Giuseppe de Santis

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Giuseppe De Santis (February 11, 1917 - May 16, 1997) was an Italian film director. One of the most idealistic neorealistic filmmakers of the 1940s, he made films punctuated by ardent cries for social reform.

He was the brother of Italian cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis.

[edit] Biography

De Santis was born in Fondi, Lazio.

He was first a student of philosophy and literature before entering Rome's Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. While working as a journalist for Cinema magazine, De Santis became a major proponent of the early neorealist filmmakers who were trying to make films that mirrored the simple often tragic realities of proletariat life using location shooting and nonprofessional casts.

In 1942, De Santis collaborated on the script for Ossessione, Luchino Visconti's debut film.

While still working for the magazine, he began to increasingly work as a screenwriter and assistant director until 1947 when he made his own directorial debut with Caccia Tragica. Like the two films to follow, it was a sincere call for better living conditions for the Italian working class.

His third film Bitter Rice (1950), the story of a young woman working in the rice fields who must choose between two socially disparate suitors, made a star of Silvana Mangano and was a landmark of the new cinematic style. It also earned De Santis an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Story.

By the early 1950s, the neorealist movement was fast falling out of favour with critics and audiences alike. New filmmakers began using dramatic stories that centered on relationships and de Santis also altered his focus. Unfortunately this had an adverse effect on his films, and though he continued making movies through the early 1970s, they were never as powerful as those first few.

De Santis passed away in 1997 following a heart attack, in Rome. He is regarded as one of Italy's greatest filmmakers of the 20th century.