La Storia Siamo Noi (Rai Doc Series)

Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI (1 September 1922 – 29 June 2000) popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian actor, director, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the greatest Italian actors, whose career includes both important productions as well as dozens of divertissements. Gassman was born in Genoa to a German father, Heinrich Gassmann (an engineer from Karlsruhe), and an Italian Jewish mother, Luisa Ambron, born in Pisa. While still very young, he moved to Rome, where he studied at the Silvio D'Amico National Academy of Dramatic Arts. Gassman's stage debut was in Milan, in 1942, with Alda Borelli in Niccodemi's La Nemica. He then moved to Rome and acted at the Teatro Eliseo joining Tino Carraro and Ernesto Calindri in a stage company that remained famous for some time; with them he acted in a range of plays from bourgeois comedy to sophisticated intellectual theatre. In 1946, he made his film debut in Preludio d'amore, while only one year later he appeared in five films. In 1948, he played in Bitter Rice. It was with Luchino Visconti's company that Gassman achieved his mature successes, together with Paolo Stoppa, Rina Morelli and Paola Borboni. He played Stanley Kowalski in Tennessee Williams' Un tram che si chiama desiderio (A Streetcar Named Desire), as well as in Come vi piace (As You Like It) by Shakespeare and Oreste (by Vittorio Alfieri). He joined the Teatro Nazionale with Tommaso Salvini, Massimo Girotti, Arnoldo Foà to create a successful Peer Gynt (by Henrik Ibsen). With Luigi Squarzina in 1952 he co-founded and co-directed the Teatro d'Arte Italiano, producing the first complete version of Hamlet in Italy, followed by rare works such as Seneca's Thyestes and Aeschylus's The Persians. In 1956, Gassman played the title role in a production of Othello. He was so well received by his acting in the television series entitled Il Mattatore (Spotlight Chaser) that "Il Mattatore" became the nickname that accompanied him for the rest of his life. Gassman's debut in the commedia all'italiana genre was rather accidental, in Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). The Istituto Italiano di Cultura in London describes the film as "considered among the masterpieces of Italian cinema … The careers of both Gassman and Mastroianni were considerably helped by the success of the film, Gassman in particular, since before this point he was not deemed suitable for comedic roles." Subsequent acclaimed films featuring Gassman include: The Easy Life (1962), The Great War (1962), I mostri (1963), For Love and Gold (1966), Scent of a Woman (1974) and We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974). His productions have included many of the famous authors and playwrights of the 20th century, with repeated returns to the classics of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and the Greek tragicians. He also founded a theatre school in Florence (Bottega Teatrale di Firenze), which educated many of the more talented actors of the current generation of Italian thespians. In cinema, he worked frequently both in Italy and abroad. He met and fell in love with American actress Shelley Winters while she was touring Europe with fiancé Farley Granger. When Winters was forced to return to Hollywood to fulfil contractual obligations, he followed her there and married her. With his natural charisma and his fluency in English, he scored a number of roles in Hollywood, including Rhapsody with Elizabeth Taylor and The Glass Wall before returning to Italy and the theatre. In the 1990s he took part in the popular Italian Rai 3 TV show Tunnel in which he very formally and "seriously"' recited documents such as utility bills, yellow pages and similar trivial texts, such as washing instructions for a wool sweater or cookies ingredients. He rendered them with the same professional skill that made him famous while reciting Dante's Divine Comedy. On 29 June 2000, Gassman died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Rome at the age of 77. He was buried at Campo Verano.

