Italian cinema has always been characterized by comic actors. Their figures reflected on the screens have marked not only the era of sociality on Sunday afternoon at the cinema or Saturday in the squares, as many Italian grandparents will remember; they have pushed with both hands especially the spread of television in the homes of the Belpaese. In this blog post of "Teach me Italian" we want to emphasize the impact had by some interpreters thanks above all to the naturalness that has distinguished them on the screen and to the dialectal imprint that for years has represented a trait d'union between large meshes of the population, especially the most rural from the "suburbs" of Italy, and the bourgeoisie amused and sometimes mocked right on the big screen. We can only start from Antonio Griffo Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comnenus Porphyrogenitus Gagliardi De Curtis of Byzantium, in art known as Totò. With Totò we are facing the greatest comic actor in history, able to make the most skeptical appreciate the Neapolitan invective: that ability to know how to laugh even at his own miseries and to rise up without ever crying on himself.
Brilliant and immediate, Totò depicted the restless soul of Italian cinema. In him the strength of mute facial expressions blended with the play on words, with the strong and distinguishable gestures and with the value of the grotesque mask skillfully personified. His films have defined the art of getting by – think of Misery and Nobility – thanks to a comic twist that praised improvisation and told with irony the dreams of the people between neorealism and the beginnings of the genre of Italian comedy.
The art of Neapolitan comedy revived on a national scale can only crown another interpreter of the highest level in cinema but even before in theater: Edoardo De Filippo. Cultural symbol of the twentieth century, the Neapolitan playwright lived mainly on wooden stages on which to perform.
Favorite places to tell from the inside the misery and beauty of the family and popular dimension, without neglecting superstition and religion. An intellectual with an angular character like his face, hollowed out yet full of bitterness. L'oro di Napoli, in which De Filippo plays a professor who dispenses advice and manages to find poetry even inside a pernacchia, one of his masterful interpretations. But the real masterpiece left to the Italian comedy bears the well-defined name and surname of a large Neapolitan family divided between respect for the traditions desired by an elderly father and the innovation requested by his beloved son, who just does not want to make the crib: Natale in casa Cupiello. A slide of the Italian reality at the turn of the 30s and 40s of the twentieth century.
We could also mention Alberto Sordi, Aldo Fabrizi, Nino Manfredi, Ugo Tognazzi and Vittorio Gassman, just to mention some sacred monsters who have trod the most important film stages not only in Italy but also in the world, also telling them the Italian spirit through regionalisms, in this case the Lazio ones. But the last actor on which we will focus is Vittorio De Sica.
Take to the streets, denounce the true through the truth, resume the tragic and then digest it through the comic. This and much more was the work of Vittorio De Sica, the first star of Italian cinema and also known internationally for his verve and charm that have distinguished his presence on the scene. A success achieved not only as an actor but also as a director, between awareness of Neorealism and reaction of Italian comedy. His beautiful presence and proud bearing have been the constant confirmations of a great composure, always granted to his characters and less present in his private life made of escapades around the world. One of the most emblematic scenes of Italian cinema immortalizes him with the splendid Sophia Loren in a cult scene of Bread, love and..., where the movement of the body and the expressions tell of sacred monsters of cinematography that pay the price of nostalgia to productions belonging to contemporaneity.
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