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Addio allo Sceneggiatore Luciano Vincenzoni Posted by on Sep 23, 2013 in News

Most of you have probably never heard of Luciano Vincenzoni, but I’m sure you’re all familiar with his work, unless of course you’re one of the few people who has never seen the famous Sergio Leone films such as  “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, and “A Fistful of Dynamite”!

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Luciano Vincenzoni

Vincenzoni, who passed away on Sunday 22nd of September, was one of Italy’s most revered sceneggiatori (screenwriters). Here is a brief article about him taken from FILM.IT:

Si è spento a Roma all’età di 87 anni Luciano Vincenzoni, uno dei grandi sceneggiatori del cinema italiano. Nato a Treviso nel 1926, Vincenzoni ha scritto alcune pagine di storia del nostro cinema, come La Grande Guerra, Signore & signori, Per qualche dollaro in più, e Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.

Luciano Vincenzoni, one of the great screenwriters of Italian cinema, has passed away in Rome at the age of 87. Born in Treviso in 1926, Vincenzoni wrote some important pages in the history of our cinema, with films such as The Great War, Ladies and Gentlemen (The Birds, the Bees and the Italians), For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

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Per qualche dollaro in più

Vincenzoni era noto soprattutto per la sua collaborazione con Pietro Germi, per il quale ha scritto Il ferroviere, Sedotta e abbandonata e Signore & signori, nel corso di un’amicizia interrotta diverse volte da altrettanti(1) litigi, dopo l’ultimo dei quali abbandonò la società RPA, fondata con il regista. Ma è proprio allora che Sergio Leone lo cerca e gli affida la sceneggiatura di Per qualche dollaro in più, a cui seguiranno Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo e Giù la testa, titoli che avrebbero regalato a regista e sceneggiatore la fama mondiale.

Vincenzoni was best known for his collaboration with Pietro Germi, for whom he wrote The Railwayman (Man of Iron), Seduced and Abandoned, and Ladies and Gentlemen, during the course of a friendship interrupted numerous times by frequent(1) arguments, after the last of which he left the RPA society which he’d founded with the director (Germi). It was in that moment that Sergio Leone approached him and entrusted him with the scriptwriting for ‘For a Few Dollars More’, followed by ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’ and ‘Get your Head Down’ (A Fistful of Dynamite), titles which would reward the director and screenwriter with worldwide fame.

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Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

Vincenzoni ha inoltre firmato il classico assoluto di Monicelli, La grande guerra (di cui Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo era una sorta di remake ambientato nel West). Famoso un episodio di cui fu protagonista insieme a Dino De Laurentiis: una mattina, entrò nell’ufficio del produttore senza appuntamento e riuscì a vendergli svariati soggetti, tra cui quelli de Il gobbo, I due nemici (di Guy Hamilton) e La grande guerra, ottenendo inoltre un contratto in esclusiva per quattro anni.

What’s more, Vincenzoni put his trademark on Monicelli’s outstanding classic, The Great War (of which The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a kind of remake set in the Wild West). There is a famous incident in which he was the star character together with Dino De Laurentis: one morning he walked into the producer’s office unannounced and managed to sell him various themes, amongst which The Hunchback of Rome, The Best of Enemies (directed by Guy Hamilton) and The Great War, and securing an exclusive four year contract.

Vincenzoni non passò mai dietro la macchina da presa, nonostante avesse ricevuto alcune proposte, anche in America, dopo Giù la testa. “Per fare il regista bisogna essere pazienti – diceva – e io manderei tutti a quel paese (2)”. Un altro pezzo della nostra storia se ne va…

Vincenzoni never spent time ‘behind’ the movie camera, despite receiving several offers, even in America, after having made A Fistful of Dynamite. “You need patience to be a film director – he said – and I would tell them all to ‘get lost’(2)”. Another piece of our history passes away.

 

You may also find these related blogs useful: Sergio LeoneThe Good, The Bad, and the UglyMario Monicelli

Notes

(1) ‘frequent’ is my approximate translation of altrettanti, which means ‘the same number’, or ‘just as many’.

(2) mandare a quel paese is a euphemism for mandare a fare in culo (to tell someone to go and fuck themselves)

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Comments:

  1. Andrew Turner:

    Vincenzoni’s death follows the death in July of Franco De Gemini who played the harmonica so evocatively on many of the “Spaghetti Western” soundtracks. De Gemini’s death was marked on BBC Radio 4’s Last Word programme and an interesting obituary in the Independent newspaper.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qpmv

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/franco-de-gemini-harmonica-player-who-performed-on-hundreds-of-film-scores-8748979.html


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