Italian actress Monica Vitti, who masterfully illuminated the iconic work of her compatriot Michelangelo Antonioni, has died aged 90, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini announced on Wednesday. “Farewell to Monica Vitti, farewell to the queen of Italian cinema. Today is a really sad day, a great artist and a great Italian is passing away,” the minister wrote in a statement.
A soft gaze tinged with melancholy, a bewitching hoarse voice and an indomitable mop of hair: Monica Vitti perfectly embodied the tormented characters of the “tetralogy of incommunicability”: Adventure (1960), The night (1961), The Eclipse (1962), and The Red Desert (1964), four films which brought Antonioni into the pantheon of world cinema, while giving the actress then thirty years of age international notoriety. “I had the chance to start my career with a man of great talent”, but also “spiritual, full of life and enthusiasm”, recognized the actress in an interview with Italian television in 1982.
A career crowned with numerous awards
Born in Rome on November 3, 1931, Monica Vitti, graduated in 1953 from the National Academy of Dramatic Art, first embarked on a theatrical career, where her comic talent already shines, one of her trademarks. It is also in supporting roles in comic cinema that she was spotted by Michelangelo Antonioni, with whom she quickly established an artistic and sentimental relationship. This is how she successively embodies the tormented Claudia of Adventurethe tempting Valentina of The nightthe mysterious Vittoria of The Eclipse and the neurotic Giuliana of red desert.
After her time with Antonioni, she became one of the protagonists of Italian comedy, where she stood up to her male counterparts, of the caliber of Alberto Sordi, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman or Nino Manfredi. She shines in particular in The girl with the gun (1968), a successful film by Mario Monicelli where she plays Assunta, a Sicilian who pursues the man who “disgraced” her to Scotland.
Antonioni’s companion from 1957 to 1967, she married director and cinematographer Roberto Russo in 1995, after 20 years together. In 2011, Roberto Russo announced that Monica Vitti had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for nearly 15 years.
The actress has won numerous awards throughout her career, including five David di Donatello (Italian Caesars), a Golden Lion in Venice for Lifetime Achievement and a Silver Bear in Berlin.
Death of Tonino Guerra, screenwriter of Fellini and Antonioni