Happy Birthday, Ermanno Olmi! Born today in 1931, this Italian film editor, cinematographer, screenwriter and film director has proven to be one of cinema's great spiritual artists.
Born into a Catholic family, Olmi was three years old when he and his family moved to Milan. Years later, he attended a scientific high school and took acting classes at the Academy of Dramatic Arts.
He later became interested in filmmaking while he was working at the Milanese electrical company Edisonvolta, where he began by producing 16mm documentaries about power plants.
In 1963, Olmi married Italian actress Loredana Detto. She had previously played Antonietta Masetti, a young girl who has similarly forgone her schooling when in need of money to support herself and her mother.
This was in a film of which Olmi is known. This was his 1961 Italian black and white drama film 'Il Posto'.
Perhaps Olmi's best known film is the one of which he edited, shot, wrote and directed. This was the three-hour 1978 Italian drama/history film 'L'Albero degli zoccoli' ('The Tree of Wooden Clogs').
Set on a northern Italian farmhouse (or cascina) in the late 19th century, a group of sharecroppers eke out a threadbare existence.
A priest advises Batisti (Luigi Ornaghi) and his wife, Batistina (Francesca Moriggi), that their young son, Minec (Omar Brignoli), should be formally educated, so they sacrifice his help in the fields and send him to school.
However, when Minec's wooden shoe breaks one day, Batisti--in an act of desperation--puts the family's future at risk to replace the clog.
The film has some similarities with the earlier Italian neorealist movement, in that it focuses on the lives of the poor, and the parts were played by real farmers and locals, rather than professional actors.
Through the cycle of seasons, of backbreaking labor, love and marriage, birth and death, faith and superstition, Olmi naturalistically evokes an existence very close to nature, celebrating its beauty, humor, and simplicity but also acknowledging the feudal cruelty that governs it.
Later that same year, 'The Tree of Wooden Clogs' won fourteen awards at the 31st Cannes Film Festival in May 1978. Most notably of these, it received the Palme de'Or and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
The following year, it won Best Foreign Film at the 4th César Award for in February 1979. The original version of the feature is spoken in Lombard (the Bergmanesque variety; an Eastern Lombard dialect).
In 2008, Olmi received the Honorary Golden Lion award at the 65th Venice Film Festival.
In July 2018, 'Il Posto' was selected to be screened in the Venice Classics section at the 75th Venice Film Festival in honor of Olmi's death.
This was after a long battle with Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rapid-onset muscle weakness caused by the immune system damaging the peripheral nervous system.
He had passed in Asiago Italy on May 7, 2018. He was 86.
According to his directing technique, Olmi's films have been described as "humanistic and reflective, portraying everyday people in particular landscapes and locations, while at the same time being charged with social comment and poetic flashes.
His films fit into the artistic mold of Italian neorealism, though Olmi argued, in an interview found on the Criterion Edition DVD of his 1961 film, 'Il Posto', that this was the artistic tradition he was responding against
This was because he used non-actors in authentic locations whereas neorealism, he claimed, used professional actors. However, many neorealist directors also used non-professional actors for secondary and sometimes even primary roles.
His films, like most of those considered to be products of the neorealist movement, are shot in long, slow takes, and generally contain some sort of social commentary, though rarely do the neorealists wear their political opinions on their sleeves.
The forms of love—friendly, maternal, sentimental, erotic, platonic, spiritual—blend into a single sacred thread running through all of Olmi's character throughout his films. It is the give-and-take by which they relate to each other and reach out, unconsciously, for their salvation.
Olmi had been active from 1953–2018.
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