The Great War

The Great War (1959)

La grande guerra

The great battle spectacle of our time!

Italy, 1916. Oreste Jacovacci and Giovanni Busacca are called, as all the Italian youths, to serve the army in the WWI. They both try in every way to avoid serving the army.

Date of release
1959-10-28
TMDB
8.1 / 10 (380)
Runtime
2h 17m
Genres
Comedy, War, Drama
Director
Mario Monicelli

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 1 · Nominations: 2. Including: Golden Lion

The Great War is a 1959 Italian comedy-drama war film directed by Mario Monicelli. It tells the story of an odd couple of army buddies in World War I; the movie, while played on a comedic register, does not hide from the viewer the horrors and grimness of trench warfare. Starring Alberto Sordi and Vittorio Gassman and produced by Dino De Laurentiis, the film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Its crew also included Danilo Donati (costumes) and Mario Garbuglia.

Production

The film was born out of an idea by Luciano Vincenzoni, influenced by "Two friends", a story by Guy de Maupassant. Initially thought of as a star vehicle just for Gassman, it was the producer De Laurentiis who decided to add another character, played by Sordi. The screenplay combined characters and situations from two famous books – "A Year on the Plateau" by Emilio Lussu and "Con me e con gli alpini" by Piero Jahier.

Lussu and Jahier are considered as the film's two screenwriters. In particular I turned to Lussu, saying that he deserved to be rewarded for the borrowings from his book, but (perhaps because he was convinced Italian comedy was rubbish) he told me that he would have nothing to do with it and we could realise the film just as we liked

The journalist and writer Carlo Salsa, who had actually fought in these areas in the First World War, was a script consultant, helping with the story, dialogue and background, all particularly vivid and original. The scenes were mostly shot in the province of Udine, at Gemona del Friuli, near Venzone, at Sella Sant'Agnese, in the fort at Palmanova and in the Nespoledo district of Lestizza from 25 May to mid-June 1959.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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