Gianni Bongioanni

Giovanni (Gianni) Bongioanni (born August 6, 1921 in Turin) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, camera operator, editor, occasional actor and writer as well as the founder of an authentic neo-realistic approach to the Italian TV film making.[1] His film La svolta pericolosa (1959) is considered the first Italian television series.[2]

Life

Gianni Bongioanni was born in Turin on August 6, 1921. His mother was an housewife and his father was a turner. At the age of 11, he started working as a turner in his father's store while he attended the middle school. It was the cinema that offered him the greatest escape from an unsatisfying home life.

When he was five, he saw his first movie The Kid directed by Charlie Chaplin. He was so struck by it that he began to believe that his life would be like the American movies. Just below his house, there were two dirt-cheap cinemas and almost every day Bongioanni went there. It was during these years that he began to love and appreciate American directors and actors. At the age of 11, he took up swimming to emulate the Austro-Hungarian American swimmer and actor Johnny Weismuller, who interpreted Tarzan in 1933. Swimming and movies were the two great passions of Bongioanni during his teenager years.

In 1939 he was introduced to the CINEGUF of Turin,[3] where he had the golden opportunity to make his first experience as camera-operator.

In 1941, Bongioanni joined the Cinema Department of the General Staff of Italian Royal Army where he was exposed to many of the best foreign movies of the 1930-1940s. So he became familiar with the most important and influential directors of those times (C.Chaplin, J. Ford, F. Capra, F. Lang, E. Lubitsch, W.A. Wellman, V. Flemming, M.Carnet, J. Renoir). It was possible for him to watch the original version of these movies because they were spoils of war taken from the enemies before their ships were sunk. In this period, Bongioanni made several war documentaries.

In 1944 he became speaker of the radio station Radiotevere[4] in Milan and short after, at only 23 years, he became director. After the war, in 1946, he started his career as film and radio-shows reviewer at the magazine Film directed by Mino Doletti.

In 1946, Bongioanni wrote an article called Abbasso i tromboni! (Down with the Windbags!) in which he attacked the current state of Italian broadcast, lambasting certain directors and actors that continued to support an antiquated idea of theatre in a period of rising neo-realism.

In 1952 Bongioanni joined the borning national TV and Radio Broadcasting Company "RAI", as technical manager of Cinema Production Department under the direction of Sergio Pugliese.[5]

In 1957 he decided to make films of his own. He realized his first movie Filo d'erba (A Blade of Grass) awarded with the International Radio and Television Prize Prix Italia.

Between 1959 and 1967 he realized, as producer and director, several TV productions that testify his acuity in grasping the facets of Italian society: La svolta pericolosa (The dangerous turn) considered the first Italian telefilm; Fine di una solitudine (The end of solitude); La madre di Torino(A mother in Turin).

In 1964 he made his first feature film, Tre per una rapina[6] (a German - Spanish - Italian co-production), a tight noir style action movie based on the life of a young Italian immigrant moved to Germany. It was a good film, that is now unfortunately forgotten.

After directing some valuable documentaries and journalistic reports, he returned to fiction in the 1970s with a series of TV-movies considered among the best in the Italian TV history [7] (R.Poppi, 2011) and that allowed him to be recognized as a director who has tried to bring the painful, and often forgotten, truth to light. [8].

These movies marked him out as a keen observer of the harsh realities of Italian life: Dedicato a un bambino (Dedicated to a child); Una pistola nel cassetto (A gun in the drawer); Una donna (A Woman), from the novel by Sibilla Aleramo; Un matrimonio di provincia (A wedding in a small town), a tactful nineteenth-century love story; Mia figlia (My daughter), the dramatic story of a young girl affected by anorexia; Giovanni da una madre all'altra (Giovanni from a mother to another), a story of adoption; Follia amore mio (Madness my love), a story of a woman who takes care of a small group of mental ill patients; Piange al mattino il figlio del cuculo (Crying in the morning the son of cuckoo) about the "surrogate mothers".

In 2011, at the age of 90, he decided to realize Di quell'amor (On that love) with the collaboration of a mini-troupe of brave young filmmakers. The film is about the love in old age.

