Wertmuller, Lina

(1928-)

   Born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmiiller von Elgg Spanol von Braucich, a factor that probably conditioned her later taste for long and extravagant titles, Wertmiiller trained as a theater director at the Pietro Sharoff Academy before working extensively in a variety of theatrical forms including musical revues and puppet theater. At the same time she also worked in radio and television, where she achieved her greatest success with Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca (Gian Burrasca's Diary, 1964), an eight-part series adapted from a famous children's novel and revealing the considerable acting talents of the young pop singer Rita Pavone.

   By Wertmiller's own admission, her most formative film experience was as one of the assistant directors on Federico Fellini's Otto e mezzo (8'A, 1963), which prompted her to make her first feature, I basilischi (The Lizards, 1963), a sort of southern Italian version of Fellini's I vitelloni (Vitelloni, 1963). Two years later, in response to Ettore Scola's male-centered Sepermetteteparliamo di donne (Let's Talk about Women, 1964), she directed Questa volta parliamo di uomini (This Time Let's Talk about Men, 1965), a multiepisode film satirizing male-female relations, all episodes featuring Nino Manfredi. Under the pseudonym George Brown, Wertmiiller then directed Rita la zanzara (Rita the Mosquito, 1966) and Non stuzzicate la zanzara (Don't Sting the Mosquito, 1967), two lightweight teen musicals, essentially vehicles for Rita Pavone. Having already established something of a reputation in Italy, Wertmiller then soared to international renown with a series of mordant but rather grotesque social farces featuring the duo of Mariangela Melato and Giancarlo Giannini, beginning with Mimi metallurgico ferito nell'onore (The Seduction of Mimi, 1972), nominated for the Palme d'or at Cannes that year, and followed by Film d'amore e anarchia ovvero stamattina alle 10 in via dei Fiori nella nota casa di tolleranza (Love and Anarchy, 1973), Travolto da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto (Swept Away, 1974), and Pasqualino Settebellezze (Seven Beauties, 1975), which achieved strong box office success and was nominated for two Oscars, making Wertmiiller the first female to receive the Academy Award nomination for Best Director.

   Many of her subsequent films continued to display a baroque tendency to visual and emotional excess, although she was able to achieve more nuanced results in films such as the made-for-television Sabato, domenica e lunedi (Saturday, Sunday and Monday, 1990), an adaptation of an Edoardo De Filippo play that featured Sophia Loren in her best role in years, and Io speriamo che me la cavo (Ciao, Professore! 1992), from the best-selling novel by Marcello D'Orta. After the elegant and relatively restrained historical costume drama Ferdinando e Carolina (Ferdinand and Caroline, 1999), she returned to something of her old form with Peperoni ripieni e pesci in faccia (Too Much Romance ... It's Time for Stuffed Peppers, 2004), a comic family drama starring Sophia Loren and F. Murray Abraham.

   In addition to her films, Wertmuller has continued to direct for the theater and has also published a number of novels, among them Essere e avere ma per essere devo avere la testa di Alvise su un piatto d'argento (The Head of Alvise, 1982) and Avrei voluto uno zio esibizionista (I Would Have Liked an Exhibitionist Uncle, 1990).

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira