Born September 14, 1914 in Colombo, Liguria, Italy, died in 1974.
Of lower middleclass origin, Germi worked as a messenger and briefly attended a nautical school before deciding on an acting career.
He enrolled at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, where he studied acting and directing, supporting himself as an extra, bit actor, assistant director, and sometime writer.
Making his debut as a film director in 1945, he started out as a disciple of the neorealist school. His early films were typically social dramas, dealing in contemporary issues against Sicilian backgrounds. Gradually he shifted from social drama to satirical comedy with socio-moral overtones but retained as his favorite milieu Sicily and its ignorant, poverty-stricken people.
Seven of his films competed at the Cannes Film Festival, with his 1966 comedy The Birds, the Bees and the Italians winning the Palme d’Or.
He studied acting and directing at Rome’s Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. During his time in school, Germi supported himself by working as an extra, bit actor, assistant director, and, on occasion, writer. Germi made his directorial debut in 1945 with the film Il testimone. His early work, this film included, were very much in the Italian neorealist style; many were social dramas that dealt with contemporary issues pertaining to people of Sicilian heritage.
Through the years, Germi shifted away from social drama towards satirical comedies, but retained his loved element of the Sicilian people. In the 1960s, Germi received worldwide success with the films Divorce Italian Style, Seduced and Abandoned, and The Birds, the Bees and the Italians. He was nominated for Academy Awards in both directing and writing for Divorce Italian Style, and, subsequently, won in the writing category. He also won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for The Birds, the Bees and the Italians. His 1968 film Serafino won the Golden Prize at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival.[1]
Germi collaborated on the scripts for all the films he directed and appeared as an actor in a few of them.
He died in Rome of hepatitis on December 5, 1974, at the age of 60.
Selected filmography
Director
The Testimony (1946)
Lost Youth (1947)
In the Name of the Law (1949)
Path of Hope (1950)
Four Ways Out (1951)
The Bandit of Tacca Del Lupo (1952)
Mademoiselle Gobete (1952)
Jealousy (1953)
Mid-Century Loves (segment “Guerra 1915—18”, 1954)
The Railroad Man (1956)
A Man of Straw (1958)
The Facts of Murder (1959)
Divorce Italian Style (1961)
Seduced and Abandoned (1964)
The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (1966)
L’immorale (1967)
Serafino (1968)
A Pocketful of Chestnuts (1970)
Alfredo, Alfredo (1972)
In the 1960s, Germi he enjoyed worldwide commercial success with such films as “Divorce Italian Style” (Academy Award for Best Screenplay, 1962), “Seduced and Abandoned,” and “The Birds, the Bees, and the Italians” (Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival). He collaborated on the scripts of all his own films and appeared in some of them as an actor. Germi died of hepatitis.
Divorce Italian Style:
Oscar Nominations: 3
Director: Pietro Germi
Actor: Marcello Mastroianni
Story and Screenplay (Original): Ennio De Concini, Alfredo Giannetti, and Pietro Germi
Oscar Awards: 1
Story and screenplay
Oscar Context:
In 1962, Pietro Germi competed for the Best Director Oscar with David Lean (who won) for “Lawrence of Arabia,” Robert Mulligan for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Arthur Penn for “The Miracle Worker,” and Frank Perry for “David and Lisa.”
Marcelo Mastroianni lost the Best Actor Oscar to Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Three of the five nominees for Original Story and Screenplay were foreign films: “Divorce Italian Style,” which won, Ingmar Bergman’s “Through a Glass Darkly,” and Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad,” penned by Alain Robbe-Grillet.
