Risi, Nelo

(1920-)

   Poet, screenwriter, director. Brother of director Dino Risi and cinematographer Fernando Risi, Nelo Risi trained as a doctor but never practiced medicine, preferring instead both literature—he came to be widely regarded as one of the leading poets in postwar Italy—and, like his brothers, the cinema.

   After some particularly harrowing experiences during World War II, and while beginning to publish his first collections of poetry in the immediate postwar period, Risi assisted John Ferno and Richard Leacock to make their series of human-geography documentaries, filmed in several European countries and in the African Sahara. Returning to Italy in the mid-1950s, he embarked on his own series of documentaries, among them the strongly antifascist Il delitto Matteotti (The Assassination of Matteotti, 1956) and I fratelli Rosselli (The Rosselli Brothers, 1959). In 1961 he directed one of the episodes of Cesare Zavattini'scompilation film Le italiane a I'amore (Latin Lovers, 1962), which was followed by La strada piu lunga (The Longest Road, 1965), a television film adaptation of a Resistance novel by Davide Lajolo. His first full-length feature for the big screen was Andremo in citta (We'll Go to the City, 1966), a moving Holocaust narrative set and filmed in Yugoslavia. This was soon followed by what many regard as Risi's finest film, Diario di una schizofrenica (Diary of a Schizophrenic Girl, 1968), which was screened at the Venice Festival to wide acclaim. While consolidating his reputation as one of Italy's finest poets, Risi continued to make a number of well-received feature films, including Ondata di calore (Dead of Summer, 1970); Una stagione all'inferno (A Season in Hell, 1971), a fictional biography of the extraordinary French poet Arthur Rimbaud; and La colonna infame (The Infamous Column, 1973), an adaptation of the well-known historical chronicle by Alessandro Manzoni.

   In the following years Risi tended to concentrate on his poetry, but he also continued to make a number of fine documentaries for television, among which was Venezia tra oriente o occidente (Venice between East and West, 1987). After a hiatus of some 15 years, he returned to directing for the big screen with Un amore di donna (Love of a Woman, 1988), which, however, was generally panned for its sentimentality. His reputation as a filmmaker was slightly restored by the last film he made for television, the mafia melodrama Per odio, per amore (For Hatred, For Love, 1990).