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Italian Neorealism

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Italian neorealismItalian neorealism

The birth of cinema The birth of cinema (video)(video)

Pedro Almodóvar, born on September 25, 1949 in Calzada de Calatrava, La Mancha, Spain.

By the time he moved to Madrid in the late 1960s,the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco had shut down the national film school, fearing creative dissent. So instead, Almodovar forged ahead with his own education by watching countless movies at the local theatre. While he earned money working a day job at Telefonica, Spain's national phone company, Almodovar bought a Super-8 camera and began making numerous short films.

After graduating , Almodovar broke through with his first commercial film, "Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom" (1980), a low-budget satire about female friendship and solidarity in the face of an oppressive society that was a success in Spain due to its campy style, outrageous humor and unbridled sexuality - all resulting from the newfound freedom of Franco's death. 

In 1986 it was the turn of "Matador".

The following year, with his brother Augustin,

founded his own production house, 'El Deseo'.

In 1988 he signed his first great success, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", followed by, among others "Ties" (1990), "Live Flesh" (1997),

"All About My mother "(1999, winner of the

2000 Oscar), " Talk to Her “, which earned him an Oscar in 2003 for best Original Screenplay.

His success continued with "La Mala educación" in 2004 while in 2006 he won the Cannes award for best screenplay with "Volver".

FIRST ASSIGNMENTThe year 1957 was an important one for him:

he married Madeleine Morgenstern, the daughter of an important film distributor, and founded his own production company "Les Films du Carrosse"; named after Jean Renoir's La carrozza d'oro (1952)(The Golden Coach). He also directed Les mistons (1957), considered as the real first step of his cinematographic work.

“LE CINEMA SELON HITCHCOCK” This is a book of interviews of Alfred Hitchcock, in which he was one of the first to show how Hitch was a real author: first published 1966 "Le cinema selon Hitchcock"

A compilation of some of his movies critiques "Les films de ma vie"Hitchcock/Truffaut: The definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock by François Truffaut" (Revised

Edition).

“THE 400 BLOWS”It was released in 1959 and the primary focus of This work is on the life of a young character by the name of Antoine Doinel. This film follows this character through his troubled adolescence. He is caught in between an unstable parental relationship and an isolated youth. The film focuses on the real life events of the director, François Truffaut. From birth Truffaut was thrown

into an undesired situation. He was registered

as "A child born to an unknown father" in the hospital records. The 400 Blows marked the beginning of the French New Wave movement.

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders born in Düsseldorf on 14 August 1945; is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and film producer. Wenders failed his entry test at France's national film school IDHEC (now La Fémis), and instead became an engraver in the studio of Johnny Friedlander, an American artist, in Montparnasse. During this time, Wenders became fascinated with cinema and attended the University of Television and Film in Munich from 1967 to 1970 . Since 1996, Wenders has been the president of the European Film Academy in Berlin.

Der himmel uber berlin(1987)

Maybe Wenders most famous Film.

It is a poetical description of the city seen through the eyes of two angels.

Wenders began his career during the New German Cinema era of the late 1960s, making his feature directorial debut with Summer in the City (1970).

In 1971, together with fourteen other German filmmakers, he started a production and distribution cooperative called "Filmverlag der Autoren". That company became the nucleus of the “New German Cinema”.

Wim Wenders became a member of the Academy of Arts Berlin in 1984. He was awarded honorary doctorates at the Sorbonne University in Paris (1989), the Theological Faculty of the University of Fribourg (1995), the University of Louvain (2005) and the Architectural Faculty of the University of Catania (2010). Currently he is teaching film as a professor at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg.

"Lightning over Water" is a film about the life of his friend, and art director Nicholas Ray

"The State of Things", won him the Golden Lion at the Venice Festival of 1982, the first in a series of prestigious international acknowledgments.

The director was also in Italy, for example in Bolzano to commemorate the death of his friend and colleague Pina Bausch, with whom he was filming a movie about her life.Wenders was also at Badolato - the province of Catanzaro, extreme south of Italy- during the "Tarantella power", where he screened Flight, dedicated to the immigrants , and then just Badolato, where first the door to the "stranger" (the Kurds)had been opened, and Statues,about another small town nearby, where today there are

different nationalities, languages, cultures and traditions.

Roman Polanski was born in Paris in 1933 . His father, was Polish and his mother, Russian. After going back to his father’s hometown, Krakow, he experienced the most terrible years of world war II. Since his father had Jewish roots, his whole family was deported to concentration camps, from which he and his son managed to escape. By the end of this harsh time, Roman Polanski found himself really keen on everything that had to do with Cinema. He began his career as a Film director. His most successful movies are: Rosemary’s baby, Chinatown, and The Pianist. Unfortunately his life wasn’t only marked by massive achievements, but even shocking experiences: his second wife was murdered 1969 while he was in London shooting Rosemary’s baby.

ROSEMARY’S BABYRosemary’s baby is adapted from the horror novel of the same name written by Ira Levin. The main character is Rosemary Woodhouse In the story, Guy,her husband lets Satan conceive a baby in her wife’s womb in exchange of great success in the acting field. This horror/thriller movie was shot in USA and was a lot appreciated from the critics. The exemplary acting of Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes makes the film captivating and mysterious, which is exactly the intent of the director.

With this movie, Roman Polanski’s career takes off and it represents a turning point in his life.

