies in the local lyceum, and entered into the film world through his friendship with Giacomo Forzano, son of the playwright Giovacchino Forzano, who had been encharged by Benito Mussolini with the founding of cinema studios in Tirrenia. Monicelli lived a carefree youth, and many of the cinematic jokes he later shot in Amici Miei were taken from his experience.

Monicelli made his first short in 1934, a collaboration with his friend Alberto Mondadori. He followed this work up with the silent film I ragazzi della Via Paal (an adaptation of the novel The Paul Street Boys), which was an award-winner in the Venice Film Festival. His first feature length work was made in 1937 (Pioggia d’estate, “Summer Rain”). In the years 1939–1942 Monicelli also produced numerous screenplays (up to 40), and worked as an assistant director. Monicelli made his official debut as a director in 1949, with Totò cerca casa, along with Steno. From the very beginning of his career Monicelli’s cinematic style had a remarkable flow to it. The duo produced eight successful movies in four years, including Guardie e ladri (1951) and Totò a colori (1952). From 1953 onwards Monicelli worked alone, without leaving his role as a writer of screenplays.Monicelli’s career include some of the masterpieces of Italian cinema. In I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street) (1958), again featuring the ubiquitous comedian Totò, he discovered the comical talent of Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni and probably produced the first true commedia all’italiana. While it is more well known in the English-speaking world as Big Deal on Madonna Street, the actual translation from the Italian is “the usual unknown perpetrators” (which is similar to the famous line from Casablanca of “Round up the usual suspects”)

La Grande Guerra (The Great War), released one year later, is generally regarded as his finest work. For this work Monicelli was awarded a Leone d’Oro in the Venice Film Festival, and an a Academy Award nomination for the best foreign film. The film, featuring Gassman and the other superstar of Italian comedy, Alberto Sordi, excelled in the absence of rhetorical accents (the tragedy of World War I was still well in Italian’s minds in these years) and for its sharp, tragicomical sense of history. Monicelli received two more Academy Award nominations with I compagni (The Organizer, 1963) and The Girl with the Pistol (1968). L’armata Brancaleone (For Love and Gold, 1966) is another masterpiece of Italian cinema. The film tells the story of a Middle Age Italy’s poor but pompous knight (played by Gassman) from a humorous point of view. Highlighted by Gasmann the bizarre Macaronic Latin-Italian dialogues were devised by Age & Scarpelli, the most renowned writers of Italian comedies, it was followed by Brancaleone alle Crociate (Brancaleone at the Crusades) in 1970. Amici miei (My Friends, 1975), featuring Ugo Tognazzi and Philippe Noiret, was one of the most successful films in Italy and confirmed Monicelli’s skill in mixing humour, irony and bitter feelings. His 1976 film Caro Michele won him the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 26th Berlin International Film Festival. The dramatic accents were predominant in the Un borghese piccolo piccolo (A Very Little Man, 1978), but left pace again to comicity and popularesque history with Il Marchese del Grillo (1981). Both films featured Alberto Sordi at his best. At the 32nd Berlin International Film Festival Il Marchese del Grillo won him his third Silver Bear for Best Director award.

Among the final works by Monicelli are Speriamo che sia femmina (1985), Parenti serpenti (1992) and Cari fottutissimi amici (1994), featuring Paolo Hendel. His last feature film was The Roses of the Desert (Le rose del deserto, 2006), which he directed when he was 91 years old. In 1991 he received the Golden Lion for Career of the Venice Film Festival. A documentary made by Roberto Salinas and Marina Catucci, Una storia da ridere, breve biografia di Mario Monicelli, appeared in 2008. Monicelli worked also for television and theatre, occasionally as an actor, and was a noteworthy playwright in his own right. Apart those already mentioned, actors who were launched by Monicelli or played in his movies include Monica Vitti, Anna Magnani, Giancarlo Giannini, Stefania Sandrelli, Vittorio De Sica, Sophia Loren, Enrico Montesano, Gian Maria Volonté, Paolo Villaggio, Nino Manfredi and Leonardo Pieraccioni.

Monicelli died on November 29, 2010 at the age of 95, after committing suicide by jumping from a window of the San Giovanni hospital in Rome, where he was admitted a few days earlier for prostate cancer. Reportedly, Monicelli jumped from his 5th floor hospital window and landed near the entrance to the ER where many patients and relatives congregated. He had been in and out of the hospital over the years for the treatment of prostate cancer. An unnamed person close to Mario Monicelli said he died from the window leap to commit suicide as he was not aging well and tired of getting old. —wikipedia