Il sorpasso - commedia all’italiana classic

Film regarded as director Dino Risi’s masterpiece

Jean-Louis Trintignant (left) and Vittorio Gassman
driving along Via Aurelia in Il sorpasso

Il sorpasso, which has come to be seen as one of the most influential Italian films of the 20th century and a defining example of the commedia all’italiana genre, was released for Italian cinema audiences on this day in 1962.

Directed by Dino Risi, produced by Mario Cecchi Gori and with Vittorio Gassman outstanding as one of the film’s male lead characters, made its debut in the United States in December of the following year under the title The Easy Life. It was also a pioneer for the so-called “road movie” in Italy.

It has been judged as such a significant contribution to Italian culture that in 2008, Il sorpasso - 'Overtaking' in Italian - was included in the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage's 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."

Its inclusion put it in the company of Bicycle Thieves, La strada, La dolce vita, Divorce Italian Style, Rocco and his Brothers and The Leopard among those movies to have made a lasting mark on the minds of Italian audiences.

Il sorpasso tells the story of two strangers - 36-year-old Bruno, a brash, carefree extrovert played by Gassman, and Roberto, a shy law student - who meet in Rome during a holiday and set off in a flashy Lancia Aurelia sports car on a spontaneous road trip through the city and the countryside of Lazio and Tuscany. 

Bruno’s reckless charm and devil-may-care approach to life draws Roberto into a whirlwind of fast cars, flirtations and impulsive adventures, sharply at odds with his own cautious nature. 

A publicity poster for Dino Risi's
Il sorpasso, released in 1962

In time, Roberto wishes he were more like Bruno, yet learns that his new friend has a broken marriage, a daughter whom he never sees and is running out of money, despised by his estranged wife for the shallowness of his character.

As they travel, the film highlights Italy’s booming consumer culture and generational tensions. What begins as a comic journey gradually darkens, culminating in a sudden, tragic accident as Bruno, addicted to il sorpasso - overtaking - inevitably attempts one risky manoeuvre too many.

Dino Risi directed more than 50 films over the course of a career spanning half a century but Il sorpasso is considered to be his greatest work and a cornerstone of commedia all’italiana, a genre that blended traditional comedy with biting satire on the contradictions of contemporary Italian society.

Risi, who collaborated with Ettore Scola and Ruggero Maccari on the screenplay, made Il sorpasso as a critique of Italy’s postwar so-called "economic miracle".

Releasing the movie during a period of rapid modernisation and consumerism, Risi’s aim with its themes was to highlight the emptiness behind material prosperity and the reckless pursuit of pleasure.

The two main characters - the impulsive Bruno and the reserved Roberto, played by the French actor Jean-Louis Trintignant - embody the clashing values of postwar Italy: exuberant modern life versus cautious tradition. 

The road trip is seen as a metaphor for self-discovery and societal change, with the title itself chosen to reflect what Risi saw as Italy’s rapid, sometimes reckless overtaking of tradition in pursuit of modernity, its tragic conclusion designed to symbolise the fragility of life and the risks of seeking change with too little pause for reflection.

Dino Risi directed more than 50 movies
in a career spanning half a century

Italy’s "economic miracle” was the period of unprecedented growth it experienced between about 1958 and 1963, a time of industrial expansion and rising wages, when mass consumer goods such as cars and televisions became symbols of prosperity.

Bruno’s Lancia Aurelia convertible was not just a car but a metaphor for speed, freedom, and the allure of modern Italy. It represented both the excitement of progress and the dangers of reckless living.

Il sorpasso was at first largely ignored by Italian film critics, yet became a hit with cinemagoers, who made it one of the two highest-grossing Italian-made films in Italy for the year ended June 30, 1963.

Those critics warmed to it in time, however. The country’s National Union of Film Journalists handed Gassman their coveted Nastro d’Argento award for Best Actor and the film is now generally considered an undisputed classic, mentioned in the same breath as the work of directors as revered as Michelangelo Antonioni and Luchino Visconti. 