CHINATOWNChinatown is the story of a private investigator, J. J. Gittes, who is hired by a woman who identifies herself as Evelyn Mulwray. She demands to investigate on her presumed husband, Hollis Mulwray. When the detective finds Mr. Mulwray with a young woman, and publishes the pictures of the scandal, the real Evelyn Mulwray shows up in Mr. Gittes’ office and threatens him of a lawsuit. Mr. Mulwray’s is found lifeless and Mr. Gittes decides to look deeper into this story.

This is the last movie that Roman Polanski shot in USA. Right after directing this film, he went back to Europe.

THE PIANISTThis is one of the most significant and successful movies that Roman Polanski has ever directed. The plot is set in Warsaw in 1939,just after the war has started and the pianist Władysław Szpilman, tries to survive. There are people who are enslaved, others who are deported in concentration camps, . He is trying to stay alive like everyone else, with only one difference: he is accompanied by music, his dearest friend. And Music is what saves him. The German officer Wilm Hosenfeld discovers that Władysław is hiding in a house, and saves him because of his music . When Warsaw is getting cleared of Nazi Germans by Polish and Soviet troops, Mr. Hosenfeld is captured and dies in Soviet captivity. On the other hand, Wladyslaw Szpilman dies at the age of 88 in 2000.

Constantinos Gavras was a greek-born naturalized french filmmaker, best known for films with political themes.Gavras was born in Loutra Iraias , Arcadia. His family spent the Second World War in a village in the Peloponnese, and moved to Athens after the war.When he finished high school Costa Gavras went to France,Paris, where he began his studies of law in 1951 at the Sorbonne. Like other young cineastes such as Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, he haunted the Cinematheque Francaise and the Left Bank repertory film theaters.

Former pupil of the Institute of High Cinematographic Studies (IDHEC) it was on a trip to Greece that he discovered Z, the Vassilis Vassilikos book about the assassination of a leftist leader covered up as an accident during the military junta.Gavras came to France at 20 years old for the music: his fascination for French literature and for the magic word "Louvre". He also draws a parallel between producing a film and a luthier's work.

The most important film of Gravas are:Z (1969); L’aveu (1974); Section speciale (1975).

FIRST ASSIGNMENTSAfter receiving stage experience

with Julian Beck’s Living Theatre, he moved to the cinema , by working as a director assistant to Massimo Troisi, Maurizio Ponzi, Ricky Tognazzi, Sergio Citti and Francesco Nuti. His first work was as Troisi’s assistant director for “Scusate il ritardo”, followed by Ponzi’s “Sono contento,” where he had a small role performing as a “madonnaro”.

Federico Fellini (Rimini, Italy- 20 January, Federico Fellini (Rimini, Italy- 20 January, 1920/Rome, 31 October 1993) was an Italian film 1920/Rome, 31 October 1993) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. It is widely regarded as director and screenwriter. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the history of world cinema. He won four Academy the history of world cinema. He won four Academy awards in the Best Foreign Language Film for his work awards in the Best Foreign Language Film for his work as a director in 1993, he was awarded the Oscar for as a director in 1993, he was awarded the Oscar for Lifetime Achievment. He also received the Palme Lifetime Achievment. He also received the Palme d’OR at the Cannes Film Festival(For the film “La d’OR at the Cannes Film Festival(For the film “La dolce vita”) in 1960 and many other Italian Awardsdolce vita”) in 1960 and many other Italian Awards

I VITELLONI( 1953) Remembering his youth spent in Rimini here Fellini gives a pitiless and sarcastic picture of a certain kind of lazy and aimless young men in their wonderings on the streets of Italy during the 50s

The film portrays the journey of its two main characters: the brutish strongman played by Anthony Quinn and a naïve young woman (Giulietta Masina) on the road of Italy during the 50’s.

LA STRADA (1954)

“LA DOLCE VITA”(1960)starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Eckberghas become the Symbol of an age and made Via Veneto famous all over the world.

AMARCORD (1973)

It is a surrealistic movie and one of his most famous.It is full of memories about his youth in Rimini mixed with dreamlike images.

“The city of women” (1980), accepted with respect, is

described as “tipically Fellini”, “ a catalogue of directing evolution”, “a game with some gaps”.

Presented out of competition at the XXXIII Cannes Film Festival , it

receives a rather negative criticism.

“THE CITY OF WOMEN

E LA NAVE VA…(1983)

A surrealistic film defined by Fellini a “Picassian movie, set on a ship sailing from an imaginary Italian port during World WAR I.

VITTORIO DE SICA was born in Sora (FR) in 1901 but moved with his poor family in Naples where at only sixteen started his career as actor in theatre.In 1933 he founded his own theatre company.

In 1939 he began to direct films which started the Italian neorealism.In them he showed with brilliant skill the Italian middle and low classes of the time which were strifing to free themselves from poverty and injust privileges.He died in France in 1974.

LA CIOCIARA(1960) with Sophia Loren,Jean Paul Belmondo Raf Vallone.It showed with harsh realism the atrocities of the II world war.

SCIUSCIA’(1946) The title comes from the English word shoe-shine and indicated the job made by poor children after the war in the streets of Naples.

Ladri di biciclette (1948)ONE of the most famous films in the history of cinema .It is the sad storyof a father and his son looking for their stolen bicycle in the streets of Rome full of poor people who live a hard life just after the II World War.