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"Italian Cinema"

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Italian Cinema

Cinema has always played a significant role in shaping Rome's identity. Although Italian cinema has had its shares of ups and downs, it has produced a number of directors, actors and films that have become truly legendary. Individuals like Sophia Loren and Federico Fellini and films like La Dolce Vita are more than just famous, they are icons, recognised even by those who have never seen an Italian film. But there was another component as important to Italian cinema as the stars and their films - a place called Cinecittà.

Benito Mussolini was very conscious of how much power the moving image held over the public imagination. Like so many others at the time, he recognised cinema as an exceptionally effective tool of propaganda. In order to better use this tool, he inaugurated Cinecittà (literally cinema city) on April 27th, 1937 - a vast, imposing complex to produce his own films, dedicated to the glorification of Italy. Cinecittà's sprawling grounds covered more than 600,000 square metres and contained 73 buildings. Of those buildings, 16 were complete film sets. Streets and squares covered more than 40,000 square metres, and gardens and film laboratories accounted for another 35,000.

The period just before World War II ushered in an era of spectacular and unprecedented growth in the Italian film industry. Cinecittà wasn't alone in fuelling the cinematic explosion – the government lent generous, financial support to directors who shared its fascist ideology, and new laws forced North American companies out of the Italian market. Cinecittà was producing up to eighty films per year and elevated directors, actors and actresses like Vittorio de Sica, Gosco Giachetti, Isa Miranda, Doris Durante and Elsa Merlini to stardom.

Following World War II, Rome and the rest of Italy fell on hard times and suffered through a long period of social misery and economic depression. The days of celebrating Rome's glory were over; the only thing left to examine was the widespread and devastating poverty that was decimating the country. But this time of misery gave birth to one of Italy's finest and most original cinematic movements: neo-realism. Directors like Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Federico Fellini shaped this modern and completely new form of cinema in collaboration with masterful actors like Marcello Mastroianni and Anna Magnani. Their efforts bore fruit in unforgettable films like Roma, Città Aperta, which caused uproar at the time for its relentlessly realistic portrayal of post-war Rome, or La Dolce Vita, which has etched itself into our collective imagination with images like Anita Ekberg bathing in the Fontana di Trevi.

The incredible infrastructure provided by Cinecittà also meant that Rome caught the eye of its illustrious North American relative, Hollywood. Tinseltown came to the eternal city to film historical epics like Quo Vadis (1951), directed by Mervin LeRoy and starring Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov. There is no question, however, that the greatest of these epics was Ben-Hur (1959), directed by William Wyler and starring Charlton Heston. The film swept the Academy Awards, taking home 11 of its 12 Oscar nominations - a worthy reward for one of the era's most complicated productions. The film's budget reached astronomical proportions for its time (15 million dollars), but its box office success was equally ground-breaking: 40 million dollars in its first year of theatrical release. In order to better understand the atmosphere that surrounded the film's production a few, choice anecdotes suffice. The famous chariot race in Ben-Hur is probably one of the most legendary scenes ever captured on film. The circus where the race takes place took one year to build, and filming the actual scene took three months. In taking such risks, the producers must have had some inkling that the film they were shooting was not just another ordinary Hollywood movie.

Wyler had a special fondness for Rome; Ben-Hur was his second excursion to the eternal city. In 1953 he had come to Rome to shoot the immensely popular film Roman Holiday with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. Hollywood wasn't the only one to benefit from the film's success, which garnered good reviews and brought in a handsome financial return. It also made the whole world fall in love with a new and enchanting Rome - the city of Vespas and cobblestone streets, of illuminated monuments and balmy nights; in other words, one of the most romantic cities imaginable.

When the Hollywood mega-productions ran out of steam so did Cinecittà. There were other moments in time when Italian cinema recaptured some of its past splendour. Talented and glamorous actresses like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida and actors like Vittorio Gassman and Nino Manfredi brought the industry moments of renown and recognition throughout the following years. Sergio Leone invented the spaghetti western and served up timeless classics like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars. Nowadays, Italian cinema moves in more modest financial circles than its Hollywood cousin, but the industry still manages to create true cinematic gems from time to time. Memorable films like Life is Beautiful and Cinema Paradiso continue to delight audiences around the world. Stars like Monica Bellucci recall the glamour of Italy's cinematic heyday, and some have even gone so far as to call her the new Sophia Loren. Others consider the mere comparison an insult; for them Sophia Loren, the original icon of Italian glamour and style, is irreplaceable, incomparable and sacred.