It came to be seen as particularly significant among social commentators who see the years of the “economic miracle” in a rather less positive light. While it was a period that saw prosperity and living standards rise after the bleak aftermath of World War Two, it can also be interpreted as the start of Italy’s transformation from a traditionally agricultural and family-centred society into a shallower, individualistic one driven by consumerism.

Il sorpasso influenced many later directors in their work, among them Martin Scorsese, the brilliant American director of Sicilian descent, who cited Il sorpasso as "the model" for his 1986 hit The Color of Money, which starred Paul Newman and Tom Cruise. 

Parioli is known for its
elegant tree-lined streets

Travel tip:

Though born in Milan, Dino Risi lived in Rome, including the last 30 years of his life in an apartment in the Aldrovandi Residence in the Parioli district, one of the Italian capital’s most elegant residential areas, renowned for its leafy boulevards, refined atmosphere and cultural landmarks. Nestled between the Villa Borghese gardens and the curve of the Tiber, Parioli developed in the early 20th century as a haven for Rome’s elite. Its name derives from the Monti Parioli hills, once dotted with pear orchards, now home to stately villas, Art Nouveau palazzi, and spacious apartments. The neighbourhood, favoured by diplomats, professionals and artists, is dotted with chic cafés, gourmet restaurants and tranquil parks such as Villa Ada, one of Rome’s largest green spaces and once the Rome residence of the Italian Royal family. Parioli is also the home of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna and the Auditorium Parco della Musica, which hosts major concerts and events. As well as a number of elegant hotels, Parioli has many luxury apartments to rent, which make it popular with well-heeled visitors to the capital.

Parioli, Rome hotels from Hotels.com

The modern Strada Statale I follows the coastal
route of the ancient Via Aurelia

Travel tip:

In Il sorpasso, the road trip embarked upon by Bruno and Roberto largely follows the course of the ancient Via Aurelia, which was originally built in 241BC by consul Gaius Aurelius Cotta, with the aim of connecting Rome with the colonies along the Tyrrhenian coast, ending in Pisa but linking with the Via Aemilia Scaura, which led from Pisa to Genoa. Combined with the Via Appia, which led from Rome to Apulia, it meant the Romans had use of a continuous route from the Ligurian coast in the northwest to the port city of Brindisi in the southeast. The Roman road stretched over 1,000km, with about 700km of the Via Aurelia’s route still in use as a paved road, incorporated into the Strada Statale 1, also known as SS1 Aurelia, which runs from Rome to the French border near Ventimiglia. The adaptation of the ancient road for modern use was helped by the way it was built. The Via Aurelia, like other Roman roads at the time, was paved at a width of approximately 4.6 metres (15 feet), to allow standard size chariots to pass each other comfortably.  The Romans, ever inventive, could be said to have been the pioneers of modern service areas in that every 15 miles or so along Via Aurelia, a ‘statio’ would be constructed to provide travellers with food, shelter, stables and a means to buy horses or other travel equipment for their journey.

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More reading:

How Dino Risi saw the potential in future stars such as Sophia Loren and Alberto Sordi

Otto e mezzo - the Fellini masterpiece hailed as ‘better’ than La dolce vita

Michelangelo Antonioni - the last great of Italian cinema’s post-war golden era

Also on this day:

343: The death of Saint Nicholas of Bari

1478: The birth of courtier and diplomat Baldassare Castiglione

1586: The birth of astronomer Niccolò Zucchi

1794: The birth of opera star and Royal voice coach Luigi Lablache

1921: The birth of lawyer and composer Piero Piccione

1975: The birth of businessman Andrea Agnelli

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5 December

Armando Diaz - First World War general

Neapolitan commander led decisive victory over Austria

Armando Diaz, the general who masterminded Italy's victory over Austrian forces at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1918, was born on this day in 1861 in Naples.  The battle, which ended the First World War on the Italian front, also precipitated the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending more than 200 years of Austrian control of substantial parts of Italy.  The general's announcement of the total defeat of the Austrian Army at Vittorio Veneto sparked one of the greatest moments of celebration in the history of Italy, with some Italians seeing it as the final culmination of the Risorgimento movement and the unification of Italy.  Diaz was born to a Neapolitan father of Spanish heritage and an Italian mother. He decided to pursue his ambitions of a military career despite the preference for soldiers of Piedmontese background in the newly-formed Royal Italian Army.  Read more…

