Pietrangeli, Antonio

(1919-1968)

   Critic, screenwriter, director. Pietrangeli graduated in medecine but preferred to write literary and film criticism and so became one of the militant young cineastes associated with the journal Cinema who came to assist Luchino Visconti in making Ossessione (Obsession, 1943). After the war, he continued to contribute to film journals but also collaborated as screen-writer on a number of films including Pietro Germi's Gioventu perduta (Lost Youth, 1947) and Alessandro Blasetti's Fabiola (1949) before directing his first solo film, Il sole negli occhi (Empty Eyes, 1953), the first of many of his works to privilege female characters and to highlight the position of women in Italian society. After several well-constructed light comedies such as the amusing saga of foreign girls finding love and romance in Italy, Souvenir d'ltalie (It Happened in Rome, 1957), and Fantasmi a Roma (Ghosts of Rome, 1960), which cleverly used the setting of a haunted Roman palace to highlight the issue of real estate speculation, he made Adua e le sue compagne (Adua and Her Friends, 1960), a film that examined the life prospects of four prostitutes after the brothels were closed by law in Italy in 1958. This was followed by a number of other finely crafted female portraits in La visita (The Visitor, 1963), La parmigiana (The Girl from Parma, 1963), and what is generally regarded as his most powerful and moving film, Io la conoscevo bene (I Knew Her Well, 1965), for which he received the Nastro d'argento for both direction and writing. Tragically, while still at the peak of his creative powers, he was killed in a boating accident off the island of Gaeta while filming Come, quando, perche (How, When, and with Whom, 1969), which was then completed by Valerio Zurlini.

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira