SCORSESE EPIC SIGNALS ITALIAN RENAISSANCE
Tuesday, 25-Jan-2000

Scorsese epic signals Italian Renaissance

By Rory Carroll

Rome(GNS)-- Director Martin Scorsese, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and a fist full of dollars will
cross the Atlantic to film an epic which Italy hopes will rekindle the glamour, glory and clout of
what used to be the Hollywood on the Tiber.

Cinecitta, a vast Mussolini-built studio in Rome that became Europe’s film capital on the back of
classics such as Cleopatra, Ben Hur and La Dolce Vita, has clinched a deal which could herald a
second golden age.

Veteran set designers who seemed consigned to film folklore are preparing to recreate miles of
1840-era New York slums in a giant construction project the scale of which has not been seen
since Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor trekked through an artificial Nile valley for Cleopatra.

Scorsese will direct and heart-throb DiCaprio will star in the $85M epic, The Gangs of New
York, which will also star William Dafoe.

It will be an injection of star power, cash and confidence that the recovering Italian film industry
hopes will fuel a renaissance.

The privatization of Cinecitta and the amending of tax laws that chased away film-makers in the
past have coincided with Hollywood’s quest for cheap, foreign locations.

Dante Ferretti, the Oscar-nominated cinematographer said that pre-production will start in March
and the 22-week shoot will start in June.

Conceived by the dictator, Benito Mussolini, as a vehicle for fascist propaganda, Cinecitta was
built in 475 days, inaugurated in 1937 and reborn after the war as the cradle of Europe’s best
talent.

“It is wonderful news. This could be the turning point not just for Cinecitta but for Italian
cinema,” said Tony Villani, film professor at the American University of Rome. “By coming here,
Scorsese has sent out a message that Italy is okay again.”

The 243-hectare(600-acre) site off Via Tuscolana, east of Rome’s Appian Way, nurtured
directors and producers such as Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Carlo Ponti and Dino De
Lauentis. But unfavourable tax and employment laws punctured the bubble and Cinecitta shrunk
to 12 hectares(30 acres) as it descended into three decades of spaghetti westerns, television films
and soap operas.

However, the centre-left government, elected in 1996, declared itself a friend of film and
introduced reforms, which are now reaping benefits. “Italian film-making is beginning to pick-up.
This has come at just the right time,” said Prof. Villani.

Sylvester Stallone’s decision to film sequences of the thriller Daylight in Rome emboldened
others, said Antonio More, a studio manager.

But, despite the fillip, Hollywood’s famed attention to detail has not neglected that ingredient of
all recent blockbusters: the lawsuit. Alberto Grimaldi, an Italian impressario, has filed for $10M
in damages against Universal Studios and Disney for allegedly stealing his idea.


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