Lina Wertmueller, the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for directing, has died. She was 93.
Lina Wertmueller on set in 1975 in Naples, Italy.Italy’s provocative filmmaker Lina Wertmueller, whose potent mix of sex and politics in “Swept Away” and “Seven Beauties” made her the first woman nominated for an Academy Award for directing and a cult figure on the New York film scene, has died, the Culture Ministry said. She was 93.
Political, controversial and often erotic, her films were filled with social commentary and satirical anti-establishment messages. Wertmueller, who also wrote the scripts for her films, described them as Marxist comedies. She was born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmueller von Elgg Spanol von Braueichjob in Rome to an aristocratic Swiss family. Apparently rejecting her parents’ wishes to study law, Wertmueller instead went to drama school where she acted, wrote and directed plays. After graduating from Rome’s Theatre Academy, she toured Europe with Maria Signorelli’s puppet troupe.
That same year, with Fellini’s encouragement, Wertmueller went to Sicily to make “The Lizards,” her first feature film. It was favorably received but the director herself criticized it as being “too rarefied,” too difficult for people to understand. She wanted to make films for the masses. Film critic Roger Ebert gave “Swept Away” his top rating, saying despite the movie’s clash between a wealthy capitalist and her Marxist employee it “persists in being about a man and a woman.” Other critics were uncomfortable with its violence against women, with Anthony Kaufman calling it “possibly the most outrageously misogynist film ever made by a woman.” The film won the 1975 National Board of Review award for top foreign film.
Wertmueller loved to bring together apparently contradictory forces. Her 1992 movie “Ciao, Professore!” tells the story of Neapolitan schoolchildren forced to deliver drugs and kill, but she called the film “an act of love for the south and the children.”Full of energy, Wertmueller had the reputation on set of dominating actors and changing scenes at the spur of the moment.But Giannini said the director was always open to suggestions.