MONICA VITTI. A great actress is leaving. She was one of the faces of the golden age of Italian cinema, Monica Vitti died at the age of 90. The actress had been battling the disease for several years.
[Mis à jour le 2 février 2022 à 16h14] This Wednesday, February 2, author Walter Veltroni announced on Twitter the death of actress Monica Vitti. “Roberto Russo, his companion of all these years, asks me to communicate that Monica Vitti is no more, I do it with pain, affection, regret” he specified on the social network. Face of the golden age of Italian cinema in the 1960s, Monica Vitti had filmed in the so-called tetralogy of the incommunicability of Michelangelo Antonioni, of which she was the wife for ten years from 1957 to 1967. Together, they film the four dramatic films in this tetralogy: L’Avventura (1960), La Nuit (1961), L’Eclipse (1962) and Le Désert Rouge (1964).
Despite these dramatic films, Monica Vitti is also known for her comic roles in Italian cinema. It was in the comic register that she made her debut in the theater in the 1950s before being spotted by the director Antonioni who saw in her the dramatic potential that we know in her in the tetralogy of incommunicability. After this, Monica Vitti will allow herself to return to her first love, turning in popular comedies like The Girl with the Gun, a film by Mario Monicelli in 1968. She plays a woman determined to take revenge on a man who killed her. dishonored. For cella, she will follow him to the depths of Scotland.
Monica Vitti died on February 2, 2022, at the age of 90. The actress, who had been discreet in recent years, was battling Alzheimer’s disease. In Italy, a shower of tributes were published in the press but also declared by many personalities. The Italian Minister of Culture, Dario Franceschini, said in these words: “Farewell to Monica Vitti, farewell to the queen of Italian cinema. Today is a truly sad day, a great artist and a great Italian woman passes away .”
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Biography of Monica Vitti – Monica Vitti was born Maria Luisa Ceciarelli on November 3, 1931 in Rome. Actress, screenwriter but also director, Monica Vitti is known for her roles under the direction of Michelangelo Antonioni in L’avventura, La Nuit, L’Eclipse and Le Désert rouge. She was one of the most memorable faces of the golden age of Italian cinema in the 1960s. Monica Vitti died on February 2, 2022 in Rome. She was 90 years old.
Born November 3, 1931, Monica Vitti became interested in comedy at a very young age. At the age of fifteen, she performed in the play La Nemica by Niccodemi. Monica Vitti graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1953. She first intended a career on stage and joined Orazio Costa’s company. She quickly passed in front of the cameras under the direction of Eduardo Anton for her feature film “Ridere, ridere, ridere” in 1955 for which she was hailed with the prize for best debuting actress of the year.
In 1957, Monica Vitti met the filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni who was then working on his film The Scream (Il grido). It is love at first sight, both sentimental and professional. Inspired, Antonioni will make Monica Vitti his muse in what will be called “the tetralogy of incommunicability” composed of L’avventura (1960), L’Eclipse (1961) where she fell in love with Alain Delon, La Nuit (1962) and The Red Desert (1964). It is international recognition for Monica Vitti but also for the director who gleans numerous prizes including the jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1960 with L’avventura. The couple separated in 1967 but remained on good terms. Monica Vitti will shoot one last time for her ex-companion in 1980 in The Mystery of Oberwald.
Monica Vitti goes on to film alongside Antonioni but does not stop shooting with others. She will thus accumulate credits with Joseph Losey in Modesty Blaise but also with Ettore Scola in Drame de la jalousie where she gives the reply to Marcello Mastroianni. It is only afterwards that she will return to her first love: comedy. In the 1960s and 1970s, she would appear in several popular comedies, including La Fille au pistol (1968). Later, Monica Vitti will try her hand at directing with Scandale Secret in 1989 where she also plays the main role.
In 1995, when she was becoming increasingly rare, Monica Vitti married Robert Russo, an Italian director and cinematographer with whom she had shared her life for 20 years already. Russo, 16 years his junior, is a director best known for having directed the film Flirt in 1983. This first feature film earned him the David di Donatello award (the equivalent of a César) for best director beginning in 1984. Later, he will work as a producer on Scandale secret, the first film of his girlfriend Victoria Vitti.
It was in 2011 that Roberto Russo announced that his companion Monica Vitti had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for almost fifteen years. The actress reportedly experienced the first signs of the disease as early as 1996, a year after her marriage to Russo. Hence his gradual withdrawal from public life. At the end of her life, Monica Vitti benefited from the help of a caregiver at her home in Rome.
Throughout her career, Monica Vitti has received numerous awards for her performances in front of the camera. Three silver ribbons, five David di Donatello (the Italian Caesars), but also a Silver Bear in Berlin and finally a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival rewarding his entire career. In 1961, she was also nominated in the Best Foreign Actress category at the BAFTAs in the United Kingdom for her role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura. Monica Vitti had also participated twice in the Cannes Film Festival as a juror, in 1968 and in 1974.