Mario Monicelli was one of Italy's best known film makers. He was the writer and director of many of that countries favorite comedies from the 40's to the 60's. He was even Oscar nominated. So it made news when the elderly film maker jumped to his death from a window in Rome's San Giovanni hospital yesterday. Monicelli was suffering from terminal prostate cancer.
This comes in the wake of the death of another Italian film maker Dino De Laurentis earlier this month. In fact Monicelli was one of the people interviewed for a response on the death of De Laurentis.The pair had worked together on the 1963 Oscar nominated The Organizer. According ot Monocelli, De Laurentis had told him to stay strong and "told [him] to be brave. He said if you push forward, without fear, you can accomplish most things."
Monocelli started his career in 1935. During his career he worked with some of the most notable Italian actors, such as Toto, Alberto Sordi, Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni (He worked with Mastroianni in Big Deal on Madonna Street in 1958). He would even rack up another Oscar nomination for Casanova '70. He was to continuing working well into old age. A film about his neighborhood in Rome, Monti, was entered in the Venice Film Festival only 2 years ago. He was also an outspoken critic of Italian Prime Minister and media baron Silvio Berlusconi.
Monicelli wasn't the only accomplished film maker to die recently. Irvin Kershner, director of The Empire Strikes Back, died in his Los Angeles home Saturday after a 3 1/2 year battle with lung cancer. He was 87.
George Lucas met Kershner while attending his lectures at USC and said he “knew one thing for sure: I didn’t want to direct the second movie myself. I needed someone I could trust, someone I really admired and whose work had maturity and humor. That was Kersh all over.
“I didn’t want Empire to turn into just another sequel, another episode in a series of space adventures. I was trying to build something, and I knew Kersh was the guy to help me do it. He brought so much to the table. I am truly grateful to him.”
