Francesco Massaro, director, story writer and screenwriter, born in Padova on August 23, 1935, died today in Rome. "With him disappears a protagonist of over half a century of Italian cinema and television, a man who had learned his craft on set alongside some of the greatest masters of our cinema and who, throughout his long career, was able to portray the country through the big and small screen, with a particular ability to speak to the general public." This was written in a statement sent to ANSA by a family member of the director.
His professional history "has its roots in the great era of Italian cinema." Having moved to Rome in the early 1960s, Massaro began his apprenticeship as a voluntary assistant director on Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, of which he often loved to recall the details of the eternal ballroom scene with Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale. His true formation, however, was owed to Pietro Germi, whose assistant director he was for many years, participating in masterpieces such as Divorce Italian Style, Seduced and Abandoned and Ladies and Gentlemen, set entirely in his native Veneto, in Treviso. His training concluded with work alongside directors such as Eduardo De Filippo and Dino Risi, on Tear Me Apart but Satisfy Me with Kisses (1968). It was during that period that he also met Ugo Tognazzi, who was destined to play an important role in his career. The actor became, together with Mariangela Melato, the lead of his directorial debut, The General Sleeps Standing Up (1972), an anti-militarist comedy with grotesque tones.
He became a versatile director, capable of moving naturally between different genres, from comedy to medical drama to crime thriller. He signed caustic films such as La banca di Monate (1972), with Walter Chiari and a highly praised and award-winning Paolo Bonacelli (1976), and very popular works such as Al bar dello sport (1983), with Lino Banfi and Jerry Calà, as well as highly successful television productions such as Pronto soccorso (1990-1992), with Ferruccio Amendola, "which inaugurated the medical drama in Italy," and the miniseries Provincia segreta and Provincia segreta 2 - I delitti della casa sul fiume.
Massaro "was, however, much more than a director," it is noted. "Writing accompanied his entire professional life." As a story writer and screenwriter, "he was deeply attentive to the construction of stories and characters and collaborated, over the years, with the pantheon of writers and story writers of Italian cinema," including Ugo Pirro, Rodolfo Sonego, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Luciano Vincenzoni and, in more recent years, Ennio De Concini, Enrico Vanzina, Giuseppe D'Agata, and Franco Ferrini. For him "direction always stemmed from the story and from writing, even before arriving on set."
In cinema he directed, among others, Michel Serrault and Tomas Milian in The Wolf and the Lamb, Diego Abatantuono and Leo Gullotta in I carabinieri, Jerry Calà and Isabella Ferrari in Tomorrow I'm Getting Married, through to Michele Placido, Kate Capshaw and Giuliana De Sio in Let Me Introduce a Friend. Among his last works were the miniseries Benedetti dal Signore and O la va, o la spacca with Ezio Greggio, in 2004.
"Those who knew him remember his clear, sometimes rough character, but also his taste for storytelling and paradox, his humanity and his ability to build genuine relationships," it is added. "With Francesco Massaro disappears a precious witness to an unrepeatable season of Italian cinema."
a kind of cinema that drew inspiration from literature and the art of writing, and, at the same time, one of the architects of that popular television which was able to bring millions of people together in front of the screen."
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