Tonino Guerra

An Italian poet, writer, and prolific screenwriter, Tonino Guerra has worked with some of the world's most celebrated directors. A descendant of the neo-realist style, Guerra was influenced by the great Cesare Zavattini, the writer of classics "The Bicycle Thief" and "Umberto." His first coup was his collaboration with director Michelangelo Antonioni on the inscrutable 1960 classic "L'avventura," and they teamed up again for the drama "La Notte." He was one of several writers on the crime caper film "The Assassin," and he found another critical success with "Red Desert," his fourth collaboration with Antonioni, in addition to their 1966 thriller "Blow-Up." His screenplay for the Marcello Mastroianni comedy "Casanova 70" earned him one of three Oscar nominations and established him in the top tier of his profession. After Antonioni's somewhat baffling "Zabriskie Point," he worked with the great Federico Fellini to produce the 1973 classic "Amarcord," for which he also received an Oscar nomination. Guerra also worked with Russian Andrei Tarkovsky on the drama "Nostalghia" and co-wrote "Landscape in the Mist," a lyrical 1988 effort by Theo Angelopoulos. He also worked with the Greek director on the 1998 film "Eternity and a Day," a heartwarming drama that won the Golden Palm Award at Cannes. In 2008, a documentary about his cinematic career, "Tonino Guerra: a Poet in the Movies," was released, and he died four years after this celebration of his work.