Comerio, Luca

(1878-1940)

   Cameraman, director, producer. One of the great pioneers of the Italian film industry, Comerio had already made his mark as an enterprising young photographer when, in 1898, he began to work as cameraman for Leopoldo Fregoli. By 1907 he had set up his own film company in Milan, which was producing high-quality literary and theatrical adaptations (including Hamlet and the first version of Manzoni's classic novel Ipromessi sposi The Betrothed) as well as comic sketches and "actualities." In 1909 Comerio merged his company with the Societa Anonima Fabbricazione Films Italiane (SAFFI), and a year later SAFFI-Comerio was transformed into Milano Films, which Comerio helped to equip with the best studio facilities in Europe at the time. Disagreement with the newly installed board of management, however, led Comerio to abandon the new company and to resurrect Comerio Film, with which he continued to produce newsreels and documentaries.

   Comerio's documentary zeal led to many exploits and several life-threatening accidents. In 1911 he had himself tied to a plane in order to experiment with aerial action shots. In the same year he followed the Italian troops to Tripoli, risking life and limb in order to record battle scenes, and for most of World War I he served as official documentarist for the Italian army. At the end of the war he attempted to return to feature film production but without much success. Reverting to documentary filmmaking, he recorded, among other things, D'Annunzio's occupation of Fiume in 1919. None of this, however, was enough to keep the company afloat in the general crisis that overtook the Italian film industry in the early 1920s, and Comerio Film was officially liquidated in 1922. Comerio returned to photographic work and to editing the huge mass of documentary material he had filmed in previous years. In the 1930s, impoverished and unemployed, he applied unsuccessfully for work as a cameraman at the LUCE. In 1940, destitute and in poor mental health, he was admitted to a mental hospital, where he died.

   Having long been forgotten, Comerio and his work were brought to public attention again in 1986 when Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci reedited material from the Comerio archives to produce the remarkable compilation film Dal polo all'equatore (From the Pole to the Equator).

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira