Background

Guerra was born on March 16, 1920, in Santarcangelo di Romagna, Italy. His father was a fisherman and street vendor.

Education

Tonino studied at the University of Urbino and received a degree in education in 1946.

Career

In 1944 at the age of twenty-four, Tonino Guerra was arrested by the Fascist government in his homeland of Italy and sent to the concentration camp, Troisdorf, in Germany. It was while he was there that he began writing poetry in his native dialect, Romagnol. Many of his fellow prisoners were from the same region of northern Italy as he was and were diverted and comforted by his poems.

Upon his return to Italy, these poems were published under the title I Scarabocc (“The Scribbles”) in 1946. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Hermann W. Haller explains Guerra’s use of his native dialect in composing these poems, writing “it is consonant with his rebellious opposition to the Fascist threats and policies of the time.” Guerra’s second book of poetry, La Sciupteda (“The Gunshot”) was published in 1950, followed by Lunario (“Almanac”) in 1954. His poetry from this early period paints a bleak picture of a chaotic and decaying world that is filled with conflict and tension. One of the poet’s recurring themes is death, as can be seen in the poem “I bu.” This poem appeared in a 1972 collection of the same name, which gathered poetry from Guerra’s first three collections along with a few previously unpublished works.

In 1953 Guerra moved to Rome and began a career as a screenwriter. His first script was a collaboration with Elio Petri for director Giuseppe De Santis called Uomini e lupi (“Men and Wolves”), released in 1956. Three years later he began a partnership with the acclaimed director Michelangelo Antonioni, beginning with the script for L’avventura (1959). In 1969 the duo traveled to the United States to make the film Zabriskie Point. Afterward, Guerra had a breakdown, an experience that he recorded in the novel L’uomo parallelo (Parallel Man), published in 1969. The work won him his first official recognition when he received the Premio Argentario the same year.

Guerra began an ongoing collaboration with director Francesco Rosi in 1967. For him, Guerra wrote screenplays for the noted films II caso Mattel (“The Mattei Affair,” 1972), A proposito: Lucky Luciano (“Re: Lucky Luciano,” 1973), and Cadaveri eccellenti (“Illustrious Corpses,” 1976). Guerra continued his partnership with Rosi into the 1990s. Another notable association began in 1973, this one with Federico Fellini. The motivation for such top-notch filmmakers such as these to want to work with Guerra may have been because of his poetic style.

In addition to poetry and scripts, Guerra wrote a number of prose works. In the 1970s and 1980s, he published three books of prose - I cento uccelli (“The Hundred Birds”) published in 1974, and I guardatori della luna (“The Moon Watchers”) published in 1981. In 1977 he also published a series of short stories written with Luigi Malerba titled Stone dell’ anno Mille (“Stories from the Year One Thousand”). These popular stories tell takes of a medieval knight named Millemosche.

In the 1980s Guerra turned his attentions back to writing poetry. In 1981 he published II miele (“Honey”), a long prose poem. In 1987 Guerra published II viaggio (“The Journey”), an account of an old couple’s honeymoon trip to the seashore. In the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Hermann W. Haller describes it as “a trip of life and memory, a search for truth, yet also a journey toward death.” This work was followed by II libro delle ciñese abbandonate (“The Book of Abandoned Churches”) published in 1988.

In 1990 Guerra in collaboration with Giovanni Urbinati to create the exhibition “La Cattedrale dove va a dormire il mare/The Cathedral where the sea goes to sleep” at the deconsecrated church in Budrio near Bologna.

He died 21 March 2012.

Achievements

• Tonino Guerra was the most prolific and influential Italian scriptwriter of his generation. He became a leading influence on European film, moved from Neorealism to stylization in search of a new language to reflect the changing times. As a poet and screenwriter he worked with twenty-six different directors on over sixty films during the course of his career, from Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and Vittorio De Sica to Francesco Rosi, Elio Petri. His masterpieces: Bitter Rice, Blow Up, And the Ship Sails On, Ginger and Fred.
  
  In May 2010, he was given Italy’s most prestigious film award, the David of Donatello for Lifetime Achievement.

Works

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  • Amarcord

    (This carnivalesque portrait of provincial Italy during th...)

    1973
  • L'Eclisse

    (The concluding chapter of Michelangelo Antonioni's inform...)

    1962
  • A Quiet Place In The Country

    (A popular painter, plagued by nightmares that he and his ...)

    1969
  • Nostalghia

    (Andrei Tarkovsky's brooding late masterpiece and a darkly...)

    1983
  • Night Of The Shooting Stars

    (A mother shares a bedtime story with her child of her exp...)

    1981
  • La Notte

    (This psychologically acute, visually striking modernist w...)

    1961
  • And the Ship Sails On

    (Aristocrats cruise with a soprano's ashes and fleeing Ser...)

    1983
  • Blow Up

    (Professional photographer Thomas saw nothing. And he saw ...)

    1966
  • Zabriskie Point

    (Mark is a student radical. Daria is a beautiful, restless...)

    1970
  • Voyage in Time 1983
  • Landscape in the Mist 1988
  • Ulysses' Gaze 1995

Religion

Tonino Guerra was an atheist.

Views

Although a descendant of Cesare Zavattini,[citation needed] who essentially defined the style and morals of Italian neorealism, Guerra deviated from his mentor: while Zavattini brought the directors with whom he collaborated over to his own social and moral speculation, Guerra went to the filmmakers and helped them advance their own concept.

Connections

Tonino Guerra married Lara Iabloskina (marriage ended). In 1977 he married Eleanora Kreindlina.

Spouse:

Eleanora Kreindlina

ex-spouse:

Lara Iabloskina

coworker:

Francesco Rosi

coworker:

Elio Petri

coworker:

Giovanni Urbinati

References

• Diario del Novecento - TONINO GUERRA
• Tonino Guerra, A poet in the Movies
• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 181
• Lingua, dialetto, poesia. Atti del Convegno su Tonino Guerra e la poesia dialettale romagnola