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Pope Julius II

Patron of the arts who commissioned Michelangelo's greatest works

Giuliano della Rovere, who was to become Pope Julius II, was born on this day in 1443 at Albisola near Genoa.  He is remembered for granting a dispensation to Henry VIII of England to allow him to marry Catherine of Aragon, the widow of his older brother, Arthur, and for commissioning Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.  Giuliano was born into an ecclesiastical family. His uncle, Francesco della Rovere, later became Pope Sixtus IV and it was the future pope Francesco who arranged for his nephew to be educated at a Franciscan friary. Giuliano became a bishop in 1471 and then a cardinal before being himself elected Pope in 1503.  Giuliano was Pope for nine years until he died in 1513. When Henry VIII later asked for his marriage to Catherine of Aragon to be annulled so that he could marry Anne Boleyn, he claimed that Pope Julius II should never have issued the dispensation to allow him to marry his sister in law. Read more…

Francesco Gemianini - composer and violinist

Tuscan played alongside Handel in court of George I

The violinist, composer and music theorist Francesco Saverio Geminiani, who worked alongside George Frideric Handel in the English royal court in the early 18th century and became closely associated with the music of the Italian Baroque composer Arcangelo Corelli, was baptised on this day in 1687 in Lucca, Tuscany.  Although he composed many works and at his peak was renowned as a virtuoso violinist, he is regarded as a significant figure in the history of music more for his writings, in particular his 1751 treatise Art of Playing on the Violin, which explained the 18th-century Italian method of violin playing and is still acknowledged as an invaluable source for the study of performance practice in the late Baroque period.  Geminiani himself was taught to play the violin by his father, and after showing considerable talent at an early age he went to study the violin under Carlo Ambrogio Lonati in Milan. Read more…

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Maria De Filippi - television presenter

One of the most popular faces on Italian TV

The television presenter Maria De Filippi, who has hosted numerous talk and talent shows in a career spanning almost 30 years, was born on this day in 1961 in Milan.  De Filippi is best known as the presenter of the long-running talent show Amici de Maria De Filippi, which launched in 2001.  The show’s predecessor, called simply Amici, was hosted by De Filippi from 1993 onwards.  One of the most popular faces on Italian television, De Filippi was married in 1995 to the talk show host and journalist Maurizio Costanzo, who died in February, 2023.  The daughter of a drugs company representative and a Greek teacher, De Filippi was born in Milan before moving at age 10 to Mornico Losana, a village in the province of Pavia, where her parents owned a vineyard.  A graduate in law, she had ambitions of a career as a magistrate. Read more…

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Book of the Day: The White War: Life and Death on the Italian Front, by Mark Thompson

The Western Front dominates our memories of the First World War. Yet a million and half men died in North East Italy in a war that need never have happened, when Italy declared war on the Habsburg Empire in May 1915. Led by General Luigi Cadorna, the most ruthless of all the Great War commanders, waves of Italian conscripts were sent charging up the limestone hills north of Trieste to be massacred by troops fighting to save their homelands. This is a great, tragic military history of a war that gave birth to fascism. Mussolini fought in these trenches, but so did many of the greatest modernist writers in Italian and German - Ungaretti, Gadda, Musil, Hemingway. It is through these accounts in The White War that Mark Thompson, with great skill and empathy, brings to life this forgotten conflict.

Mark Thompson lives in Oxford. He is the author of A Paper House, a much-praised account of the fall of Yugoslavia. He worked for the UN in the Balkans for much of the 1990s.

