Film world says goodbye to Dino De Laurentiis
He produced films that made film history, from Federico Fellini’s La Strada to Ridley Scott’s Hannibal. Dino De Laurentiis, born in Torre Annunziata in 1919 and a US citizen since 1986, passed away at his home today in Los Angeles, California. He had been cited as being in grave health for the past two weeks.
De Laurentiis produced approximately 500 films over 60 years, some of which made Italian cinema famous worldwide, including Giuseppe De Santis’ Bitter Rice (1948), Eduardo De Filippo’s Side Street Story (1950), Roberto Rossellini’s Where is Freedom? (1954), Mario Mattoli’s Poverty and Nobility (1954) and Mario Monicelli’s Golden Lion winner The Great War (1959), with Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman.
In 1948 he and Carlo Ponti made the first Italian colour film, Totò in Color (1952), directed by Steno. With Fellini, De Laurentiis won his only two Oscars, for Best Foreign Film, for La Strada and The Nights of Cabiria.
The producer also made numerous hits In the US, including Sidney Lumet’s Three Days of the Condor, Michael Winner’s Death Wish (1974), starring Charles Bronson), Serpico, John Guillermin’s 1976 remake of King Kong and Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon.
In 2001 he received the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award for his career, adding his name to group of cinema greats such as David O. Selznick, Samuel Goldwyn, Darrell F. Zanuck, Cecil B. DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock, Ingmar Bergman, Billy Wilder and Clint Eastwood.
At the presentation of the 28th edition of the Turin Film Festival, the festival’s artistic director and an Academy Award winner himself, Gianni Amelio, said: "One of cinema’s greats has passed away. He was the leading Italian producer, for better or for worse. He brought Italian cinema towards Hollywood, with films such as War and Piace. For some, that was the beginning of the end, for others it was an opening towards the world’s biggest market.”
Amelio said he met the producer twice, on the occasion of his, Amelio’s, two Oscar nominations. "He was a scrupulous worker, down to the details. Mario Monicelli told me that when they were making The Great War [De Laurentiis] was on set every day and gave him more resources than the film needed. He also admitted to some of his mistakes, like not making La Dolce Vita because he wanted Fellini to shoot the film in English with an American actor," added Amelio.
(Translated from Italian)
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