The FIAT Nuova 500, also known as just Fiat 500, is a super-utility car from the Turin-based manufacturer, produced from July 1957 to August 1975 and, in the Giardiniera version, until 1977. As soon as it went on sale, the "600" model was a huge success, thanks in part to the widespread optimism generated by the economic miracle and the installment system developed by SAVA. However, large segments of the Italian population still lacked the financial means to purchase a car, continuing to prefer motorcycles or the newly developed microcars like the ISO Isetta. With this huge potential customer base in mind, Vittorio Valletta had commissioned Dante Giacosa to create, at the same time as the "600", a super-utility car whose purchase, use and maintenance costs would be compatible with the modest budgets of working-class families. The idea to work on came unexpectedly from Hans Peter Bauhof, a young German employee at Deutsche-Fiat in Weinsberg who, in 1953, sent the Turin-based company the drawings of a two-seater microcar, inspired in shape by the famous Beetle, powered by a two-stroke engine positioned at the rear. Giacosa examined Bauhof's design and immediately rejected the engine. However, he liked the body design, and the technical layout was ideal for achieving a low production cost. The first prototypes were developed, achieving an excellent drag coefficient (Cd) of 0.38, and at the same time, design for the engine began. However, the time required for the design and development of the new engine was incompatible with the company's urgency to launch the "600" model, which is why the operation was somewhat delayed. Once the company's immediate needs had been met, Giacosa was finally able to calmly dedicate himself to the engine of the "Nuova 500". On July 1, 1957, the "Nuova 500" was previewed to Prime Minister Adone Zoli in the gardens of the Viminale. On July 2, the car was unveiled at the Sporting Club in Turin, a traditional setting where FIAT officially announced its new models at the time. Among the many who wanted to test drive the "Nuova 500" was Formula 1 champion Nino Farina. The name Nuova 500 was chosen to underline its lineage and similarity to the 500 "Topolino", as the lowest-cost car in the FIAT range, set at 490,000 lire, equal to approximately 13 of a worker's salaries. The 500 boom began, culminating in the 1960s with the D and F versions. The small car was popular, sales rose rapidly, and it became a social phenomenon on par with the 600, or perhaps even more so. Some people bought it because they couldn't afford anything else, and others bought it because they could afford everything. In 1959, Dante Giacosa received a Compasso d'Oro industrial design prize for the Fiat 500. This marked the first time a Compasso d’Oro was awarded to an automotive manufacturer.

Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari (18 February 1898 – 14 August 1988) was an Italian racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of Scuderia Ferrari in Grand Prix motor racing, and subsequently of the Ferrari automobile marque. Under his leadership in Formula One, Ferrari won nine World Drivers' Championships and eight World Constructors' Championships during his lifetime. The founder of the world's most prestigious car factory was always very attached to his city, where he lived right up until his death in 1988. His childhood dream came true and he became a racing driver, first privately and then as a member of the Alfa Romeo team. He was interested in everything: racing, organisation, relationships with the suppliers. His destiny of car maker was already clear. Ferrari decided to retire from competition after the birth of his first child: running the racing section of Alfa Romeo, he set up the Scuderia Ferrari in Modena. In 1939 Ferrari started up his own car building business with the company Auto Avio Costruzioni, which took on the name Ferrari after the Second World War. The factory was built in Maranello, 15 Km from Modena. It was in 1947 that a Ferrari (Model 125) made its first appearance on a racing track. At its second, in Rome, the driver Franco Cortese drove his Ferrari to its first victory. The rest belongs to history: nine world titles in the Formula 1 Championship, fourteen in the Prototype Sport World Championship and more than five thousand victories in top-class racing competitions. These victories, the splendid car models and the figure of Enzo Ferrari himself have become a legend which has conquered the world. He was widely known as il Commendatore or il Drake, a nickname given by British opponents in reference to the English privateer Francis Drake, due to Ferrari's demonstrated ability and determination in achieving significant sports results with his small company. In his final years, he was often referred to as l'Ingegnere ("the Engineer"), il Grande Vecchio ("the Grand Old Man"), il Cavaliere ("the Knight"), il Mago ("the Wizard"), and il Patriarca ("the Patriarch").

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1890 – 30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. Pasternak was the author of Doctor Zhivago (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War. Doctor Zhivago was rejected for publication in the USSR, but the manuscript was smuggled to Italy and was first published by Feltrinelli in 1957 (retranslated in 2007). A book that quickly became an international publishing sensation, launching the publishing house and inspiring a highly successful film. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize. In 1989, Pasternak's son Yevgeny finally accepted the award on his father's behalf. Doctor Zhivago has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003. Boris Pasternak died of lung cancer in his dacha in Peredelkino on the evening of 30 May 1960.

