Toth Database - Cinema

Massimo Troisi

San Giorgio a Cremano, 19 February, Rome 4 November 1994

Youngest son of six children of Alfredo Troisi, railwayman and Elena Abdelkhalek housewife.

In 1951 the family moved to number 31 Via bronze horses (the same address that father Gaetano will give Madonna in her evening in supplication Start from three ) along with his maternal grandparents, an uncle and an aunt and their five grandchildren.

Affection as a child by rheumatic fever, Troisi develops a serious degeneration of the mitral valve, complicated by congestive heart failure that would have been fatal to quarantu years:

"I remember that I was in bed, I was 14, 15 years straight, almost as an adult, I felt that there, in the kitchen it was talking about my problem, what to do"

Despite his health problems of which I loved to talk, Tang began to build its future, writing poems and devoting himself to the theatre. He made his debut in teatro parish of St Anne's Church, along with some childhood friends, including Lello Arena, Nico Mucci and Valeria Pezza, sudden onset on stage one of the parish of lead actors. In 1976, Massimo left Italy for mitral valve surgery in Houston, in the United States of America to pay the costs of the trip helped some people with a collection. In the 1970s formed the Saracens, along with Lello Arena and Damu. The trio went to Pergolesi gives Us in Naples, which due to a sudden forfat of Leopoldo Mastelloni had to resort to a replacement. The show was a huge success, especially among the young audience. The name the grimace was given to the group by Pia Cipriani, Director of the San Carluccio, who when asked: "How is your name?" he received, precisely in response by Massimo winced, recalling in this way one of the the main Neapolitan traditions: dream interpretation and the resolution of these numbers to play the lottery. Remain memorable sketches of theAnnunciation, when Tang wore the clothes of the humble wife of a fisherman exchanged by Lello Arena (Archangel Gabriele) for the Virgin Mary or the Noah's Ark in which the plaintiff sought a Knavery childish, to get permission to come to the Patriarch on the Ark, posing as an imaginary animal, the celebrated minollo. In 1981, the producer Baghai was looking for new faces to take on the big screen. Comic talents of Troisi's escaped and, as it was in the process of producing a film directed by Luigi Magni and based on the story of King Francischiello, offered him the lead role. The film never saw the light as Magni put the project. Berardi but wont work at all costs with the Neapolitan artist returned to him with a new proposal: offered him to write, interpret and direct a movie of his own. Within a year, with the help of Anna Pavignano, Ottavio Jenna and Vincenzo Cerami. Troisi complete the screenplay by Start from three .

The plot of the film centers on Gaetano, played by Tang, a young Neapolitan who, tired of provincial life, made up of family, friends and outings to mundane alienating work in a food company, decided to move to Florence looking for new experiences. The character expresses the condition of a young man of the 1980 in a particular reality, that of Naples after the earthquake and in a historical moment in which women assert their masculine identity crisis putting in affirmation. The young Gaetano Napoli arrives in Florence, everyone feels compelled to ask whether he too is emigrant, in deference to a socio-cultural tradition that wants the youth of South perennially in search of fortune in the cities of Northern Italy. This question also a Neapolitan Gaetano replies that can travel to see, to know, to get in touch with a different reality. The film was shot in 6 weeks with a budget of 400 million lire.

In 1982 Massimo Troisi returns in Rai and within the tv series That Make you laugh? Troisi realizes the movie Dead Troisi, Viva Troisi, where staged his death and where his career veins narrated posthumously. The film is built along the lines of a television documentary, with a collage of the various apparitions of the Director and his film and footage of his performances in theatre. Such as the appearance of Roberto Benigno faked Neapolitan who ends up dead and badmouth as Lello Arena in the guise of an anglo caretaker. Due to a heart attack declined to interpret a pulcinella by Stravinsky in a play directed by Roberto De Simone. In 1993 suffered a heart surgeon intervention Massimo Troisi in the United States that he procured the improvements that the doctors were promised. Since then the salutes begin a decline. During the filming of I'm sorry I'm late journalist John Francis Lane, on behalf of the Director Michael Radford, he met Tang to talk to him about Another Time, Another Place (1983), a film about the love story between a Scottish housewife and a Neapolitan prisoner at the end of World War II. At the time of making a film if he heard her Troisi abroad and with a Director like Michael Radford. Later, having read the excellent work of the Director, phoned to tell him that she had missed a great opportunity. The two became friends with making a movie together, but they had to spend years before that occasion presented itself. The opportunity came when Nathalie Caldonazzo, last companion of Troisi, gave him the book Burning Paciencia, Chilean writer Antonio Skàrmeta, published by Garzanti in Italy under the title the postman of Neruda, who narrates the birth of the friendship between a simple postman and the famous poet Neruda. After reading, Troisi was immediately enthusiastic about the book and bought the rights promised herself to make a film version. Later, he proposed to Radford to direct the shoot, but this time was the British filmmaker to waste time. Troisi managed to convince him with a little deception, telling him of their proposal the Director Giuseppe Tornatore. The screenplay was written by Radord, Furio Scarpelli and Troisi. The three gave themselves appointment in Los Angeles to finish it. Tana took advantage of his stay in America to move to Houston, in the Hospital where he had worked as a boy, for a checkup before the shooting. The response of the analysis took the actor by surprise: Tanabe learned by having to with an urgency to a new surgeon because both valves with titanium had deteriorated. During surgery surgeon Troisi had a heart attack, but doctors managed to keep him alive. The actor remained in hospital a month and a half, period where doctors advise as a solution had been better a transplant. Tang instead preferred to begin filming in the fall of 1993 in Sydney, then continued in Salina and ended in Procida. But the conditions were deteriorating day by day, Troisi during filming Massimo Troisi died in his sleep 12 hours after the end of filming, on 4 March 1994 in Ostia, in the House of his sister Annamaria.

Filmography

1981/ Start from three, directed by Massimo Troisi

1982/ Dead Troisi, live Troisi!, directed by Massimo Troisi

1982/ No thanks, coffee makes me nervous, directed by Lodovico Gasparini

1983/ Sorry I'm late, directed by Massimo Troisi

1983/ Ff. SS, that brought me to do over a Posillipo if you don't love me anymore, directed by Renzo Arbore

1989/ Splendor by Ettore Scola

1989/ What time is it? directed by Ettore Scola

1990/ Captain Fracassa's Journey, directed by Ettore Scola

1991/  I thought it was love instead it was a buggy.., directed by Massimo Troisi

1994/ The Postman, directed by Michael Radford and Massimo Troisi

 Director

 1981/ Start from three

1982/ Dead Troisi, Viva Troisi!

1983/ Sorry I'm late

1984/ We can do is cry, co-directed with Roberto Benigni

1987/  The ways of the Lord are over

1991/  I thought it was love instead it was a buggy.

1994/ The Postman, co – director, Michael Radford

 Screenwriter

1981/ Start from three, directed by Massimo Troisi

1982/ Dead Troisi, Viva Troisi!, directed by Massimo Troisi

1982/ No thanks, coffee, makes me nervous, directed by Lodovico Gasparini

1983/ Sorry I'm late, directed by Massimo Troisi

1984/ We can do is cry, directed by Massimo Troisi and Roberto Benigni

1987/ The ways of the Lord are over, directed by Massimo Troisi

1991/ I thought it was love instead it was a buggy ..., directed by Massimo Troisi

1994/ The Postman, directed by Michael Radford and Massimo Troisi