Monica Vitti, a great actress of Italian cinema who died today in Rome at the age of 90, leaves us. The actress had not worked for a long time now due to an illness that had forced her to leave the stage. The announcement of the death given with a tweet by Walter Veltroni who communicated what was reported by the historical companion of the Roman actress, Roberto Russo.
"Roberto Russo, his partner of all these years, asks me to communicate that Monica Vitti is no longer there. I do it with pain, affection, regret "
Maria Luisa Ceciarelli, aka Monica Vitti
Born in Rome on November 3, 1931 Maria Luisa Ceciarelli, aka Monica Vitti, spent her childhood in Messina. She then she returns with her family to Rome where she attended the courses of Pittman's College and then the Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 1953. In the same year she made her debut in the theater. She consigned to the history of cinema as the muse of bourgeois dramas of Michelangelo Antonioni, Monica Vitti, represented in the early sixties the Italian response to the beauties of the French Nouvelle Vague. After the heroine unable to communicate in Antonioni's films, and after breaking up the partnership with the director from Ferrara to whom she was also romantically linked, Vitti has regained her original comic verve thanks to a long series of brilliant comedies.
Films that have become real cult films that have entered the collective imagination. Awarded several times over the course of her career, she received six David di Donatello, three Silver Ribbons, a Silver Bear in 1984 at the Berlin Film Festival for "Flirt" (1983) by Roberto Russo, and a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 1995 to the International Venice Film Festival. The latest edition of the Rome Festival honored it on the occasion of the presentation of the doc 'Vitti d'Arte, Vitti d'amore' by Fabrizio Corallo. The documentary aired on Rai3 traces the life and career of the Roman actress through archival materials and with the voices of characters such as Carlo Verdone, Paola Cortellesi, Enrico Lucherini.
(On the cover Monica Vitti - photo Wikimedia Commons - author Elena Torre)