Nicoletta Strambelli (born 9 April 1948), known professionally as Patty Pravo, is an Italian singer. She debuted in 1966 and remained most successful commercially for the rest of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Having suffered a decline in popularity in the following decade, she experienced a career revival in mid-late 1990s and reinstated her position on Italian music charts. Her most popular songs include "La bambola" (1968), "Pazza idea" (1973), "Pensiero stupendo" (1978), and "...E dimmi che non vuoi morire" (1997). She scored fourteen top 10 albums (including three number ones) and twelve top 10 singles (including two number ones) in her native Italy. Pravo participated at the Sanremo Music Festival ten times, most recently in 2019, and has won three critics' awards. At the age of seventeen, she moved to Rome where she began her career dancing and singing at the newly opened Piper Club, which earned her the nickname "la ragazza del Piper" ("The Piper Girl"). There is a number of versions as to the origins of her stage name, but most likely, "Patty" came from names of English girls that the singer was dining with on one occasion, and "Pravo" was inspired by the expression "anime prave" ("wicked souls") from Dante Alghieri's Divine Comedy. In 1968, she released what would become one of her signature songs, "La bambola" ("The Doll"). It was a number 1 hit in Italy for nine consecutive weeks, and also charted internationally in Europe and South America. The single sold a million copies within months and was later awarded a gold disc. Pravo found success in France, where she was dubbed "Italian Édith Piaf" for her interpretation of "Non, je ne regrette rien". In 1973, the singer reunited with her former label RCA and released what would become one of the biggest hits of her career, the ballad "Pazza idea" ("Crazy Idea"). It spent two months atop the Italian singles chart, staying consecutively in the top 5 for over four months, eventually selling in over 1,5 million copies. The song's parent album, also titled Pazza idea, was a number 1 on the Italian sales chart six weeks in a row. At the end of 1977, Pravo signed with RCA for the third time, and the following year released the single "Pensiero stupendo" ("Wonderful Thought"). It became one of her biggest hits, reaching no. 2 in the Italian chart and staying in the top 5 for nine consecutive weeks. Following the hostility of the Italian press, and her disappointment in Italian music scene, Pravo moved to the United States in the early 80s. Her 1984 single "Per una bambola" ("For a Doll") won the critics' award at the Sanremo Festival and was a top 20 chart success. Pravo celebrated the 30th anniversary of her musical debut in 1996 and embarked on a greatest hits tour. In 1997, the singer once again participated in the Sanremo Festival. This time it was a triumph and the ballad "...E dimmi che non vuoi morire" ("...And Tell Me You Don't Want to Die") won the Mia Martini critics' award in addition to placing 8th in the voting contest. It then entered the Italian sales chart at no. 2, turning out not only Patty's biggest hit in nearly 20 years, but also one of her most popular songs ever. The success of the song sparked a renewed interest in her music.

Ornella Vanoni OMRI (Order of Merit of the Italian Republic,) born 22 September 1934, is an Italian singer. She is one of the longest-standing Italian artists, having started performing in 1956. She has released about 112 works between LP, EPs and greatest hits albums, and is considered one of the most popular interpreters of Italian pop music. During her long career she has sold over 65 million records. Vanoni started her artistic career in 1960 as a theatre actress. She mostly performed in Bertolt Brecht works, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler at his Piccolo Teatro in Milan. At the same time, she started a music career. The folklore and popular songs she explored in her early records, especially the ones about the criminal underworld in Milan (Canzoni della Mala), resulted in her receiving the nickname cantante della mala ("Underworld Singer") for singing Milanese dialect songs on that genre. The inclusion of her song "L'Appuntamento" (1970) in the soundtrack of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve in 2004 sparked a worldwide renewal of interest in her music. In addition to her music career, Ornella Vanoni was active in other creative fields, starring in stage and TV shows, movies.

