Roberto Benigni

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Roberto Benigni, 2020

Roberto Remigio Benigni [ roˈbɛrto beˈniɲi ] (born October 27, 1952 in Manciano la Misericordia, Castiglion Fiorentino , Tuscany ) is an Italian director , television and film actor and Oscar winner.

Life

Roberto Benigni grew up as the son of a railroad worker in poor circumstances. In the early 1970s he started acting in alternative theater. He achieved greater fame through the television series Televacca by Renzo Arbore , which was discontinued by the censors .

Benigni influenced a change in the manners of Italian politicians in public by hugging communist party leader Enrico Berlinguer at a public rally. In view of the formality with which politicians had previously appeared publicly, this was considered an unprecedented event. Benigni was censored again for a statement about Pope John Paul II that he considered insulting and which he said was joking at the Sanremo Festival in 1980 and was sentenced to one year in prison for insulting religion and a foreign head of state, but was acquitted on appeal.

Since his directorial debut Tu mi turbi (1983), his wife Nicoletta Braschi also appeared in most of the films he directed .

Outside of Italy, he was best known for his 1997 tragic comedy , Life is Beautiful . The script is based in part on the experiences of his father Luigi (1918–2004), who was imprisoned in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp from 1943 to 1945 . The film, in which Benigni also played the leading role, was nominated seven times for an Oscar and was awarded in the categories of Best Foreign Language Film , Best Actor and Best Film Music . Benigni also received the Chlotrudis Award for best director for the film .

He also directed the films Il mostro , Il piccolo diavolo (with Walter Matthau ) and Toothpick Johnny . He played with Massimo Troisi in Non ci resta che piangere , a fairy tale in which the protagonists are transported back to the time shortly before 1492 . There they go in search of Christopher Columbus to keep him from discovering America. In 2002 he directed Roberto Benignis Pinocchio , a remake of Pinocchio in which he also starred. His last film so far, The Tiger and the Snow (2005), is a comedic love story in war-ravaged Iraq.

Benigni appeared in three films by American director Jim Jarmusch . In Down by Law (1986) he played the naive Bob who has been convicted of murder and whose good humor and optimism help him to escape, where he finds his great love in “Nicoletta”, already embodied here by actress Nicoletta Braschi. Also in 1986 was Strange to Meet You, the first episode of the film Coffee and Cigarettes , in which Benigni appears together with Steven Wright . Some of the other episodes were shot much later, so that the film was only released in 2003. In another episode film by Jarmusch, Night on Earth (1991), Benigni played a taxi driver in Rome. In the role, he reports to his passenger, a priest, about his unusual sexual experiences and so bothered him that he succumbed to a heart attack.

Benigni is also valued as an improvisational poet (poesia estemporanea is a common art form in Tuscany ) and for his lectures held from memory from Dante's Divine Comedy , which he performed and commented on on his TuttoDante tour . The first readings took place from July to August 2006 in Piazza Santa Croce in Florence and were broadcast by Rai Uno on Italian television from November 29, 2007 . The thirteen episodes are the first ten chants as well as the 26th and 33rd chants of the Inferno and the 33rd chant of Paradiso.

After the great success in Florence , TuttoDante went on tour and delighted audiences in several Italian cities. The over 130 shows were followed live by around a million people - over 120,000 of them in Rome alone. Another ten million viewers saw the recording "II V ° dell'Inferno" on Rai Uno on November 29, 2007 and the reruns on Rai International on the following days.

In 2004 an asteroid was named after him: (21662) Benigni . In 2005 Roberto Benigni was awarded the Grand Cross (Cavaliere di Gran Croce) of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic . In 2008 Benigni received an honorary doctorate from the University of Malta . As part of the Venice International Film Festival in 2021 , he was awarded the Golden Lion Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

The politically active actor is also known in Italy as a sharp critic of Silvio Berlusconi .

Filmography

Roberto Benigni and his wife Nicoletta Braschi in Cannes 1998

Web links

Commons : Roberto Benigni  - Collection of Images
Wikiquote: Roberto Benigni  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roberto Benigni. In: prisma . Retrieved March 30, 2021 .
  2. ↑ Interview with Roberto Benigni in the Frankfurter Rundschau from April 15, 2009 ( Memento from April 21, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Joshua D. Zimmerman (Ed.): Jews in Italy Under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922–1945 , Cambridge University Press 2005, p. 335 ( online )
  4. ^ Award of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic + repubblica.it
  5. ↑ Honorary doctorate to Benigni 2008 ( Memento from January 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Venice Film Festival: Benigni receives Golden Lion for life's work. In: Kurier.at . April 15, 2021, accessed April 17, 2021 .
  7. ↑ »Silvio, where are you? I love you! « , Interview with Roberto Benigni in Die Zeit , March 2, 2006
personal data
SURNAME Benigni, Roberto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Benigni, Roberto Remigio (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian director and actor
BIRTH DATE October 27, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Castiglion Fiorentino , Tuscany, Italy