One of the best things about Italian cinema is that there are great roles for women, more so than for American actresses. Here in the US we have a flavors of the month and all the other women scratching for the parts that the flavors don’t get. In Hollywood a woman of Meryl Streep’s age, as talented as she is, has limited choices. That’s not so much the case in Italian movies.
Case in point: Margherita Buy. If someone hasn’t already done it, I proclaim Margherita the reigning queen of Italian movies. She’s 50 and has been working steadily for the last couple of decades, for all the best directors and with all the best actors. She’s the winner of David di Donatello awards, Nastro d’Argentos, and Italian Golden Globes. She was as emotional in Silvio Soldini’s Giorni e Nuvole (Days And Clouds) as she was funny in Carlo Verdone’s Maledetto il Giorno Che t’ho Incontrato (Damned The Day I Met You).
Amazon and Netflix give you access to lots of Margherita’s movies, like Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam, Paolo Virzì’s Caterina Va in Città, and Ferzan Ozpetek’s Le Fate Ignoranti.
Check out the trailer from SIlvio Soldini’s Giorni e Nuvole (Days and Clouds).
If I were a man I would definitely have a crush on Donatella Finocchiaro. Beautiful and talented in a very old world way, Donatella proved her place on this list with movies like Emanuele Crialese’s Terraferma and Marco Bellocchio’s Il Regista di Matrimoni.
Check ou Roberta Torre’s Angela, a very overlooked film, the true story of a Sicilian mob boss wife who helps out by selling drugs out of her shoe store. It’s available with subtitles from Amazon Instant Video.
And then there’s the other Finocchiaro, Angela Finocchiaro. doing funny movies and drama equally well.You’ll die laughing at her as the befuddled police detective in La Banda dei Babbi Natale with Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo and Claudio Bisio’s worried wife in Benvenuto al Sud; but wait! Who is this amazing dramatic actress playing the mother-on-the-verge-of-a nervous-breakdown in Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico? You can watch this one instantly and with subtitles with Amazon.
Angela is considered a supporting role actress, but that’s a mistake. She steals the show in every movie she’s in.
Sometimes it seems like they can’t make a movie without Alba Rohrwacher in it. In Bellocchio’s Bella Addormentata, Silvio Soldini’s Cosavogliodipiù, and Luca Guadagnino’s Io Sono L’Amore, she shines. As a 2009 Berlinale Shooting Star she has lived up to everybody’s expectations and then some.
There are plenty of Alba’s films to watch instantly; check out her steamy love scenes with Pierfrancesco Favino in Cosavogliodipiù, (Come Undone).
And then there’s everybody’s favorite,Valeria Golino, who until recently I wouldn’t have put on this list. She’s talented, obviously, and one of the most successful Italian actresses, crossing over into Hollywood movies (she was the pretty girl with Tom Cruise in Rain Man.)
But I always thought of her as an over-actor who was getting by more on her looks until Ivan Cotroneo’s Kryptonite Nella Borsa, and then I was convinced. Valeria’s another one that you can get a lot of instantly, but try her Giulia Non Esce La Sera (Giulia Doesn’t Date at Night.) In it she’s a beautiful woman who doesn’t get out much, unless, of course, the prison lets her out for a few hours on work release.
This was a hard list to make, and I feel torn about leaving off actresses like Isabella Ragonese, Cristiana Capotondi, and Giovanna Mezzogiorno, but I said five, and I’m sticking to five. The fact is that there are a lot of wonderful Italian actresses these days.
I Love Italian Everything 