Showing posts with label Cinecitta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cinecitta. Show all posts

26 February 2018

Dante Ferretti – set designer

Three-times Oscar winner worked with Fellini and Scorsese


Dante Ferretti has worked in the film industry for more than 50 years
Dante Ferretti has worked in the film
industry for more than 50 years
Dante Ferretti, who in more than half a century in movie production design has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards and won three, was born on this day in 1943 in the city of Macerata, in the Marche region of central Italy.

Ferretti, who works in partnership with his wife, the set decorator Francesca Lo Schiavo, won two of his Oscars for films directed by Martin Scorsese, with whom he has enjoyed a collaboration that began 25 years ago this year.

Nominated for his first film with Scorsese, The Age of Innocence (1993) and subsequently for Kundun (1998) and Gangs of New York (2003), he was successful with The Aviator (2005) and Hugo Cabret (2012).

Both Oscars, for Best Scenography, were shared with Lo Schiavo, with whom he also shared an Oscar for Tim Burton’s 2008 film Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Ferretti also enjoyed long collaborations with Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini, and worked with a string of other major directors, including Elio Petri, Ettore Scola, Franco Zeffirelli, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Terry Gilliam, Anthony Minghella, Brian de Palma, Julie Taymor and Kenneth Branagh.

Born a few months before Macerata would become something of a battleground in the Second World War, occupied by Nazi troops in the wake of Mussolini’s downfall and then subjected to allied bombing, Ferretti had design in his blood, coming from a family of furniture makers.

Gangs of New York was shot almost entirely on sets built by Dante Ferretti at Cinecittà
Gangs of New York was shot almost entirely on sets built
by Dante Ferretti at Cinecittà
After completing school, he went to Rome, graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and, fascinated with the film industry, began working at the Cinecittà studios, where he would eventually have his own permanent office.

After cutting his teeth as an assistant on a number of Pasolini titles, he landed his first appointment as set director for Pasolini’s 1969 film Medea

His work on that movie caught with attention of Fellini, his partnership with whom he described as a “dream come true”.  Notable successes over the next two decades included The City of Women and Ginger and Fred.

In the mid-1980s, he worked outside Italy for the first time, on such titles as The Name of the Rose (1986), French director Jean-Jacques Annaud’s film version of the novel by Umberto Eco, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), directed by the former Monty Python star Terry Gilliam, for which he received his first Oscar nomination.

Martin Scorsese worked with Ferretti on nine movies, two of which won him Oscars
Martin Scorsese worked with Ferretti on
nine movies, two of which won him Oscars
His association with Scorsese did not begin until 1993, although they had met some years earlier at Cinecittà. To date, they have made nine films together, the most ambitious and challenging of which, he said in a recent interview, was Gangs of New York, the epic period drama set in the notorious Five Points district of New York, for which Ferretti constructed full-scale models of New York street scenes within Cinecittà. There was even a set designed to represent the Hudson River, complete with a full-size ship.

More recently, he and Lo Schiavo worked on Scorsese’s Silence, his film about Jesuits in Japan persecuted for their Christian faith in the 17th century, which involved reconstructions of the Japanese city of Nagasaki and the Chinese port of Macau.

A passionate fan of opera, Ferretti has also designed sets for some of the world’s most famous opera houses, including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Teatro Regio in Turin, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Opéra in Paris, the Royal Opera House in London and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

The Ben Hur set at Cinecittà World, outside Rome
Travel tip:

As well as admiring his work on the screen, fans of Ferretti’s sets can see examples of his creativity at first hand at the Rome theme park, Cinecittà World, which was opened in 2014 in the grounds of the former studio complex Dinocittà, which was set up in the 1960s by the producer Dino De Laurentiis. Containing 26 sets to represent different themes and genres in cinema history, all of which were designed by Ferretti, the park is at Castel Romano, about 25km (16 miles) south of Rome in the Decima Malafede nature reserve.

The open-air Arena Sferisterio at Macerata
The open-air Arena Sferisterio at Macerata
Travel tip:

The city of Macerata, home to about 43,000 people, is situated in an inland area of Marche, about 48km (30 miles) south of Ancona and 30km (19 miles) from the coastal town of Civitanova Marche. Not a well-known tourist destination, it nonetheless has a charming hilltown feel, with a maze of narrow cobblestone streets and one of Italy’s oldest universities, dating back to 1290. It is the setting each summer for a month-long opera festival at the atmospheric Arena Sferisterio, which has attracted some of the world’s biggest stars.
















3 July 2017

Alessandro Blasetti - film director

Reputation tarnished by links with Mussolini


Alessandro Blasetti was one of the first directors to use the techniques of neorealism in his films
Alessandro Blasetti was one of the first directors
to use the techniques of neorealism in his films
Alessandro Blasetti, the film director sometimes referred to as ‘the father of Italian cinema’ for the part he played in reviving the film industry in Italy in the late 1920s and 30s, was born on this day in 1900 in Rome.