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4 December

Gae Aulenti – architect

Designer who made mark in Italy and abroad

The architect Gae Aulenti, who blazed a trail for women in the design world in post-War Italy and went on to enjoy a career lasting more than half a century, was born on this day in 1927 in Palazzolo dello Stella, a small town midway between Venice and Trieste.  In a broad and varied career, among a long list of clients Aulenti designed showrooms for Fiat and Olivetti, furniture for Zanotta, department stores for La Rinascente, a railway station in Milan, stage sets for theatre and opera director Luca Ronconi and villas for wealthy private clients.  She lectured at the Venice and Milan Schools of Architecture and was on the editorial staff of the design magazine, Casabella.  Yet she is best remembered for her part in transforming redundant buildings facing possible demolition into museums and galleries. Read more…

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Costantino Rocca - golfer

Italian whose success inspired Open champion

Costantino Rocca, who until recently was the most successful Italian in the history of international golf, was born on this day in 1956 in Almenno San Bartolomeo, near Bergamo in northern Italy.  Rocca, who turned professional at the age of 24 in 1981, enjoyed his best years in the mid-1990s, peaking with second place in the Open Championship at St Andrews in 1995.  He was beaten by the American John Daly in a four-hole play-off but was perhaps as popular a runner-up as there has been after the incredible putt he sank on the final green to deny Daly victory inside the regulation 72 holes.  Needing a birdie to be level after the American finished six under par, Rocca appeared to have blown his chance when his poorly executed second shot - a chipped approach that was meant to leave him in easy putting distance of the hole - did not even make it safely on to the green. Read more…

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Luigi Galvani - physicist and biologist

Scientist who seemed to give dead frog new life

Luigi Galvani, the first scientist to discover bioelectricity, died on this day in 1798 in Bologna.  Galvani discovered that the muscles in the leg of a dead frog twitched when struck by an electrical spark. This was the beginning of bioelectricity, the study of the electrical patterns and signals of the nervous system.  The word ‘galvanise’, to stimulate by electricity, or rouse by shock and excitement, comes from the surname of the scientist.  Galvani studied medicine at Bologna University and, after graduating in 1759, became an honorary lecturer of surgery and then subsequently of theoretical anatomy.  He became the first scientist to appreciate the relationship between electricity and animation when he was dissecting a frog one day. His assistant touched an exposed nerve in the leg of the frog with a metal scalpel that had picked up an electrical charge. Read more…

Pope Adrian IV

The warlike conduct of England’s one and only pontiff

The only Englishman to have ever sat on the papal throne, Nicholas Breakspear, became Pope on this day in 1154 in Rome.  Breakspear, who was from Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire, had previously been created Cardinal Bishop of Albano by Pope Eugene III.  After his election as Pope, Breakspear took the name of Adrian IV (also known as Hadrian IV) and immediately set about dealing with the anti-papal faction in Rome.  After Frederick Barbarossa, Duke of Swabia, caught and hanged the leader of the faction, a man known as Arnold of Brescia, Adrian crowned Frederick as Holy Roman Emperor in 1155 to reward him.  He then formed an alliance with the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel Comnenus, against the Normans in Sicily.  Adrian raised troops in Campania to fight alongside the Byzantine forces and the alliance was immediately successful. Read more…

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Saint Giovanni Calabria

Priest offered himself to God to save a Pope

Giovanni Calabria, who dedicated his life to helping the poor and the sick, died on this day in 1954 in Verona.  Roman Catholics throughout the world will celebrate his feast day today as a result of his canonisation by Pope John Paul II in 1999.  When Pope Pius XII became ill in 1954, Calabria offered himself to God to die in the place of the Pope. Pius XII began to get better and went on to live for another four years, but Calabria died the next day. After the Pope recovered he sent a telegram of condolence to Calabria’s congregation.  Giovanni Calabria was born in 1873 in Verona. He was the youngest of the seven sons of Luigi Calabria, a cobbler, and Angela Foschio, a maid servant.  Calabria was only a young child when his father died but he had to drop out of school to become an apprentice.  However, a rector at his local church saw his potential. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Gae Aulenti, by Margherita Petranzan

