Category:Cinema--Italian

The category: Cinema--Italian includes movies, videos and TV programs in Italian language, as well as a directory of Italian Film Directors, Actors, and Film composers.

Overview

The first Italian "biblical" film by Vittorio Calcina was not an original production but the Italian edition of La vie et la passion de Christ (The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ / 1898 Hatot), short film.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Italian cinema was at the forefront in the production of the most spectacular "biblical" films. Films like "Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei" (1913), "Quo Vadis?" (1913), and "Christus" (1916) were international sensations.

In the 1920s Italian cinema struggled to maintain its reputation. Financial crisis and the failure of some major projects, like Gabriellino D'Annunzio's Quo Vadis (1925), led the Unione Cinematografica Italiana to bankruptcy. The Fascist regime had other priorities and no major "biblical" movie was produced in the 1930s.

After WW2, Italian cinema was ready to regain its leading position in the field.

On one hand, the influence of "neo-realismo" led to a revisitation of some traditional subjects from a more political and realistic perspective, like in L'ebreo errante (1948) and Il miracolo (1948). Along the same trajectory are also the TV production of Gian Carlo Menotti"s Amahl e i visitatori notturni" (1955) and Il figlio dell'uomo (1955) di Virgilio Sabel, in which the Gospel stories were located in a poor peasant setting.

On the other hand, Italian cinema revived its tradition of lavish productions of historical movies, dealing in particular with the life of early Christians in the Roman Empire, in which the classical "DeMille" combination of sex-violence-religion could be reproduced.

In the 1960s the duality of approach of Italian cinema became even more apparent with the almost contemporaneous production of two among the greatest and most celebrated "biblical" movies of all times, the colorful and spectacular Barabbas (1961) with Anthony Quinn, and Il vangelo secondo Matteo (1964) by Pierpaolo Pasolini a B&W film with a cast of non-professional actors.

Gradually, television replaced the movie theater as the most suitable setting for "biblical" movies. The Atti of Apostoli (1969) by Roberto Rossellini was the first successful "biblical" mini-series on Italian television, to which the filmmaker made follow his own interpretation of the figure of Jesus in Il messia (1976). In 1977 Franco Zeffirelli directed "Gesu dI Nazareth", an ambitious and highly praised international co-production.

In recent decades, Italy has continued to be a leading country in the production of "biblical" films (mostly for television), even though none of them has distinguished itself at the international level as some of the earliest productions.

@2017 Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan

The protagonists

Italian Film Directors

The genre of "biblical" movies is traditionally one of the strength of Italian cinema. Some of the best-known Italian film directors have been involved in the genre, starting with [[]], Roberto Rossellini,Pier Paolo Pasolini and Franco Zeffirelli. Some Italian film director have specialized in the genre, especially for television.

Italian Actors

At the beginnings of the Italian silent cinema some Italian actors distinguished themselves in "biblical" roles, notably, Amleto Novelli (as Judas Maccabeus), Mario Voller-Buzzi (as Jesus of Nazareth), Vittoria Lepanto (as Salome). By the 1920s, however, the long for exoticism led to the hiring of "foreign" actors and actresses as protagonists of stories related to the ancient Middle East. Italian actors were left the supporting roles.

In spite of his ties with the Catholic Church, the Fascist regime was not interested in "biblical" movies, a genre that would be revived only after the second world war. The new school of "neorealismo" produced two interesting movies in 1948, in which the traditional narratives of the Wandering Jew and the Nativity fo Jesus were both given a non-conformist, contemporary twist by filmmakers Goffredo Alessandrini and Roberto Rosellini, starring Vittorio Gassman, Anna Magnani and Federico Fellini.

By the 1950s Italian cinema was back to a more familiar ground--lavish productions of "historical" movies with "foreign" stars as protagonists and Italian actors in the supporting roles. The climax was the production of Barabbas (1961 Fleischer), feature film, starring Anthony Quinn