Michelangelo Antonioni’s Muse | Italian actress Monica Vitti dies at 90

(Rome) Italian actress Monica Vitti, who brilliantly illuminated the iconic work of her compatriot Michelangelo Antonioni before becoming one of the queens of Italian comedy, died Wednesday at the age of 90.

“Farewell to Monica Vitti, farewell to the queen of Italian cinema. Today is a truly sad day, a great artist and a great Italian is passing away,” Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said in a statement.

A soft gaze tinged with melancholy, a bewitching hoarse voice and an indomitable mop of hair: Monica Vitti perfectly embodied the tormented characters of the “tetralogy of incommunicability”: Adventure (1960), The night (1961), the eclipse (1962) and The red desert (1964), four films which brought Antonioni into the pantheon of world cinema, while giving the actress then thirty years of age international notoriety.

Prime Minister Mario Draghi hailed “an actress of great irony and extraordinary talent”, who “conquered generations of Italians with her spirit, her talent and her beauty”. “She made Italian cinema shine all over the world,” he said.

Italian star Sophia Loren paid tribute to “a great actress”: “her disappearance is a great loss not only for cinema, but for all of us”, she declared to the Italian agency Adnkronos.

Born in Rome on November 3, 1931, Monica Vitti, graduated in 1953 from the National Academy of Dramatic Art, first embarked on a theatrical career, where her comic talent already shines, one of her trademarks.

“Comedic talent”

It is also in supporting roles in comic cinema that she was spotted by Michelangelo Antonioni, with whom she quickly established an artistic and sentimental relationship. This is how she successively embodies the tormented Claudia of Adventurethe tempting Valentina of The nightthe mysterious Vittoria of the eclipse and the neurotic Giuliana of red desert.

After her time with Antonioni, she became one of the protagonists of Italian comedy, where she stood up to her male counterparts, of the caliber of Alberto Sordi, Ugo Tognazzi, Vittorio Gassman or Nino Manfredi. She shines in particular in The girl with the gun (1968), a successful film by Mario Monicelli where she plays Assunta, a Sicilian who pursues the man who “disgraced” her to Scotland.

The former president of the Cannes Film Festival Gilles Jacob paid tribute to her on Twitter: “Sublime, she played the next-door neighbors with the class of a goddess and the queens with the simplicity of the next-door neighbor”.

“Bardot had Vadim to launch it. Monica got Antonioni. Then she gave herself up to the luxury of Italian comedy with Scola, Monicelli and the others. She became a world star by remaining herself, laughing and simple, ”he summed up.

Antonioni’s companion from 1957 to 1967, she married director and cinematographer Roberto Russo in 1995, after 20 years together. In 2011, Roberto Russo announced that Monica Vitti had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for nearly 15 years.

The actress has won numerous awards throughout her career, including five David di Donatello (Italian Caesars), a Golden Lion in Venice for Lifetime Achievement and a Silver Bear in Berlin.