The complete works of one of the most interesting and eclectic contemporary Italian architects, in a new volume from the Skira architecture series. Gae Aulenti is one of the world's most celebrated architects. Her internationally renowned works encompass industrial design, urban planning, graphic, set design and architecture. This well-documented publication illustrates Aulenti's complete oeuvre and includes world-famous projects such as the Musee d'Orsay and the National Museum of Modern Art of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the remodeling of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and the New Asian Art Museum in San Francisco as well as lesser known but equally interesting works such as set designs for the theatre, exhibition designs, private houses. The book also dedicates a section to Aulenti's furniture design and includes her notable lamps produced by Artemide and chairs produced by Zanotta and Kartell. Fifty years of ideas and projects are examined in this richly illustrated monograph.

Margherita Petranzan is an Italian architect whose projects include the renovation of La Fenice theatre in Venice. She is the founder of the architectural magazine Anfione Zeto.

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3 December

Matilde Malenchini – painter

The tempestuous life of a talented Tuscan artist

The painter Matilde Malenchini was born on this day in 1779 in Livorno in Tuscany. She was well-known for her paintings of church interiors but turned to portrait painting later in life to make money to help her survive after her long relationship with Belgian writer Louis de Potter ended. Matilde was born into the Meoni family and married the painter and musician Vincenzo Francesco Malenchini at the age of 16. Although they soon separated, she kept his name for the rest of her life.  In 1807 she went to study at the Accademia di Belle Arte in Florence under the guidance of Pietro Benvenuti. To earn money and practise her art, she copied the works of old Italian and Dutch masters in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.  After being given a four-year annual stipend by Elisa Bonaparte, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, in 1811, Matilde went to Rome to study at the Pontificia Accademia romana delle belle arti di San Luca.  Read more…

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Nino Martoglio - writer and film director

Journalist and playwright whose films inspired post-war neorealism 

The journalist, playwright and theatre and film director Nino Martoglio was born in Belpasso, a town in the foothills of volcanic Mount Etna in eastern Sicily, on this day in 1870.  Martoglio is widely considered to be Sicily’s finest dialect playwright and by some to be the founder of Sicilian theatre.  He was also an acclaimed poet, basing a good deal of his verse on the everyday conversations of working class Sicilians, written to amuse. His collection, Centona, is still sold today.  Later in a career that was ended abruptly by his death in an accident, Martoglio directed a number of silent films, the style of some of which prompted critics to describe them as forerunners of the post-war neorealism movement.  The son of a journalist and a school teacher, Martoglio studied sailing as a young man and obtained a captain’s licence.  Read more…

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Carlo Oriani - cyclist and soldier

Giro winner died in World War One

The champion cyclist Carlo Oriani, winner of the 1913 Giro d’Italia, died on this day in 1917 in the aftermath of the Battle of Caporetto in the First World War.  The battle was a disastrous one for the Italian forces under the command of General Luigi Cadorna, with 13,000 soldiers killed, 30,000 wounded and 250,000 captured by the victorious army of Austria-Hungary. Countless other Italian troops fled as it became clear that defeat was inevitable.  Oriani, who had previously served his country in the Italo-Turkish War in 1912, was a member of the Bersaglieri, the highly mobile elite force used by the Italian army as a rapid response unit. He had joined in part because of his skill on a bicycle, which had replaced horses as one of the means by which the Bersaglieri were able to be mobile.  The Battle of Caporetto took place from October 24 to November 19, near the town of Kobarid on the Austro-Italian front. Read more…

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Nino Rota – composer

Musician and teacher composed soundtrack for The Godfather 

Giovanni ‘Nino’ Rota, composer, conductor and pianist, was born on this day in 1911 in Milan.  Part of a musical family, he started composing with an oratorio based on a religious subject at the age of 11, but he was to go on to produce some of the best-known and iconic music for the cinema of the 20th century.  Rota studied at the Milan Conservatory and then in Rome before he was encouraged by the conductor, Arturo Toscanini, to move to America, where he studied at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.  When he returned to Milan he took a degree in Literature and then began a teaching career. He became a director of the Liceo Musicale in Bari in 1950 and kept this post until his death. Orchestra conductor Riccardo Muti was one of his students.  Rota wrote film scores from the 1940s onwards for all the noted directors of the time, including Franco Zeffirelli and Luchino Visconti. Read more…

