Lina Wertmüller

Wertmüller was born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spanol von Braueich in Rome in 1928[13][14] to Federico, a lawyer from Palazzo San Gervasio, Basilicata, belonging to a devoutly Catholic family of distant Swiss descent, and to Maria Santamaria-Maurizio born in Rome. Wertmüller depicted her childhood as a period of adventure, during which she was expelled from 15 different Catholic high schools. During this time, she was infatuated with comic books[15] and described them as especially influential on her in her youth, particularly Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. Wertmüller characterized the framing of Raymond's comics as "rather cinematic, more cinematic than most films",[16] an early indication of her inclination toward film. Wertmüller's desire to work in the film and theater industries took hold at a young age, as early on in life she developed an appreciation for the works of the Russian playwrights Pietro Sharoff, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, and Konstantin Stanislavsky,[16] drawing her into the world of performing arts.

After graduating from Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico in 1951, Wertmüller produced avant-garde plays, traveling throughout Europe and working as a puppeteer, stage manager, set designer, publicist, and radio/TV scriptwriter.[17] She joined Maria Signorelli's troupe in 1951.[18]

These interests developed toward two generic avenues; one being the musical comedy and the other being grave, contemporary Italian dramas like the works of Italian playwright and director Giorgio De Lullo, whose work she described as "serious" and "politically conscious".[16] It is these two approaches that Wertmüller stated were at the core of her creative self, and always would be.[16][19]

Wertmüller in 2011

Wertmüller was married to Enrico Job (died 4 March 2008), an art designer who worked on several of her pictures.

In 2015, Wertmüller was the subject of a biographical film directed by Valerio Ruiz, Behind the White Glasses, in which she reflects on her life's work.[29]

Wertmüller continued to work as a theater director[24] until her death at her home on 9 December 2021, at the age of 93.[30][31][15]

Fellini's influence is evident in much of Wertmüller's work. They share empathy with the Italian working class, showing the realities of life for the politically neglected and economically downtrodden, with a tendency toward the preposterous.[32] Wertmüller's work also seems to exhibit adoration of Italy and its varied locales, beautifying elements of her film's locations with cinematography that presents its subjects with a colorful extravagance that idealizes the distinctly Italian settings of her films.[32] Her aesthetic borrows heavily from her background in theater, routinely using the camera to emphasize performance and the grandiose comedy of her characters’ near constant emotional frenzy. Much of her work uses formal film tactics to dramatize the misapplication and destructive qualities that political ideology can have on individuals, satirizing common conceptions of revolution and the political status quo in the process.[21]

Narrative and cinematic reflexivity are also commonplace in Wertmüller's films, as she rehashed and reconfigured signs and modes of presentation in a way that references her inspirations and her contemporaries.[21] This is made clear through her disruption of traditional conceptions of virtually all political dogma and the irrationality of her characters, taking recognizable elements of society and film and critiquing them by doing away with narrative and/or character plausibility.[21]

This is particularly evident in a film like The Seduction of Mimi. This positions Mimi (played by Giannini) as an impossibly inept and simple man who fully embodies the notion of Italian machismo, as he fumbles his way through a world that throws a variety of ideologies and economic positions at him, all of which he readily inhabits. Mimi is perpetually successful in his performance of these roles, despite the audience's awareness of their inauthenticity that results from a diegetic acknowledgement of Mimi's hapless ignorance. This element of critique in the film functions as one example of one of the most prevalent themes in Wertmüller's work, a desire to deconstruct and subvert the institutions and social ideologies of a capitalist modernity.[33] This socialist-inflected politicization of class and the institution are also extended to sexuality and gender. Most of her films deploy these elements in conjunction with her affection for the theatrical in such a way that creates a unique concoction that is undeniably within the generic confines of Commedia all’italiana.

According to Peter Bondanella, "Wertmüller's work combined a concern with topical political issues and the conventions of traditional Italian grotesque comedy".[23]

• Biskind, Peter (December 1974). "Lina Wertmuller: The Politics of Private Life". Film Quarterly. 28 (2): 10–16. doi:10.2307/1211628. JSTOR 1211628.
• Bullaro, Grace Russo. Man in Disorder - The Cinema of Lina Wertmüller in the 1970s ISBN 978-1-905886-39-5
• Déléas, Josette. Lina Wertmüller - Un rire noir chaussé de lunettes blanches - a critical biography filled with anecdotes and Lina's humor ISBN 978-1-4251-2755-8
• William R. Magretta and Joan Magretta. "Lina Wertmuller and the Tradition of Italian Carnivalesque Comedy" in Genre 12, pp. 25–43. (1979)
• Tiziana Masucci. I chiari di Lina (Edizioni Sabinae, Roma 2009)ISBN 978-88-96105-22-1
• O'Donoghue, Darragh (2018). "Laughter in the Dark: The Black Comedy of Lina Wertmüller". Cineaste. 43 (4): 15–21, 78. ProQuest 2093229170.
• Jacobs, Diane; Riley, Brooks (1976). "Lina Wertmüller". Film Comment. 12 (2): 48–51, 64. ProQuest 210265585.
• Behind The White Glasses, Dir. Valerio Ruiz, Italy, 2015.
• Bondanella, Peter (1990). Italian Cinema : From Neorealism to the Present. Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-0426-X. OCLC 20911414.

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• Lina Wertmüller at IMDb