Giuseppe De Santis
Giuseppe De Santis ( born February 11, 1917 in Fondi, † 16 May 1997 ) was an Italian film director who is assigned to the neorealism. He is known for his socially critical films such as Bitter Rice from 1949 that support the call for social reforms. De Santis was the brother of Italian cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis.
Life
De Santis studied Philosophy and Literature and then attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. During his work as a journalist for cinema magazines, he began to be interested in the early neo-realist films. 1943 De Santis worked on the script for Ossessione ( obsession / love of obsessed ) with, the first film by Luchino Visconti. As a presentation of the detective novel was The bill without the landlord by James M. Cain.
From now on, De Santis worked alongside his work as a journalist more and more as a screenwriter and assistant director. In 1947 he was in the production of the film Caccia tragica ( Tragic Hunt) for the first time acted as director. This and the two following films were an intense call for better living conditions for the Italian working class. His third film Bitter Rice about a worker in the rice fields made from the young Silvana Mangano a movie star and brought De Santis an Oscar nomination.
The Italian neorealism ended in the early fifties, and De Santis adapted to the changing public taste. His films had, however, no longer the powerful expression and the success of the early years. At the 1995 Venice Film Festival De Santis was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Giuseppe De Santis died in 1997 in Rome to a heart attack.
In the pre-and end credits of his films Giuseppe De Santis was sometimes listed as Giuseppe De Sanctis or Gino de Sanctis.