If you are of a certain age, surely you remember the 1999 Oscars, when Roberto Benigni won the statuette for best actor for a film shot in Italian, the first non-English speaking actor to win the award after the great Sophia Loren forty years before. Benigni got on the seat, did the paripé, everyone liked ‘Life is beautiful’ and he was self-assured. Benigni promised to be the new King Midas of cinema and now, 23 years later, is when we ask ourselves… But, what happened to him?
Good morning princess!
It’s not that ‘Life is beautiful’ came from nowhere: after a season making a name for himself in theater and television, Benigni debuted in 1977 in a film co-scripted by himself, ‘Berlinguer: I love you’ and directed by Bernardo Bertolucci’s little brother, Giuseppe. In Italy, over the years, Benigni was recognized with the David di Donatello and even collaborated three times with Jim Jarmusch, especially remembered for his small role in ‘Night on Earth’.
It is true that his arrival in mass Hollywood did not work very well: ‘The son of the pink panther’, starring himself (replacing a much more famous Rowan Atkinson who refused to play the part) as Inspector Closeau’s son, it earned him a Razzie nomination like worst new star. Not the best first contact.
Benigni was (and is) much loved in Italy. So much so, that people even went to see this version of the Blake Edwards classic en masse even though it wasn’t good. There were only three years left for the whole world to know his name thanks to a film that he was going to direct, write and star in and that we would all be talking about in 1997, twenty years after his debut before a camera: ‘Life is beautiful’.
a real boy
Benigni’s previous productions they had not had much international success, no matter how much ‘Johnny Palillo’ and ‘The Monster’ subsequently became (more or less) cult films. The next one had to surprise and be measured to perfection to succeed… And the Italian screwed up to the bottom with ‘Pinocchio’, the most expensive film in the history of cinema in his country.
€45 million of the wing for a work that was expected to revolutionize everything in the same way that it did five years ago. In the end, it got a resounding 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and barely made what it cost worldwide, in a resounding failure that although it brought him six nominations for the David Di Donatello (he took the ones for costumes and decoration)… also another six for the Golden Raspberry Awards, a kind of Razzies that had never nominated for a non-English speaking film before. dubious honor. He won, by the way, the worst actor shared with Breckin Meyer, who doubled for him. The dubbing of ‘Pinocchio’ gives for a separate article.
Was Roberto Benigni finished in just five years? Nothing is further from reality. Simply, she stayed to work where she was infallible: in Italy. First with a more modest film about the war in Iraq, ‘The Tiger and the Snow’ (which, it must be said, is not very good either), and then going back to where she was happiest: on stage. Between 2006 and 2007 he performed more than 130 times around the country a monologue about his passion for Dante and the Divine Comedy, which was also a subsequent success on television, the United States and Canada. But happiness does not come only from your work: this is only part of Roberto.
Berlusconi has resigned!
Since he began to become famous in his country, in the 1980s, Benigni has not once said what he thinks and, in fact, even took the stage at a rally of Enrico Berlinguer, president of the communist party, to give him a hug and hold him high. This does not prevent him from leading a double life and, as a Jesuit, I have spoken several times with Pope Francis… and even saw ‘Life is Beautiful’ alongside John Paul II.
Roberto lives semi-retired from the cinema, and only leaves there from time to time to do a favor or a film that he really wants: in the last twenty years, and not counting his own works, he has only made four appearances: ‘Coffee and cigarrettes’, ‘To Rome with love’, ‘Pistachio’ (as voice actor in a cameo in the version of ‘Pinocchio’ from the infamous ‘Veggietales’) and… ‘Pinocchio’, but this time playing a Geppetto. The film was nominated for two Oscars.
Benigni is happy. He has been married for more than thirty years to the love of his life, Nicoletta Braschi, has received honorary doctorates in philosophy, psychology, philology, communication and even law, has the Honorary Gold Lion, was elected “man of peace” in a an award given to him by Gorbachev himself, and all this without ceasing to be himself: the day Berlusconi left, he opened the news shouting “Berlusconi has resigned!” Shortly after, he unbuttoned his shirt live while announcing ‘El tigre y la nieve’. Genius and figure.