L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 2019 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued from page 4 an author. In 1953, finally, she moves her first steps in the world of cinema, along with the great Federico Fellini: she is his assis- tant in La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 and 1/2 (1962). She debuts as a director in 1963 with I Basilischi, bitter narration of the life of a group of young southerners, for which she receives the Silver Sail at the Locarno Film Festival. Seven Beauties was a great success in the US. In an interview published last year in Variety, Wertmüller said: "It was the reac- tion of the media to make me understand how significant my nomination was. Since I had arrived in the US, I had been sub- merged by interview requests coming from both TV and news- papers. People would tell me the news talked about my nomination as a historical moment. And, when thinking about it, it truly was, especially for women all over the world. I still receive thank you letters from women directors who say were inspired by my experience today." Felice Laudadio, screen- writer, producer, critic, artistic director of Bari's Bif&st and president of the Centro Speri- mentale di Cinematografia (CSC) in Rome, where Wert- müller acted as special commis- sioner from 1988 to 1994, dis- cusses her extraordinary career with L'Italo Americano. The CSC, along with the Cineteca Nazionale and Genoma Films, is behind the restoration of Seven Beauties, carried out on the origi- nal 35 mm films. Lina Wert- müller's eight movie, which received one nomination to the Golden Globes and four to the Oscars, is a clever and ferocious apology to the art of make doing and surviving at all costs, typical of Neapolitan culture. Its restored version was screened for the first time on the 22nd of May at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival. Laudadio was present when DiCaprio made his praise to Wertmüller. And he tells us about it. The Academy announced the Oscar for Wertmüller. An extraordinary career, charac- terized by plenty of successes and works enjoyed all over the world. In 2002, Guy Ritchie's remake of her Swept Away (1974), with Madonna starring in the role that had been of Mariangela Melato, bore wit- ness to her popularity in the US. What are Lina's merits? She contributed to change women cinema. If Monicelli is the precursor of "Commedia all'Italiana," with his Big Deal on Madonna Street and all that came after that in the 1960s and 1970s, Lina Wertmüller is, so to speak, a female Monicelli: she radically changed the structure of comedy, introducing a female take on it, and this is a pretty important thing. Determinant, in fact, if we think about Let's Talk about Men (a 1965 movie whose title refers to Let's Talk about Women, directed by Ettore Scola the previous year), Love and Anarchy (1973, which participat- ed to the 26th Cannes Film Festi- val, where Giannini won the award as best actor), Sabato Domenica e Lunedì (1990) and Ciao, Professore! (1992). These are all movies where female fig- ures — all symbolically repre- sented by Mariangela Melato, who loved Wertmüller for the way she directed her — are cen- tral. Melato and Lina had many occasions to confront each other — not to fight, to confront — while improving dialogues, lines and parts. Swept Away confirms this. How is she relevant for Ital- ian cinema? Let's take a look at the women of Italian cinema. Even today, there aren't many, in spite of the attempt to reach a 50-50 situation, an equal representation of men and women in the field. She has definitely been an extremely powerful personality, who imposed herself as a woman director, against all forms of homologation with male cinema. And I am not talking feminism, but culture here. What contribution did she make to the representation of Italian society, of which she revealed grotesque aspects and stratification when showing, for instance, the contrast between proletariat and bourgeoisie in the 1970s? She did offer a pic- ture of being Italian very differ- ent from the more dramatic views of other movies of the time, such as those by Pietro Germi and Giuliano Montaldo. Perhaps the most representa- tive of her movies from this point of view is The Seduction of Mimi, where an extraordinary identifica- tion with the male character, interpreted by Giancarlo Gianni- ni, takes place. Giannini, along with Melato, is an icon of Wert- müller's work. In this movie, Wertmüller proposes a personal reading of Italy's working class, a subject potentially difficult and that, in those years, was mostly interpreted in a leftist way by Ital- ian critics. Indeed, they never quite took into account the con- temporary aspects of her works, they always kept her in the mar- gins, because The Seduction of Mimi is a movie against all rules. It was