Valerio Zurlini
Encyclopedia
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, stage director and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
.
Biography
During his law studies in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. Zurlini became a member of the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
. He filmed short documentaries in the immediate post-war period and in 1954 directed his first feature film, The Girls of San Frediano, his only comedy. In 1958 together with Leonardo Benvenuti
Leonardo Benvenuti
Leonardo Benvenuti was an Italian screenwriter. He wrote for 135 films between 1948 and 2000.He was born in Florence, Italy and died in Rome, Italy.-Selected filmography:* Once Upon a Time in America...
, Piero De Bernardi and Alberto Lattuada
Alberto Lattuada
Alberto Lattuada was an Italian film director.Lattuada was born in Milan, the son of composer Felice Lattuada...
Zurlini won the Silver Ribbon for Best Script for Lattuada's Guendalina
Guendalina
Guendalina is a 1957 Italian comedy film directed by Alberto Lattuada. It was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Jacqueline Sassard - Guendalina* Raffaele Mattioli - Oberdan* Sylva Koscina - Francesca, Guendalina's mother...
. Zurlini made his name as a director with his second feature film, Violent Summer (1959), starring Eleonora Rossi Drago
Eleonora Rossi Drago
Eleonora Rossi Drago, born Palmira Omiccioli, was an Italian film actress. She was born in Quinto al Mare, Genoa, Italy....
and Jean Louis Trintignant.
In 1961 Zurlini filmed Girl with a Suitcase
Girl with a Suitcase
Girl with a suitcase is a 1961 Italian romantic drama film by Italian Director Valerio Zurlini starring Claudia Cardinale as a naive nightclub singer who lives on the good will of others. It was entered into the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.-Synopsis:...
, a successful intimist drama, starring Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...
, who became a film star in Italy, and Jacques Perrin
Jacques Perrin
Jacques Perrin is a French actor and filmmaker. He is occasionally credited as Jacques Simonet. Simonet was his father's name and Perrin his mother's.-Life and career:...
, who would become Zurlini's favorite actor. In 1962 Zurlini's film Family Diary
Family Diary
Family Diary is a 1962 Italian film directed by Valerio Zurlini and based on the novel by Vasco Pratolini. It tells the story of two brothers who are brought up apart from each other at their mother's death, then brought together by difficult family circumstances.Once described as the "classiest...
earned him the Golden Lion
Golden Lion
Il Leone d’Oro is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is now regarded as one of the film industry's most distinguished prizes...
at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
(it tied with Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky
Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....
's Ivan's Childhood). Zurlini had a masterful skill for screen adaptations. Both The Girls of San Frediano and Family Diary were based on Vasco Pratolini
Vasco Pratolini
Vasco Pratolini was one of the most noted Italian writers of the twentieth century.Born in Florence, Pratolini worked at various jobs before entering the literary world thanks to his acquaintance with Elio Vittorini. In 1938 he founded, together with Alfonso Gatto, the magazine Campo di Marte...
's work. Zurlini admired the work of Italian novelist Giorgio Bassani
Giorgio Bassani
Giorgio Bassani was an Italian novelist, poet, essayist, editor, and international intellectual.-Biography:Bassani was born in Bologna into a prosperous Jewish family of Ferrara, where he spent his childhood with his mother Dora, father Enrico , brother Paolo, and sister Jenny...
and hoped to adapt his novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is a historical novel by Giorgio Bassani, published in 1962. It chronicles the relationships between the narrator and the children of the Finzi-Contini family from the rise of Benito Mussolini until the start of World War II.-Background:The Garden of the...
, which was subsequently directed by Vittorio De Sica
Vittorio de Sica
Vittorio De Sica was an Italian director and actor, a leading figure in the neorealist movement....
in 1971 (see The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (film)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (film)
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis is a 1970 Italian film, directed by Vittorio de Sica. It stars Lino Capolicchio, Dominique Sanda and Helmut Berger. The film is based upon Giorgio Bassani's novel of the same name.-Plot:...
).
Zurlini's last film, The Desert of the Tartars
The Desert of the Tartars
The Desert of the Tartars is a 1976 award-winning film by Italian director Valerio Zurlini with an international cast, including Jacques Perrin, Vittorio Gassman, Max von Sydow, Francisco Rabal, Helmut Griem, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, and Jean-Louis Trintignant...