Paolo Emanuele Borsellino (19 January 1940 – 19 July 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 19 July 1992, Borsellino was killed by a car bomb in Via D'Amelio, near his mother's house in Palermo. Neither Borsellino nor Falcone had intended to get involved in the struggle against the Mafia. They were assigned cases involving the Mafia that continued to expand and became disturbed by what they discovered. They saw colleagues murdered fighting the Mafia and it became increasingly impossible to turn back. One of his accomplishments was the arrest of six Mafia members in 1980, including Leoluca Bagarella, the brother-in-law of Mafia boss Salvatore Riina. His close co-investigator, Carabiniere captain Emanuele Basile, was murdered by the Mafia the same year. Borsellino was assigned to investigate the murder and became a special target when he signed the arrest warrant for Francesco Madonia on a charge of ordering the murder of Basile. He was assigned police protection. He became part of Palermo's Antimafia Pool, created by Chinnici. The Antimafia pool was a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together sharing information to diffuse responsibility and to prevent one person from becoming the sole institutional memory and solitary target. The group consisted of Falcone, Borsellino, Giuseppe Di Lello and Leonardo Guarnotta. In 1983, Rocco Chinnici was killed by a bomb in his car. His place in the Antimafia Pool was taken by Antonino Caponnetto. The group pooled together several investigations into the Mafia, which would result in the Maxi Trial against the Mafia starting in February 1986 and which lasted until December 1987. A total of 475 mafiosi were indicted for a multitude of crimes relating to Mafia activities. Most were convicted and, to the surprise of many, the convictions were upheld several years later in January 1992, after the final stage of appeal. The importance of the trial was that the existence of Cosa Nostra was finally judicially confirmed. In 1986, Borsellino became head of the Public Prosecution Office of Marsala, continuing his personal campaign against the Mafia bosses, in the most populated city of the province of Trapani. His links with Falcone, who remained in Palermo, allowed him to cover the entirety of Western Sicily for investigations. In 1987, after Caponnetto resigned due to illness, Borsellino was the protagonist of a great protest about the unsuccessful nomination of his friend Falcone as head of the Antimafia Pool. On 23 May 1992, Falcone, his wife and three police bodyguards were killed by a bomb planted under the highway outside of Palermo. Giovanni Brusca later claimed that 'boss of bosses' Salvatore Riina had told him that after the assassination of Falcone, there were indirect negotiations with the government. Former interior minister Nicola Mancino later said this was not true. In July 2012, Mancino was ordered to stand trial on charges of withholding evidence on 1992 talks between the Italian state and the Mafia and the killings of Falcone and Borsellino. Some prosecutors have theorized that Borsellino was killed because he had found out about the negotiations. On 17 July 1992, Borsellino went to Rome where he was told by Gaspare Mutolo, a Mafia member turned informer, of two allegedly corrupt officials: Bruno Contrada, former head of Palermo Flying Squad, now working for the secret service (SISDE), and anti-Mafia prosecutor Domenico Signorino. Borsellino considered Signorino a friend and was deeply troubled by the allegation. He was further disconcerted when the meeting was interrupted by a call from the Minister of the Interior, Nicola Mancino, requesting his immediate presence. Borsellino attended to discover that Contrada was there, and knew about the supposedly secret meeting with the informer. On 19 July 1992, Borsellino was killed by a car bomb in Via D'Amelio, near his mother's house in Palermo, less than two months after the death of his friend Falcone in the Capaci bombing. The bomb attack also claimed the lives of five police officers: Agostino Catalano, Walter Cosina, Emanuela Loi (the first Italian policewoman to be killed in the line of duty), Vincenzo Li Muli and Claudio Traina. Dozens of mafiosi were sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in Borsellino's murder.

Giovanni Falcone (18 May 1939 – 23 May 1992) was an Italian judge and prosecuting magistrate. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, Sicily, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Sicilian Mafia. After a long and distinguished career, culminating in the Maxi Trial in 1986–1987, on 23 May 1992, Falcone was assassinated by the Corleonesi Mafia in the Capaci bombing, on the A29 motorway near the town of Capaci. His life parallels that of his close friend Paolo Borsellino. They both spent their early years in the same neighbourhood in Palermo. Though many of their childhood friends grew up in an environment in which the Mafia had a strong presence, both men fought against organised crime as prosecuting magistrates. They were both killed in 1992, a few weeks apart. In recognition of their tireless effort and sacrifice during the anti-mafia trials, they were both awarded the Gold Medal for Civil Valor and were acknowledged as martyrs of the Catholic Church. They were also named as heroes of the last 60 years in the 13 November 2006 issue of Time. In the major crackdown against the Mafia following Falcone and Borsellino's deaths, Riina was arrested on 15 January 1993, and was serving a life sentence, until his death in 2017, for sanctioning the murders of both magistrates as well as many other crimes. Brusca, also known as lo scannacristiani (the people slaughterer), was convicted of Falcone's murder. He was one of Riina's associates and admitted to detonating the explosives. Dozens of mafiosi were sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in Falcone's murder.

