European cinema is known for his great filmmakers. It seems that every country has delivered us a few geniuses: French, Spanish, German, English etc. But after the Second World War one country delivered us some of the greatest films, directors and actors of all time: Italy. The country rose like a phoenix from the ashes of the pain and destruction they went through.
They not only rebuild their cinema but they rebuild their culture, their nation and unity. With a naturalistic approach to reality they forced everyone to see what War inflicts to a country, to discover the aftermath. With sometimes humor, sometimes drama they taught us so much on human nature. Great filmmakers like: Fellini, Comencini, Antonioni, De Sica etc. And a new class of actors created some of the greatest characters on screen : Marcello Mastroianni, Alberto Sordi, Claudia Cardinale, Sophia Loren, Nino Manfredi etc.
The Golden Age of Italian Cinema produced some great masterpieces. “I soliti ignoti”(1958), directed by Mario Monicelli, is a classic, a movie which achieved the impossible: assemble all the greatest actors of your time in one movie and somehow make it work! Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Tòto, Claudia Cardinale and Tiberio Murgia. The film details the story of a sad-sack group of clumpsy thieves and their desperate attempts to pull off the perfect heist which lead of course to some hilarious and despairing adventures. The movie takes great pleasure in mocking Hollywood’s film noir genre or the French Neorealism (most notably the film “Rififi”). A real intelligent satire though seemingly produced as a simple feature, “I soliti ignoti” does what Italian films did best: giving us a beautiful look at the Italian society and all their flaws. The film shot in beautiful black and white spawned two sequels (“Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti”,” I soliti ignoti vent’anni dopo”) and two American remakes ( “Crackers” 1984 and “ Welcome to Collinwood” 2003).
The movie established Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman as the new big stars in Italy and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.
