Roberto Benigni, one of Italy’s most famous actors on the international scene, celebrates his birthday today. Born seventy years ago in Castiglion Fiorentino, he is best known for his monologues, his no-holds-barred irony and, of course, for his cinema and directing roles.
His famous partnership with the late, lamented Massimo Troisi produced one of the most popular chapters in Italy’s collective film memory: Non ci resta che piangere (Nothing left to do but cry) (1984), which he directed and starred in, bequeathed cinema history not only with numerous unforgettable lines, but also the memory of places such as: the centuries-old tree near lake Bracciano; the village of Frittole, “in the “1400s, nearly 1500s” built at Cinecittà Studios; the Church of Santa Maria in Celsano, in the borgo of Santa Maria di Galeria (Rome) where Troisi’s character falls in love with a young Amanda Sandrelli; the Selva di Paliano where an unlikely toll booth sparks the famous dialogue - “Stop there! Who are you? What are you carrying? Yes, but how many are you? One florin!”; the archaeological area of Vulci where the two principal characters try to impress Leonardo da Vinci himself; and the Maremma natural park which served as the setting for Palos from where Christopher Columbus set off across the ocean.
Among his numerous films, Benigni also played Leopoldo Pisanello, a nondescript man given little attention by family members, work colleagues and friends who is endowed with a sudden and inexplicable popularity in To Rome with Love (2012), Woody Allen’s homage to the Eternal City, while one of his most recent roles was Geppetto in Matteo Garrone’s multiple award-winning Pinocchio (2019), shot in fairy-tale locations in Tuscany, Apulia and Lazio.
Two decades ago, Benigni received international acclaim and three Oscars – Best International Film, Best Actor, Best Soundtrack for Nicola Piovani – for La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful) (1997), his idiosyncratic take on the tragedy of the Holocaust in which, with gentleness and his habitual irony, he portrays a man deported to a concentration camp and his attempts to survive and protect his son Joshua from the horrors surrounding him. The film was shot mostly in Arezzo and the surrounding province (Cortona, Castiglion Fiorentino) and the studios of Papigno in Umbria where the concentration camp was built.