Nicolò Amati - violin maker

Grandson of Andrea Amati produced some of world's finest instruments

Nicolò Amati, who is acknowledged as the greatest in the line of Amati violin makers in the 16th and 17th centuries, was born on this day in 1596 in Cremona.  The grandson of Andrea Amati, who is credited by most experts with being the inventor of the violin in its four-stringed form, Nicolò followed his father, Girolamo, and uncle, Antonio, into the family business.  Girolamo and Antonio went their separate ways in around 1590, Antonio setting up a different workshop, which was thought to specialize in lutes.  Initially, Nicolò made instruments that were very similar to those created by Girolamo but later began to add refinements of his own, the most significant of which came between 1630 and 1640 when he created the Grand Amati design.  This model, slightly wider and longer than the violins his father had produced, yielded greater power of tone. Read more…

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Angela Luce – actress

Film star and singer was born in Spaccanapoli

Neapolitan actress and singer Angela Luce was born Angela Savino on this day in 1937 in Naples.  She has worked for the theatre, cinema and television, is well-known for singing Neapolitan songs, and has written poetry and song lyrics.  At 14 years old, Angela took her first steps towards stardom when she took part in the annual music festival held at Piedigrotta in the Chiaia district of Naples, singing the Neapolitan song, Zi Carmeli.  Her cinema career began in 1956, when she was only 19, when she appeared in Ricordati di Napoli, directed by Pino Mercanti. Since then she has appeared in more than 80 films and has worked for directors including Luchino Visconti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mario Amendola, Luigi Zampa and Pupi Avati.  Angela won a David Donatello award for L’amore molesto directed by Mario Martone. Read more…

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Mario Borghezio – controversial politician

Lega Nord MEP renowned for extremist views

Mario Borghezio, one of Italy’s most controversial political figures whose extreme right-wing views have repeatedly landed him in trouble, was born on this day in 1947 in Turin.  Borghezio was a member of Lega Nord, the party led by Umberto Bossi that was set up originally to campaign for Italy to be broken up so that the wealthy north of the country would sever its political and economic ties with the poorer south.  He has been a Member of the European Parliament since 1999 and has served on several committees, including Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Petitions.  He was even undersecretary to the Ministry of Justice from 1994-95.  Yet he had regularly espoused extremist and racist views, to the extent that even the right-wing British party UKIP, with whom he developed strong links, moved to distance themselves from him. Read more…

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Book of the Day: Ottocento: Romanticism and Revolution in 19th Century Italian Painting, by Roberta J M Olson

The Ottocento (literally "eight hundred"), or the 19th century, witnessed the creation of a united Italy. This century, which was the age of nationalism throughout Europe, gave birth to modern Italy as a definable political entity after a long period of regional fragmentation and foreign domination. The political struggle for unification was known as the Risorgimento, meaning to rise up again (evoking similar powerful alliterative like renaissance and resurrection). The term was chosen because Italians hoped that their land might overcome internal political divisions and regionalism to regain the prominent place in Western Civilization it had enjoyed during the Roman and Renaissance times. The Ottocento was an epoch of major upheavals and drastic changes, or revolutions, in the fabric of Italian thought and society, not least in the area of the arts, especially painting. Ottocento:  Romanticism and Revolution in 19th Century Italian Painting, originally published to accompany an exhibition of the same name, is a landmark study covering Italian painting from 1797 to 1900, which places Italian art within the broader European context and highlights lesser‑known Italian masters.

Roberta Olson is an American historian of art. She is the author of many books on art history and is known for her work on Italian art. She taught at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts for 25 years; after retiring as professor emerita, she became curator of drawings at the New-York Historical Society.

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