In his directing style, Blasetti was seen as ahead of his time, even in his early days.  His films were often shot on location, used many non-professional actors and had the characteristics of the neorealism that would make Italian cinema famous in the post-War years.

Yet he will forever be seen by some critics as an apologist for Fascism, a charge which stems mainly from his support for at least part of the ideology of Benito Mussolini, which led to a number of his films being interpreted as Fascist propaganda, although the evidence in some cases was rather thin.

The son of an oboe professor at Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Blasetti graduated in law from the Sapienza University of Rome.   Married in 1923, his first job was as a bank clerk but after a year he began to work as a journalist and wrote the first film column to appear in an Italian national newspaper.

He used his position to campaign for a revival of film production in Italy, which at that time had largely ground to a halt, despite Rome having been a major hub of the silent movie industry before the First World War.

Adriana Benetti and Gino Cervi in a scene from Blasetti's 1942 film Quattro pasi fra le nuvole
Adriana Benetti and Gino Cervi in a scene from
Blasetti's 1942 film Quattro pasi fra le nuvole 
Blasetti helped begin the resurgence with his first movie, Sole – Sun – in 1929, with a storyline set against the real-life draining of the Pontine Marshes, south of Rome, a project organised by Mussolini.

Mussolini applauded the end result, declaring it to be ‘the dawn of the Fascist film’. Financed through a co-operative, it was not a commercial success yet it was significant in that Mussolini saw film as a way of spreading his message and would later invest much state funding in the Italian film industry.

Blasetti’s early neorealism was clear in 1860, a film made in 1934 about Garibaldi’s campaign to unite Italy as seen through the eyes of two peasants, again with much location filming and imbued with the same kind of visual starkness that would be associated with Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and others in the post-War years.

It can be argued that several of Blasetti’s 1930s films are critical of the Fascist regimes. Vecchio guardia - The Old Guard - recounts Mussolini’s 1922 March on Rome, which led to his ascension to power. Ironically, it was criticised by some in the Fascist government for having too few scenes of public enthusiasm for Il Duce.

Blasetti pictured in 1965
Blasetti pictured in 1965
Blasetti, however, did not discourage Mussolini’s interest in his work and took every opportunity to lobby for state funding and support. One outcome was the construction of the large, state-of-the-art Cinecittà studios in Rome, which would give Italian filmmakers the resources to make a real impact.

A marked shift to neorealism came with Quattro pasi fra le nuvole – Four Steps in the Clouds – his 1942 story of a married salesman who agrees to save the honour of a pregnant girl he meets on a train by presenting himself to her family as her husband.

As well as his films, Blasetti’s notable contribution to Italian cinema was as founder of the school that was to become the Centro Sperimentale, Rome’s noted film study centre archive.  He died in Rome in 1987.

Coastal lakes or lagoons typify the Pontine Marshes
Coastal lakes or lagoons typify the Pontine Marshes
Travel tip:

The Pontine Marshes is a reclaimed area of land south of Rome, bordered roughly by the Alban Hills, the Lepini Mountains, and the Tyrrhenian Sea.  It was a marshy and malarial area that several emperors and popes tried unsuccessfully to drain and until the early part of the 20th century it was inhabited by just a handful of shepherds. However, in 1928 the Fascist government drained the marshes, cleared the vegetation and built new towns, notably Littoria (now Latina) in 1932, Sabaudia in 1934, Pontinis in 1935, Aprilia in 1937, and Pomezia in 1939. By the Second World War the only untouched area was the Monte Circeo National Park. The area is now the most productive agricultural region in in Italy.

Travel tip:

The Centro sperimentale di cinematografia – the Italian national film school - was established in 1935. The oldest film school in Western Europe, it is still financed by the Italian government. It is located near Cinecittà, about 10km (6 miles) south-east of the centre of Rome along Via Tuscolana.




10 December 2016

Amedeo Nazzari - movie star

Sardinian actor seen as the Errol Flynn of Italian cinema


Amedeo Nazzari in a scene from the 1950s film by Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria
Amedeo Nazzari in a scene from the 1950s film by
Federico Fellini, Nights of Cabiria
The prolific actor Amedeo Nazzari, who made more than 90 movies and was once one of Italian cinema's biggest box office names, was born on this day in 1907 in Cagliari.

Likened in his prime to the Australian-American star Errol Flynn, with whom he had physical similarities and the same screen presence, Nazzari enjoyed a career spanning five decades.

One of his first major successes, in the title role of the 1938 drama Luciano Serra, Pilot, in which he played a First World War veteran, established him as Italy's leading male star in 1930s and he maintained his popularity in the 40s and 50s.

He is remembered also for his appearance in Federico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria, which won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.