the same thing for I Basilischi, her first movie about young Southerners, shot between Basilicata and Apulia with amateur actors. Even Seven Beauties, extremely dramatic, but never melodramatic, works on the tragic theme of the Shoah — just like Benigni was to do, later, in Life is Beautiful — treating it with immense depth and consid- eration, as shown by the factual images that introduce the film. Wertmüller was the first woman in the history of the Academy to be nominated for an Oscar as best director with Seven Beauties, and the first woman director at the Cannes Film Festival, with The Seduc- tion of Mimi. After her, only Jane Campion in 1994, Sofia Coppola in 2004, Kathryn Bigelow — who is, for the moment, the only woman to have won an Oscar as best director in 2010 — and Greta Gerwig in 2018. The Academy stressed how this year's awards (David Lynch, Wes Studi and Geena Davis) want to show more recognition to women and underrepresented groups. Lina's cinematography, howev- er, is much more than #MeToo. She cannot be considered a feminist director. She was the first woman to be nominated as best director for Seven Beauties. The fact it had never happened before is already a sign of how much American cinema valued her directing skills, but also her screenwriting and her actors' characterization. The movie received four nomina- tion: best director, best male lead (Giannini), best foreign movie, best original screenplay. But no, Lina Wertmüller is definitely not a feminist. She is a woman director, which is a very different thing. It's the woman's point of view that counts. Her movies have just that: a strong female point of view, that always showed through, for better or worse, through each character. Giannini says that "Lina can make stones act well." You are the president of the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cine- matografia in Rome, which manages the Cineteca Nazionale and the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema, the place where "cinema is studied, learned, made." Lina Wert- müller was a special commis- sioner there from 1988 to 1994. What was learned from her? She focused on direction, screenwriting and on actor train- ing. She represented a turning point for the School. Among her predecessors, I'd like to mention Roberto Rossellini, who was commissioner first and then director during the late 1960s. He wanted our students to be global and globalizing: they had to be actors, screenwriters, directors, editors, directors of photography: he had an extremely modern view, deriving from his great experience. Lina, on the other hand, viewed learning and train- ing more pragmatically. In 2019, in Cannes, Seven Beauties brought back together Lina Wertmüller and Giancar- lo Giannini on the occasion of the movie's restoration. This is, indeed, one of the most impor- tant activities of the Cineteca Nazionale. You were there. What can you tell us about this experience? It was very moving. Aware of her "young" age, Lina wanted to be there. I was the first to call her when I got to know we could pre- sent the movie in Cannes. I called her at home, I spoke to her daughter Maria and asked if Lina would have liked to go. She asked her mother, who answered "of course I would!" straight away. And when I let the people in Cannes know Lina was com- ing, everyone was really interest- ed in it. Even the Festival direc- tor, Thierry Frémaux, who usually never shows up for the screening of restored movies, came to introduce her. On that occasion, Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to meet Lina and there is a photo showing them together: why is Lina so popular abroad? Leonardo DiCaprio was wait- ing to walk the red carpet for Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but when he heard Lina was there, he didn't hesitate one second. He went to meet her. He knew who she was very well; this very young, yet powerful Hollywood actor was very affec- tionate with Lina. The meeting was immortalized in one of the last photos taken by Pietro Coc- cia, a great photographer of Ital- ian cinema, who shot Giannini, Wertmüller and DiCaprio holding hands. The most touching moment of all was, however, when we were in the theatre: myself, Giannini and Frémaux were on stage, while she pre- ferred to remain seated in the front row. When Frémaux intro- duced her, the public offered a long, beautiful standing ovation for Lina, who stood up and thanked. Then, there was another huge applause for Giannini. The public never forgot her and knows her merits well. Thank goodness the Los Angeles Acade- my does too, even though I believe it should have thought about them much earlier. Wertmüller is not only a director but also an accomplished screenwriter @ Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia di Roma

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