Paolo and Vittorio Taviani

Paolo Taviani's wife Lina Nerli Taviani has been costume designer of many of their films.

At the Cannes Film Festival the Taviani brothers won Palme d'Or and the FIPRESCI prize for Padre padrone in 1977 and Grand Prix du Jury for La notte di San Lorenzo in 1982.

Career

Their first autonomous film was I sovversivi (The Subversive) (1967), with which they anticipated the events of '68. With actor Gian Maria Volonté they rose to fame with Sotto il segno dello scorpione (Under the Sign of Scorpio)(1969) where one can see the echoes of Brecht, Pasolini and Godard.

In 1971 they co-signed the media campaign against police officer Calabresi, published in the magazine ''L'Espresso'.

The revolutionary theme is present both in San Michele aveva un gallo (1971), a superb adaptation of Tolstoy's novel The Divine and the Human, a film greatly appreciated by critics, and in the film Allonsanfan (1974), where Mastroianni plays an ex-revolutionary who has served a long term in prison and sees his idealistic youth in a much more realistic light, and nevertheless gets entangled in a new attempt in which he no longers believes.

Their next film Padre padrone (1977) (Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival), taken from a novel by Gavino Ledda, speaks of the struggle of a Sardinian shepheard against the cruel rules of his patriarchal society. In Il prato (1979) there are neorealistic echoes, while La notte di San Lorenzo (Saint Lorenzo's night) (1982)narrates, in a fairy-tale tone, a marginal event in the days before the end of World War II, in Tuscany, as seen through the eyes of some village people. The film was awarded the Special Jury Award in Cannes.

Kaos (1984) - again a literary adaptation - is a poignantly beautiful and poetical film in episodes, taken from Luigi Pirandello's Short Stories for a year. In Il sole anche di notte (1990) the Taviani brothers transposed in 18th century Naples the story from Tolstoy's Father Sergei.

From then onwards, the Taviani's inspiration proved faltering. Successes like Le affinità elettive, (1996), from Goethe) and an attempt to woo the international audiences like Good morning Babilonia, {1987), on the pioneers of cinema history, alternate with much inferior films, commercial and critical disasters like Fiorile (1993) and Tu ridi (1996), inspired by the characters and short stories of Pirandello.

In the 2000s, the two directors turned successfully to television films and miniseries. They gave a respectful adaptation of Tolstoy's Resurrection (2001) and Luisa Sanfelice (2004) a sort of romantic-popular ballad from a book by Alexandre Dumas father.

Literary adaptations continue with La masseria delle allodole (2007), presented at the Berlin Film Festival in the section 'Berlinale Special'.

Filmography

as film directors

1950s-1960s

1970s-1980s

1990s

2000s

as screenwriters

1950s-1960s

1970s-1980s

since 1990s

Soundtrack composers

For their first eight films

Nicola Piovani

Favourite classical composers

Awards

External links

Category:1929 births Category:1931 births Category:Living people Category:People from San Miniato Category:Italian film directors Category:Italian screenwriters