Towards the end of his career, he featured in Henri Verneuil's 1969 Mafia caper The Sicilian Clan, for which the score was composed by Ennio Morricone.  His last big screen appearance came in 1976 in A Matter of Time, an Italian-American musical fantasy directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring his daughter, Liza Minnelli.

Nazzari was born Amedeo Carlo Leone Buffa, the son of a pasta manufacturer, Salvatore Buffa, and Argenide Nazzari, who was the daughter of the President of the Court of Appeal in Cagliari, Amedeo Nazzari, whose name he decided to take as his stage name.

The poster advertising Nazzari's first big success, Luciano Serra, Pilot
The poster advertising Nazzari's first
big success, Luciano Serra, Pilot
Salvatore Buffa died when Amedeo was only six and the family moved to Rome, where his mother guided him through his teenage years and hoped he would develop a career as an engineer. After joining a drama society, however, Amedeo became infatuated with theatre and, ultimately, cinema.

After the death of Rudolph Valentino, the movie sex symbol of the 1920s, he entered a competition organised by Twentieth Century Fox to find an Italian who could step into his shoes.  He was rejected on the grounds that he was too tall and too thin and that he had a gloomy expression.  There was no putting him off, however, and he continued to pursue his dream.

His first big break came in 1936, when the emerging actress Anna Magnani saw him on stage in the theatre and, impressed with his energy, recommended him to her husband, the director Goffredo Alessandrini for a lead role in his next film, Cavalry.  The film debuted at the Venice Film Festival and subsequently played to full houses all over Italy.

A man of strong principals, he turned down Benito Mussolini's invitation to join the Fascist party after the success of Luciano Serra, Pilot.  Nazzari had become a matinee idol and Mussolini wanted to promote him as a symbol of Italian masculinity but Nazzari allegedly told him: 'Thank you, Duce, but I would prefer not to concern myself with politics, occupied as I am with more pressing artistic commitments.'

Given that Mussolini, the driving force behind the Cinecittà complex in Rome that was in time to be known as 'Hollywood on the Tiber', was keen to ally himself with the stars of the movie industry, Nazzari risked his stand being interpreted as a snub but in the event it had no detrimental effect on his career, perhaps because he willingly participated in some wartime productions that were blatantly propagandist, in particular the 1942 film Bengasi, an anti-British war film set in Libya.

A year earlier, in 1941, the Venice Film Festival had awarded Nazzari the title of Best Actor for the film Caravaggio, il pittore maledetto - Caravaggio, the cursed painter - also directed by Alessandrini. Earlier in 1942, he had starred in La cena delle beffe - the dinner of mockery - a costume drama that takes place in the Florence of the Medici, directed by Alessandro Blasetti.

Later, Nazzari would turn down the chance to play opposite Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love, his proposed role going to Yves Montand after Nazzari expressed doubt over his ability to play convincingly in an English-speaking part and confessed that he feared his attempts to sing and dance would attract ridicule.

Amedeo Nazzari in the 1950 film Il brigante Musolino
Amedeo Nazzari in the 1950 film Il brigante Musolino
In fact, he rejected most approaches to play comedy roles in Italy, preferring meatier parts such as that of the brave Neapolitan magistrate who stands up to the Camorra in Luigi Zampa's Processo alla città - A city on trial.

Married in 1957 to Irene Genna, an Italian-Greek actress, he had a daughter, Maria Evelina, who followed him into acting and established a successful career in theatre and television.

In his later years he developed kidney problem and died in Rome in November 1979, aged 71, a few months before his daughter gave birth to his first grandchild, Leonardo.

He is buried at the monumental cemetery of Verano in Rome under the name of Amedeo Nazzari Buffa.

Cagliari as seen by travellers arriving by sea
Cagliari as seen by travellers arriving by sea
Travel tip:

Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, is an industrial centre and one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean but is also a city of considerable beauty and history.  When D.H. Lawrence arrived in the 1920s, witnessing the confusion of domes, palaces and ornamental facades that seemed to be piled on top of one another as he approached from the sea, he likened the city to Jerusalem, describing it as 'strange and rather wonderful, not a bit like Italy.’

Travel tip:

Rome's Cinecittà studios were founded in 1937 by Mussolini, his son Vittorio and the Fascist government's head of cinema, Luigi Freddi, under the slogan 'Cinema is the Most Powerful Weapon'. The Fascist leader had propaganda in mind but he was also keen to revive the Italian film industry, which was in crisis at the time.  Later, Cinecittà would become closely associated with the director Federico Fellini, who filmed La Dolce Vita, Satirycon and Casanova there, among other productions.  It is also used for shooting television shows and houses the set for Grande Fratello, the Italian version of Big Brother.

More reading:


Anna Magnani - Oscar-winning actress famous for Rossellini's Rome, Open City

Four-times Oscar winner Federico Fellini left huge legacy of influence

Rudolph Valentino - heartthrob actor who died tragically young

Also on this day:







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