Vittorio Taviani

Illustrious representatives of Italian cinema at the end of the 20th century, the Taviani brothers continued to film together until they reached an advanced age. In their films, almost always choral, they did not tire of describing the underprivileged and illustrating the benefits of artistic passion and education.

Vittorio was born on September 20, 1929, and Paolo on November 8, 1931, in San Miniato di Pisa, a small town in the Tuscan countryside, into a family of good economic position, as his father was a lawyer. “We had a very beautiful childhood linked on the one hand to Tuscany and on the other to Liguria, to the sea. The sea always returns in our films, as does summer, since that part of the year was very important to us,” he explains. Vittorio. A third brother, Franco Brogi Taviani, who was younger, would also end up dedicating himself to conducting, on his behalf.

As a reward when they got good grades, their father used to take them to Florence to the opera, a show they were passionate about. As children they did not go to the cinemas because there were none in their hometown, until the Germans destroyed their house during World War II and the family moved to Pisa. There they make fun of some friends who organize a film club because they think it is a pretentious activity “for bourgeois who get bored”, but finally they go one day to one of its projections and are fascinated by the last ten minutes of La pasión de Juana de bow . Also in Pisa they go with their parents after the war to a screening of Comrade by Roberto Rossellini. Although before entering, at the door, several people warned them not to go in because it was a boring movie, they are fascinated. “We saw again on the screen all the experiences lived in recent years. We were not only able to contemplate but understand our life more. The choice was already made: cinema or death”, declared Paolo.

Both studied at the University of Pisa, first the eldest, Vittorio, who enrolled in Law, and then Paolo, who opted for Fine Arts. After graduating, they dedicate themselves to journalism, but soon they start shooting shorts and putting on plays. The state oil company hires them to shoot a documentary about its infrastructure. But L’Italia non è un paese povero offers such harsh images of the living conditions of the working class at the time, that the company decides not to exhibit it. It was thought that this film had been lost, until Tinto Brass , who worked as an assistant director, brought to light in 1999 a copy that he himself had kept.

After the bitter experience, the Tavianis made their debut in fiction in 1962, directing with Valentino Orsini the drama A man must be burned , about a guy who helps his peasant neighbors to confront the mafia. Defined by themselves as “an act of love for neorealism”, they tried to dissociate themselves from the movement that they were so passionate about, for example in their description of an ambitious and flawed protagonist, far from the archetypes that appeared in the films of followers of De Sica, Rossellini and Visconti.

They have always continued to work together. “We are two half neuroses that complement each other and form a single one”, Vittorio has commented. Activists of the political left, the Taviani devoted their first works to denouncing the situation of the working class. Highlights I am not alone , in which an anarchist ends up in prison for leading peasant uprisings. Also of great interest is Under the Sign of the Scorpion about a group of individuals who survive on an island after a volcanic eruption.

International recognition comes to them with Padre Padrone , Palme d’Or at Cannes, a round apology for education as an indispensable tool for personal growth. Based on the autobiographical book “The Education of a Shepherd” by Gavino Ledda, he himself appears presenting the film. Unforgettable performance by Omero Antonutti , as a rude ‘patron father’ who one day abruptly takes his son out of school to take care of the cattle.

The night of San Lorenzo , the film with the most autobiographical elements of the brothers, has as protagonists the inhabitants of San Martino, who must escape the ferocity of the combats of World War II. After Kaos , four stories –and an epilogue– based on texts by Luigi Pirandello and set in Sicily, in 1984 the Taviani filmed their most ambitious film, Good Morning, Babylon , in co-production with France and the United States. Cinema within cinema, they reconstruct the early days of silent films, through the story of two Italian brothers, cathedral restorers, who emigrate to Hollywood, modern Babylon. There they end up helping David W. Griffithto build the majestic sets of his legendary film Intolerance .

With an excellent cast that includes Greta Scacchi , Joaquim De Almeida , Charles Dance and again Omero Antonutti , the film did not work as expected, and marks the beginning of a time in which the brothers achieved lesser impact with their work. . Some are of great interest, such as Elective Affinities , an adaptation of the work by Johann Wolfgang Goethe , or The Sun Also Rises at Night , set in the time before Italian Unification, when a nobleman enters a monastery after discovering that his fiancée was king’s lover Others are clearly unsuccessful, like Nunik’s Fate, adaptation of a novel by Antonia Arslan, with the Spanish Paz Vega leading the cast.

Scriptwriters of their own films, the Taviani brothers share the direction of the different sequences of each one. When it’s one’s turn, the other just watches. Not even they themselves have just explained why they complement each other so well. “Perhaps it is because the cinema began with two brothers, the Lumières,” Vittorio explained. “We lead a very common life, we share everything except our wives. Every morning we take our dogs for a walk in the parks of Rome and there we talk about everything that happens around us and within us as well. Sometimes we come across a story that can give rise to one of our films” Paolo is married to Lina Nerli Taviani, a costume designer who has regularly collaborated with the filmmakers since I sovversivi, from 1967, which has also been shown in the cinema of other directors.

Octogenarians, the Taviani once again stood out internationally with Caesar Must Die , an impressive document about a group of prisoners who organize a performance of “Julius Caesar”, the work of William Shakespeare , in prison . He won the Golden Bear in Berlin, swept the David di Donatello and represents his country, Italy, at the Oscars.

They said goodbye to the cinema with Wonderful Boccaccio , a hymn to youth based on the legacy of the classic writer.