Early life
Wertmüller was born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller in Rome, Lazio, in 1928, to Federico, a lawyer from Palazzo San Gervasio, Basilicata, belonging to a devoutlyFilm career
1960s
After her years spent touring with an avant-garde puppet group, Wertmüller began to pursue a career in film. In the early 1960s, Flora Carabella, a school friend, introduced Wertmüller to her husband, the actor Marcello Mastroianni, who in turn introduced her to the film director Federico Fellini, who became her mentor. Although '' The Lizards'', which was scored by Ennio Morricone, was critically well received, it did not garner the level of attention her later works did. Throughout the 1960s, Wertmüller produced a series of films that were well liked but that failed to garner international success. Of these, her first collaboration with Giancarlo Giannini occurred in 1966's musical comedy '' Rita the Mosquito''. Darragh O'Donoghue wrote in '' Cineaste'' that generally "her early films comprise a fairly straight pastiche of neorealism and early Fellini (''The Lizards'', 1963), an episodic comedy, two musicals, and a1970s
The 1970s saw the release of virtually all of Wertmüller's most influential and highly regarded films, many of which featured Giannini. According to Geoffrey Nowell-Smith's ''Companion to Italian Cinema'', 1972 "marked the beginning of Wertmüller's golden age". Beginning in 1972 with '' The Seduction of Mimi'', and continuing until 1978 with '' Blood Feud'', Wertmüller released seven films, many of which are considered masterpieces of Commedia all'italiana. It was during this time she saw critical and international success, gaining traction as a filmmaker outside of Italy and in the United States on a scale that many of her contemporaries were unable to attain.1980s & 1990s
Wertmüller's 1983 film '' A Joke of Destiny'' was entered into the 14th Moscow International Film Festival in 1985 and '' Camorra (A Story of Streets, Women and Crime)'' was entered into the 36th Berlin International Film Festival in 1986. In 1985, she received the Women in Film Crystal Award for outstanding women who have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. After this period of acclaim, Wertmüller began to fade from international prominence, though she continued to release films well into the 1980s and '90s. Some of these films were sponsored by American financiers and studios, but failed to have the breadth of reach that her 1970s films achieved. These films are less widely seen and were neglected or disparaged by most, but '' Summer Night'' (1986) and ''Ferdinando & Carolina'' (1999) have since improved in reputation. ''Ciao, Professore'' (1992) is one of her few films of this period that was relatively well-received as the number 10 film in Italy that year.Later life
Wertmüller was married to Enrico Job (died 4 March 2008), an art designer who worked on several of her pictures. They are survived by their daughter Maria Zulima (born 17 January 1991), who was an actress in a few of Wertmüller's films, including ''The Blue Collar Worker and the Hairdresser in a Whirl of Sex and Politics'' (1996), ''Ferdinando and Carolina'' (1999), ''Too Much Romance... It's Time for Stuffed Peppers'' (2004) and ''Mannaggia alla Miseria!'' (2009). In 2015, Wertmüller was the subject of a biographical film directed by Valerio Ruiz, ''Behind the White Glasses'', in which she reflects on her life's work. Wertmüller continued to work as a theater director, until her death at her home on 9 December 2021, at the age of 93.Style and themes
Fellini's influence is evident in much of Wertmüller's work. They share empathy with the Italian working class, showing the realities of life for the politically neglected and economically downtrodden, with a tendency toward the preposterous. Wertmüller's work also seems to exhibit adoration of Italy and its varied locales, beautifying elements of her film's locations with cinematography that presents its subjects with a colorful extravagance that idealizes the distinctly Italian settings of her films. Her aesthetic borrows heavily from her background in theater, routinely using the camera to emphasize performance and the grandiose comedy of her characters’ near constant emotional frenzy. Much of her work uses formal film tactics to dramatize the misapplication and destructive qualities that political ideology can have on individuals, satirizing common conceptions of revolution and the political status quo in the process. Narrative and cinematic reflexivity are also commonplace in Wertmüller's films, as she rehashed and reconfigured signs and modes of presentation in a way that references her inspirations and her contemporaries. This is made clear through her disruption of traditional conceptions of virtually all political dogma and the irrationality of her characters, taking recognizable elements of society and film and critiquing them by doing away with narrative and/or character plausibility. This is particularly evident in a film like '' The Seduction of Mimi''. This positions Mimi (played by Giannini) as an impossibly inept and simple man who fully embodies the notion of Italian machismo, as he fumbles his way through a world that throws a variety of ideologies and economic positions at him, all of which he readily inhabits. Mimi is perpetually successful in his performance of these roles, despite the audience's awareness of their inauthenticity that results from a diegetic acknowledgement of Mimi's hapless ignorance. This element of critique in the film functions as one example of one of the most prevalent themes in Wertmüller's work, a desire to deconstruct and subvert the institutions and social ideologies of a capitalist modernity. This socialist-inflected politicization of class and the institution are also extended to sexuality and gender. Most of her films deploy these elements in conjunction with her affection for the theatrical in such a way that creates a unique concoction that is undeniably within the generic confines of ''Commedia all’italiana''. According to Peter Bondanella, "Wertmüller's work combined a concern with topical political issues and the conventions of traditional Italian grotesque comedy". Wertmüller is known for her whimsically prolix movie titles. For instance, the full title of ''Swept Away'' is ''Swept away by an unusual destiny in the blue sea of August''. These titles were invariably shortened for international release. She is entered in the ''Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
Sources
* * Bullaro, Grace Russo. ''Man in Disorder - The Cinema of Lina Wertmüller in the 1970s'' * Déléas, Josette. ''Lina Wertmüller - Un rire noir chaussé de lunettes blanches'' - a critical biography filled with anecdotes and Lina's humor * William R. Magretta and Joan Magretta. "Lina Wertmuller and the Tradition of Italian Carnivalesque Comedy" in ''Genre'' 12, pp. 25–43. (1979) * Tiziana Masucci. ''I chiari di Lina'' (Edizioni Sabinae, Roma 2009) * * * ''Behind The White Glasses'', Dir. Valerio Ruiz, Italy, 2015. *External links
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wertmuller, Lina 1928 births 2021 deaths Academy Honorary Award recipients Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico alumni David di Donatello Career Award winners Film directors from Rome Italian Roman Catholics Italian people of Swiss descent People of Lucanian descent Italian screenwriters Italian socialists Italian women film directors Italian women screenwriters Burials at Campo Verano