Biography
Born in the cinematically-infamous town of Salò, Luigi Comencini studied architecture at university. His career path changed when he became a film critic for a Milanese newspaper, before venturing into feature film direction.
His first major film success entitled Bambini in Citta (Children in Cities), a documentary which focused on the difficult life of children in Milan in the post-war period. Subsequently Comencini made several more films which tackled social issues, including Probito Rubare (1948) and Persiane Chiuse (1951) and the comedy L’Imperatore di Capri (1949) with comic superstar Totò. His first international success was Pane, Amore e Fantasia (1953) which starred actor/director Vittorio de Sica and was nominated for an Oscar® for Best Writing, a BAFTA for Best Film and awarded the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it is considered one of the first films of the commedia all'italiana, a raucous comedic genre to which Comencini, along with colleagues like Dino Risi and Ettore Scola, would be forever linked.
Venturing into Neo-Realist territory ordinarily populated by his compatriots De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, Comencini directed the melodrama Incompreso (1966). Comencini received a Palme d’Or nomination and a David di Donatello award for Best Director for this heartbreaking tale of a father-son relationship tested by tragedy, but while the film was received well internationally, it did not perform as well at home in Italy.
Undeterred, Comencini returned to the successful star-driven comedies that were his stock in trade, even pairing imported stars with the regular commedia players: Bette Davis, for example, was drafted as an aging millionairess opposite Alberto Sordi in 1972’s Lo Scopone Scientifico .
Comencini continued working for another two decades, garnering critical success with Delitto d’Amore (1974), Cercasi Gesù (1982) and Un Ragazzo di Calabria (1987). His last film, Marcellino (1991), a remake of the Ladislao Vajda film from 1955, The Miracle of Marcelino, revisited his common focus of the many difficulties of childhood—indeed throughout his career he was regularly referred to as the “children’s director” because so many of his films concerned the plight of children. Comencini suffered from Parkinson’s disease for the last three decades of his life, succumbing at the age of 90.
