Lina Wertmüller, a visionary Italian filmmaker who made history as the first woman to be nominated for a best-director Oscar, has died, the Italian Culture Ministry and La Repubblica reported on Thursday. As reported by Variety, a friend of Wertmüller’s told the Italian press that she died “peacefully at home, next to her daughter and loved ones.” She was 93.
Born Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spañol von Braueich in Rome on August 14, 1928, Wertmüller was purported to have been expelled from more than a dozen Catholic schools throughout her childhood. She eventually earned a teaching certificate, and then enrolled in both law school and the Stanislavskian drama academy in Rome according to The New York Times. Wertmüller would cultivate her love of theater by working as a puppeteer, actor, and stage manager.
But it was an introduction to famed filmmaker Federico Fellini, who hired her as an assistant director on his seminal 8 ½ (1963) that would catalyze Wertmüller’s film career. “I met Fellini… and from then on, everything changed,” she told Variety in 2018. “I was able to see a way of making movies that stayed inside me forever.” Wertmüller began directing in the 1960s, although her breakout film would arrive with The Seduction of Mimi (1972), followed by Swept Away (1974).
Seven Beauties, Wertmüller’s 1975 World War II dramedy, earned her Academy Award nominations for writing and directing—making her the first woman nominated in the latter category. The film also earned nods for best foreign language film and best actor for Giancarlo Giannini. Although Wertmüller didn’t win, she was presented with an honorary Oscar in 2019, alongside David Lynch, Wes Studi, and Geena Davis. “She would like to change the Oscar to a feminine name,” Isabella Rossellini said, translating Wertmüller’s acceptance speech. “She would like to call it ‘Anna.’ Women in the room, please scream, ‘We want Anna, a female Oscar!’”
Wertmüller is one of only seven women to have received a best-director nomination in the Oscars’ nearly 100-year history. She’s joined by Jane Campion for The Piano, Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation, Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (the first woman to win the award), Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird, Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman, and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland (the second woman to win).
“It was the media reaction that made me realize how significant my nomination was,” Wertmüller said in 2018. “Since I was in the U.S., I was flooded with interview requests from TV networks and newspapers. Someone told me that news reports were trumpeting the nomination as though it were a historic event. Actually, in hindsight, it was, especially for women all over the world. To this day I get thank-you letters from directors who say they have been inspired by my experience.”
After her record-breaking nominations, Wertmüller signed a four-picture deal with Warner Bros., which was terminated after the critical and box office failure of her English-language debut, A Night Full of Rain. “I have to be honest: I was somewhat relieved,” she told Variety of the canceled contract. “In America, I didn’t feel free to work the way I was used to, with the same creative freedom, like being able to change a line in the script shortly before shooting, which has made Italian cinema great.” She added, “It’s not by chance that Fellini never agreed to work in America.”
Wertmüller’s later works include Blood Feud, A Joke of Destiny, Softly…Softly, and Crystal or Ash, Fire or Wind, as Long as It’s Love. She was married to set designer Enrico Job until his death in 2008 and is survived by their daughter, Maria Zulima Job.
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