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The Italian photographer, writer, director and screenwriter, Alberto Lattuada would have celebrated his ninety-ninth birthday today.
Son of the composer Felice Lattuada, while studying to be an architect, Lattuada supplemented his income writing and editing literary magazines and later, he also contributed art criticism and film reviews to several cultural journals.
He entered the Italian film industry in 1933 as a set decorator, graduating to “assistant in charge of color” in 1935 and debuted as director with “Giacomo the Idealist” (1943).
In 1938, together with Luigi Comencini and Mario Ferrari, he founded the Cineteca (Film Library) of Milan while at the same time publishing a book of photographs of the poorer quarters of the city titled “Occhio quadrato” (Square Eye).
Displaying a versatility that would become his trademark, signing as a screenwriter, Mario Soldati’s “Piccolo mondo antico” (Little old world,1941), La freccia nel fianco (The arrow in the hips, 1945), Michelangelo Antonioni’s “L’amore in città” (Love in the city, 1953), L’amica ( The girl friend,1969) and La cicala (the cicada, 1980),
In the immediate postwar period he made a number of films in the neorealist mold as “Il bandito” (Bandit 1946), Anna (1951).
He gave the career of Federico Fellini a boost in 1950, when he and Fellini co-directed the well-received “Luci del varietà” (Variety Lights), the film’s budget was provided up by a corporation formed by Lattuada, Fellini and their actress wives.
Then changed radically genre with “Il cappotto” (The Overcoat, 1952), “La Spiaggia” (The beach, 1954) and Mafioso (The mafia man, 1962). and “Fraulein Doktor “(1967).
He did a great deal of TV work in the 1970s and 1980s, notably the 1985 U.S.-Italian miniseries Christopher Columbus. From 1970 onward, Lattuada kept busy outside the movie industry as an opera director.
Alberto Lattuada scripted 35 films, directed 35 films and appeared in 7 films.
Have a look to our Alberto Lattuada’s board on Pintrest
