L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 8 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 L'Italo-Americano and artists triumphing both in Venice and LA. Accord- ing to La Biennale's official w e b s i t e , L a G a z z e t t a d i V e n e z i a d e s c r i b e d h o w , after the film was screened, there was a grand ball at t h e H o t e l E x c e l s i o r a n d " c o l o r f u l c o m i n g s a n d goings of the most exquisite attire." The main organizers of the event were the presi- dent of the Biennale, Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, the sculptor Antonio Marai- ni and Luciano De Feo, the G e n e r a l S e c r e t a r y o f t h e International Institute for Educational cinema, who also acted as the first direc- tor-selector of the Festival. If it's true this first edition wasn't a competition, the quality of the films present- ed was nevertheless out- standing: Frank Capra's It Happened One Night, King V i d o r ' s T h e C h a m p , Edmund Goulding's Grand H o t e l , J a m e s W h a l e ' s F r a n k e n s t e i n , a s w e l l a s Z e m l j a b y A l e k s a n d r Dovzenko, Gli Uomini, che M a s c a l z o n i ! B y M a r i o Camerini and A Nous la Liberté, by René Clair. And w h a t a c o l l e c t i v e c a s t ! B e s i d e t h e a l r e a d y m e n - tioned Fredric March, there w e r e m o v i e s w i t h G r e t a Garbo and Clarke Gable, Joan Crawford and Vittorio D e S i c a , R o n a l d C o l m a n and Norma Shearer. It isn't surprising that the Festival was such a success, with more than 25, 000 specta- tors. The first scandal of the Festival came in 1934, year of its second edition: actress Hedy Lamarr appeared on screen completely naked, in Gustav Machaty's Estasi. Those were truly different times! In the same year, the famous Irish fictional docu- mentary The Man of Aran won the Coppa Mussolini, a prize instituted to honor Italy's Duce. In 1935, the F e s t i v a l b e c a m e a y e a r l y event, in name of its enor- m o u s s u c c e s s . 1 9 3 8 i s remembered as the first edi- tion with a US movie in it, W a l t D y s n e y ' s S n o w White. I n r e t r o s p e c t i v e , t h e years of the war were bleak also for the Festival, which d i d t a k e p l a c e , b u t o n l y showing movies from coun- tries of the Axis: for this reason, the editions of 1940, 1941 and 1942 are not listed as official. In 1946, while Italy was slowly recovering from the horrors of war and f a s c i s m , t h e l e o n e d i Venezia began roaring on the Lido: in that year, win- ning movies received the now iconic statuette for the first time. 1946 was also when the word neoreal- ism and the imagery of its visuals entered collective m e m o r y , w i t h R o b e r t o Rossellini's Paisà and Aldo V e r g a n o ' s I l S o l e S o r g e Ancora. In 1948, Luchino Visconti would again bow down to the altar of neore- alist art with his La Terra Trema. In the 1950s and 1960s big names of Italian cinema like Fellini, Olmi, Bertolucci, Antonioni and P a s o l i n i p r e s e n t e d t h e i r w o r k s o n t h e l a g u n a , c e m e n t i n g f u r t h e r t h e i r popularity. These were also times of heated diatribes about the winning movies, or better, about the movies t h a t d i d n ' t w i n : L u c h i n o Visconti missed the Golden Lion in 1954 for Senso and in 1960 for Rocco e i suoi F r a t e l l i , s o m e t h i n g t h e public didn't swallow easily. However, Visconti was to f i n a l l y w i n i n 1 9 6 4 w i t h Vaghe Stelle dell'Orsa. Speaking of Leoni d'Oro, France leads the list with 12, closely followed by US and Italy with 11. The first Gold- en Lion, in fact, went to an A m e r i c a n m o v i e , T h e S o u t h e r n e r , d i r e c t e d b y Jean Renoir. In 1959, two Italian-French productions won ex aequo: Il Generale Della Rovere, directed by Roberto Rossellini, and La Grande Guerra, directed by Mario Monicelli. The first f u l l y I t a l i a n w i n n e r w a s Valerio Zurlini's Cronaca Familiare, in 1962. In more recent years, the US won in 2019, with Joker, and 2020, with Nomadland. To find an Italian Leone d'Oro, we have to step back to 2013, with Sacro GRA by Gian- franco Rosi. C u r i o u s l y e n o u g h , n o actor nor actress managed to win the Coppa Volpi, the award for best acting p e r f o r m a n c e , m o r e t h a n twice; among them, some of the greatest of all times, i n c l u d i n g J e a n G a b i n , T o s h i r o M i f u n e , S h i r l e y MacLaine, Javier Bardem, Valeria Golino, Sean Penn and Isabelle Huppert. There is also a precious little anecdote related to the C o p p a M a s t r o i a n n i , a n award instituted in 1998 for the best emerging actress or a c t o r . I n 2 0 0 8 , i t w a s assigned to a young Jen- nifer Lawrence, still far from being the Hollywood star we are all familiar with today. The actress couldn't afford the trip to Europe on h e r o w n , a n d i t w a s o n l y thanks to her parents, who gifted her a holiday to the Old Continent for her 18 th birthday – which she cele- brated that year – that she managed to travel to Venice and receive the prize. … A n d t h a t ' s h o w o u r journey through the history and the stories of the Festi- val del Cinema ends. It's time to focus, now, on the movies and winner of this year's edition, which we'll discover in little more than two days. Poster for the movie "Odessa in Fiamme," 1942 (Photo: Archivio Storico della Biennale di Venezia, ASAC) NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS The first film to be shown, on the evening of the 6th of August 1932, at 9:15 pm, was Rouben Mamoulian's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Its protagonist, Fredric March, won the non-official prize of best actor and, later, also the Oscar Continued from page 6

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