Luigi Comencini; excellent Independent obit (Italian film director)
Hyfler/Rosner
Leading figure in Italian cinema whose hit film 'Pane, Amore
e Fantasia' made a star of Gina Lollobrigida
The Independent
09 April 2007
Tom Vallance
One of Italy's most prolific, successful and versatile
directors, Luigi Comencini was a leading figure in Italian
cinema, pioneering the neo-realist comedies ("commedia
Italiana") that proved popular in the post-war years -
notably the worldwide hit Pane, Amore e Fantasia (Bread,
Love and Dreams, 1953), which made a star of Gina
Lollobrigida and made more money than any Italian film up to
that time.
A co-founder of the Cineteca Italiana in Milan, the first
Italian film archive, he was also noted for his delicate
touch with children, directing one of the finest films about
adolescence, Incompreso (Misunderstood, 1967), and making
for television a very personal vision of Pinocchio which
many consider his masterpiece. If Comencini was not as well
known or revered as some other Italian directors it was due
in part to his ability to tackle all genres. "I made too
many different films for people to be able to recognise me
at first glance," he said.
Born in Salo, Italy in 1916, he spent his childhood in
France but moved back to Italy and was studying architecture
in Milan when he developed a consuming passion for film.
While a student, he formed a private cinema club with the
future film-makers and fellow anti-Fascists Mario Ferrari
and Alberto Lattuada. After graduating with a degree in
architecture, he worked as a journalist and film critic,
also writing screenplays for such directors as Dino Risi and
Lattuada.
He directed his first short film, La Novelleta ("The Short
Story"), in 1937, and with Lattuada and Ferrari he founded
the Cineteca Italiana in 1940. In 1946 he made a short
documentary about youngsters in post-war Milan, Bambini in
Città ("Children of the City"), an early example of his
interest in and rapport with children. Its impact prompted
the producer Carlo Ponti to engage Comencini to make his
first feature film, Proibito rubare ("No Stealing", 1948),
which he co-wrote. It also focused on youth, and has been
called "an Italian Boys' Town". "It isn't that I liked
children in a special way," Comencini said later. "It's that
they are a kind of species unto themselves, generally
defenceless and oppressed by adults. Through their eyes the
world sees better."
With neo-realism confronting the gradual disillusionment of
the post-war years and thus losing commercial favour,
Comencini was one of those who adopted a softer form
(labelled "neo-realismo rosa") and in 1953 the populist
Pane, Amore e Fantasia, which he both directed and scripted,
proved a huge mainstream success. It made a major star of
Gina Lollobrigida, whose memorable performance as a mountain
village spitfire La Bersagliera, an earthy, poor but
independent peasant, is considered one of her best, and
co-starred Vittorio de Sica as a faintly lecherous police
chief who pursues a midwife (Marisa Merlini) while
Lollobrigida loves his deputy (Roberto Risso).
The film broke box-office records, and led to an inevitable
sequel, Pane, Amore e Gelosia (Bread, Love and Jealousy,
1954), in which the engagements of the two couples are
threatened by gossip that leads to the partners being
temporarily switched. There were successes in a similar
vein, including the lively Tutti a Casa (Everybody Go Home,
1960), and though unpretentious they displayed the
director's understanding of human nature, tender irony and
adept story-telling. These qualities were especially
apparent in his best films, such as La finestra sul Luna
Park ("The Window to Luna Park", 1957), which dealt subtly
with immigration.
Comencini often worked with two of Italy's greatest comic
actors, Toto and Alberto Sordi, and he even paired Sordi
with Bette Davis in the black comedy La Scopone Scientifico
(The Scientific Cardplayer, 1972). Occasionally he returned
to the neo-realist style in films like La Ragazza Di Bube
(Bebo's Girl, 1963), a tale of the resistance which has a
radiant performance from Claudia Cardinale as a country girl
who refuses a writer's offer of marriage in order to wait
for the man she loves to serve his 14-year sentence for
killing a Fascist policeman.
Made on location, it skilfully evoked the atmosphere of the
Forties, though Comencini was unable to coax much passion
from his leading man, George Chakiris (fresh from his Oscar
triumph in West Side Story). Cardinale said that, "Comencini
was a rather introverted person, like me, and so we felt
very good together. It was a very beautiful experience to
work with him, because he was a truly incredible man, sweet,
gentle."
In 1967 Comencini made the first of what are arguably his
two masterpieces. Incompreso is one of the most
heartbreaking of films about childhood and an unabashed
tearjerker, telling of a boy whose brave front after his
mother dies and his protectiveness towards his younger
brother convince his father that he is coping. Four years
later, Comencini made a superb, very personal television
version of the children's tale, Le avventure di Pinocchio
(1971), which featured a charming Lollobrigida as the Blue
Fairy, with Nino Manfredi as a touching Geppetto and a
Comencini discovery, Andrea Balestri, as the boy puppet.
Even better than the Disney version, it imbues the tale with
invention and imagination while staying faithful to Carlo
Collodi's original story. Originally shown in six 55-minute
episodes, it was released to cinemas in a two-hour version.
Comencini's version of La Bohème (1987) might have been one
of the best opera films had not its leading man José
Carreras become seriously ill three days before shooting
began. Fortunately he had recorded the role, so his voice is
heard on the soundtrack, but the wooden acting of the young
tenor Luca Canonici, who mouths the role, offsets the
passion in Carreras's singing and, despite a fine cast
headed by Barbara Hendricks as a touching and beautifully
sung Mimi, the film just misses being a classic.
After making Marcellino (1991), Comencini retired from
film-making as a result of ill health .
Luigi Comencini, film director: born Salo, Italy 8 June
1916; married (three daughters); died Rome 6 April 2007.