(1976), produced by Jacques Perrin and featuring an all-star ensemble, was based on Dino Buzzati
Dino Buzzati
Dino Buzzati-Traverso was an Italian novelist, short story writer, painter and poet, as well as a journalist for Corriere della Sera. His worldwide fame is mostly due to his novel Il deserto dei Tartari, translated into English as The Tartar Steppe.-Life:Buzzati was born at San Pellegrino,...
's novel of the same name
The Tartar Steppe
The Tartar Steppe is a novel by Italian author Dino Buzzati, published in 1940.The novel tells the story of a young officer, Giovanni Drogo, and his life spent guarding the Bastiani Fortress, an old, unmaintained border fortress. The plot of the novel is Drogo's lifelong wait for a great war in...
. In 1977 with this film Zurlini won both the David di Donatello for Best Director
David di Donatello for Best Director
-1965:*Francesco Rosi - Il momento della verità *Vittorio De Sica - Matrimonio all'italiana -1966:*Alessandro Blasetti - Io, io, io...e gli altri...
and the Silver Ribbon for Best Director
Nastro d'Argento Best Director
A list of Nastro d'Argento awards for Best Director.*1946 - Roberto Rossellini - Rome, Open City*1947 - Roberto Rossellini - Paisà*1948 - Pietro Germi - Gioventù perduta*1949 - Vittorio De Sica - Bicycle Thieves...
. The visual style of Zurlini's adaptations was informed by Giorgio De Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico
Giorgio de Chirico was a pre-Surrealist and then Surrealist Italian painter born in Volos, Greece, to a Genovese mother and a Sicilian father. He founded the scuola metafisica art movement...
, Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi
Giorgio Morandi was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting apparently simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, bowls, flowers, and landscapes.-Biography:Giorgio Morandi was born in Bologna...
and Ottone Rosai
Ottone Rosai
Ottone Rosai was an Italian painter.-Biography:Rosai graduated from the Florence Academy of Fine Arts in 1912, a period in which he was closely associated with the Lacerba group of Florentine Futurists and especially Ardengo Soffici, with whom he held a joint exhibition at the Galleria Sprovieri,...
's paintings. During the last years of his life Zurlini taught at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
The Centro sperimentale di cinematografia was established in 1935 in Italy and aims to promote the art and technique of cinematography and film....
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. He killed himself in Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
on October 27, 1982.
After Zurlini's death his work fell into relative obscurity, but regained popularity in the 2000s. In the early 2000s several Zurlini retrospectives were met with success internationally. In 2006 the NoShame Films released The Desert of the Tartars, Violent Summer and Girl With a Suitcase on DVD.
Filmography
- The Girls of San Frediano (1954)
- GuendalinaGuendalinaGuendalina is a 1957 Italian comedy film directed by Alberto Lattuada. It was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Jacqueline Sassard - Guendalina* Raffaele Mattioli - Oberdan* Sylva Koscina - Francesca, Guendalina's mother...
(1957) - Violent Summer (1959)
- Girl with a SuitcaseGirl with a SuitcaseGirl with a suitcase is a 1961 Italian romantic drama film by Italian Director Valerio Zurlini starring Claudia Cardinale as a naive nightclub singer who lives on the good will of others. It was entered into the 1961 Cannes Film Festival.-Synopsis:...
(1961) - Family DiaryFamily DiaryFamily Diary is a 1962 Italian film directed by Valerio Zurlini and based on the novel by Vasco Pratolini. It tells the story of two brothers who are brought up apart from each other at their mother's death, then brought together by difficult family circumstances.Once described as the "classiest...
(1962) - Le soldatesse (1965)
- Seduto alla sua destraBlack Jesus (film)Black Jesus is a 1968 Italian drama film directed by Valerio Zurlini. It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.-Cast:* Woody Strode as Lalubi...
(1968) - The Professor (a.k.a. Indian Summer)La prima notte di quieteLa prima notte di quiete, released in USA as Indian Summer is a 1972 Italian and French drama film directed by Valerio Zurlini. It is starred and produced by Alain Delon. In France it runs less than the Italian cut...
(1972) - The Desert of the TartarsThe Desert of the TartarsThe Desert of the Tartars is a 1976 award-winning film by Italian director Valerio Zurlini with an international cast, including Jacques Perrin, Vittorio Gassman, Max von Sydow, Francisco Rabal, Helmut Griem, Giuliano Gemma, Philippe Noiret, Fernando Rey, and Jean-Louis Trintignant...
(1976)
Further reading
- Toffetti, Sergio (a cura di). Valerio Zurlini. Torino: Lindau, 1993. ISBN 8871800761