Directing techniques

His way of filmmaking is a documentary style, a direct sound and a spontaneous acting (often with non-actors taken from the street) requiring little or no set up time. He also introduced to the movie business new Italian talent such as Giuliana De Sio, Francesco Salvi, Maria Monti, Angiola Baggi and Carlotta Wittig.

His filming techniques embeds fragmented/discontinuous editing and authorial commentary. The final result is a movie in which the author express his thoughts, however abstract they may be, or translate his obsessions exactly as he does in the contemporary essay or novel.

Broadcast

Documentaries and journalistic reports

TV movies

Feature films

Actor

In 1967 he had a walk-on part in Paolo Cavara’s film L'occhio selvaggio (The wild eye). Occasionally he acted in his own films.

Writer

In 2003, he published a book called RADIOTEVERE about his experience as a young speaker, and later as a director, in the Radio during the end of the Second World War. In 2008, he published another book, PROFESSIONE REGISTA (PROFESSION: DIRECTOR), covering his professional life from the early experiences in Turin to the later troubled experiences in the world of Cinecittà.

Curiosity

His home in Rome is his workplace where he does his writing, research, editing and management of production details. This allows him to have almost complete artistic control and the rare advantage of having low costs.

Filmography and awards

Year English title Original title Director Producer Writer Premiere Note Awarded
1956 A blade of grass Filo d'erba Yes Yes Yes Television Story of a child worker International Radio and TV film Prize “Prix Italia”.
1959 The dangerous turn La svolta pericolosa Yes Yes Yes Television It is considered the first Italian telefilm in 4 episodes Mention d’honneur – Festival de Cannes (1960)
1964 The three guys for a robbery Tre per una rapina Yes Yes Yes Theatrical A noir-story
1965 The end of a solitude Fine di una solitudine Yes Yes Yes Television A difficult life of a separated woman
1967 A mother in Turin La madre di Torino Yes Yes Yes Television Docudrama International Radio and TV film Prize “Prix Italia”
1971 Dedicated to a child Dedicato a un bambino Yes Yes Yes Television Story of a maladjusted kid in 3 episodes
1973 A gun in the drawer Una pistola nel cassetto Yes Yes Yes Television 3 episodes
1977 A woman Una donna Yes Yes Yes Television From the novel by Sibilla Aleramo.

The true story of the first Italian feminist of the 1900s, in 6 episodes
1979 A wedding in a small-town Un matrimonio in provincia Yes Yes Yes Television From the novel by Maria Antonietta Torriani. A tactful ninetheenth-century love story, in 2 episodes
1981 My daughter Mia figlia Yes Yes Yes Television From the novel by Maria Marcone.

A story of an anorexical girl, in 3 episodes

International Prize “ENNIO FLAIANO” (1982)
1983 Giovanni from a mother to another Giovanni da una madre all'altra Yes Yes Yes Television Story of a failed adoption, in 3 episodes
1986 Madness my love Follia amore mio Yes Yes Yes Television Story of a mental illness home-family, in 3 episodes SFIFF 30- 1987 San Francisco International Film Festival
1989 Crying in the morning the son of cuckoo Piange al mattino il figlio del cuculo Yes Yes Yes Television Story of a surrogate mother, in 2 episodes

Links

References

  1. ↑ A. Grasso, Enciclopedia della Televisione Garzanti, Milano, Garzanti Editore, 1996.
  2. ↑ A. Grasso, Enciclopedia della Televisione Garzanti, Milano, Garzanti Editore, 1996.
  3. ↑ Cineguf was a Cinema Department of Turin University founded for students willing to become film-maker.
  4. ↑ For further information about this period see: G. Bongioanni, Qui Radiotevere. 1944 storia di radio , di amore e di morte, Sovera Edizioni, Roma, 2003.
  5. ↑ https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Pugliese
  6. ↑ German title: Drei von uns / Zwischenlandung Düsseldorf; Spanish title: Tiempo de violencia
  7. ↑ Roberto Poppi, Dizionario del cinema Italiano. I Registi., Gremese Editore, 2002
  8. ↑ A. Grasso, Enciclopedia della Televisione Garzanti, Milano, Garzanti Editore, 1996.