Pier Paolo Pasolini (5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, writer, film director, actor and playwright. He is considered one of the defining public intellectuals in 20th-century Italian history, influential both as an artist and a political figure. He is known for directing The Gospel According to St. Matthew, the films from Trilogy of Life (The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights) and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. A controversial personality due to his straightforward style, Pasolini's legacy remains contentious. Openly gay while also a vocal advocate for heritage language revival, cultural conservatism, and Christian values in his youth, Pasolini became an avowed Marxist shortly after the end of World War II. He began voicing extremely harsh criticism of Italian petty bourgeoisie and what he saw as the Americanization, cultural degeneration, and greed-driven consumerism taking over Italian culture. As a filmmaker, Pasolini often juxtaposed socio-political polemics with an extremely graphic and critical examination of taboo sexual matters. A prominent protagonist of the Roman intellectual scene during the post-war era, Pasolini became an established and major figure in European literature and cinema. Pasolini's unsolved and extremely brutal abduction, torture, and murder at Ostia in November 1975 prompted an outcry in Italy, where it continues to be a matter of heated debate. The main source regarding Pasolini's views of the student movement is his poem "Il PCI ai giovani" ('The PCI to Young People'), written after the Battle of Valle Giulia. Addressing the students, he tells them that, unlike the international news media which has been reporting on them, he will not flatter them. He points out that they are the children of the bourgeoisie ('You have the faces of daddy's boys / I hate you like I hate your dads'), before stating 'When you and the policemen were throwing punches yesterday at Valle Giulia / I was sympathising with the policemen'. He explained that this sympathy was because the policemen were figli di poveri ('children of the poor'). The poem highlights the aspect of generational struggle within the bourgeoisie represented by the student movement: The 1968 revolt was seen by Pasolini as an internal, benign reform of the establishment in Italy, since the protesters were part of the petite bourgeoisie. The poem also implied a class hypocrisy on the part of the establishment towards the protesters, asking whether young workers would be treated similarly if they behaved in the same way: 'Occupy the universities / but say that the same idea comes / to young workers / So: Corriere della Sera and Stampa, Newsweek and Le Monde / will have so much care / in trying to understand their problems? / Will the police just get a bit of a fight / inside an occupied factory? / But above all, how could / a young worker be allowed to occupy a factory / without dying of hunger after three days?' Pasolini suggested that the police were the true proletariat, sent to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they could not understand, against pampered boys of their same age because they had not had the fortune of being able to study, referring to policemen as "sons of proletarian southerners, beaten up by arrogant daddy's boys". Pasolini's stance finds its roots in the belief that a Copernican change was taking place in Italian society and the world. Linked to that very idea, he was also an ardent critic of consumismo, i.e. consumerism, which he felt had rapidly destroyed Italian society from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. He described the coprophagia scenes in Salò as a comment on the processed food industry. That change is related to the loss of humanism and the expansion of productivity as central to the human condition, which he despised. He found that 'new culture' was degrading and vulgar. According to Pasolini scholar Simona Bondavalli, Pasolini's definition of neo-capitalism as a "new fascism" enforced uniform conformity without resorting to coercive means. As Pasolini put it, "No Fascist centralism succeeded in doing what the centralism of consumer culture did." A debate TV programme recorded in 1971, where he denounced censorship, was not actually aired until the day following his murder in November 1975. His opposition to the liberalization of abortion law made him unpopular on the left. Pasolini was murdered on 2 November 1975 at a beach in Ostia. Almost unrecognizable, Pasolini was savagely beaten and also run over several times with his own car. Multiple bones were broken and his testicles were crushed by what appeared to have been a metal bar. An autopsy revealed that his body had been partially burned with gasoline after his death. Pasolini's murder has never been sufficiently clarified.

Leonardo Sciascia (8 January 1921 – 20 November 1989) was an Italian writer, novelist, essayist, playwright, and politician. Some of his works have been made into films, including Porte Aperte (1990; Open Doors), Cadaveri Eccellenti (1976; Illustrious Corpses), Todo Modo (also 1976) and Il giorno della civetta (1968; The Day of the Owl). He is one of the greatest literary figures in the European literature of the 20th century. Sciascia was born in Racalmuto, Sicily, on 8 January 1921. In 1935, his family moved to Caltanissetta, where Sciascia studied under Vitaliano Brancati, who would become his model in writing and introduce him to French novelists. From Giuseppe Granata, future Communist member of the Italian Senate, Sciascia learned about the French Enlightenment and American literature. In 1948, his brother committed suicide, an event which profoundly impacted Sciascia. Sciascia's first work, Favole della dittatura (Fables of the Dictatorship), a satire on fascism in Italy, was published in 1950. This was followed in 1952 by La Sicilia, il suo cuore (Sicily, its Heart), his first and only poetry collection, illustrated by Emilio Greco. The following year Sciascia won the Premio Pirandello, awarded by the Sicilian Region, for his essay "Pirandello e il pirandellismo" ("Pirandello and Pirandellism"). In the autumn of 1957, he published Gli zii di Sicilia (Uncles of Sicily), which includes sharp views about themes such as the influence of the U.S. and of communism in the world, and the 19th century unification of Italy. After one year in Rome, Sciascia moved back to Caltanissetta, in Sicily. In 1961, he published Il giorno della civetta (The Day of the Owl), one of his most famous novels, about the Mafia, and in 1963, the historical novel Il consiglio d'Egitto (The Council of Egypt), set in 18th-century Palermo. After a series of essays, in 1965 he wrote the play L'onorevole (The Honorable), a denunciation of the complicities between government and the mafia. Another political mystery novel is 1966's A ciascuno il suo (To Each His Own). The following year Sciascia moved to Palermo. In 1969, he began a collaboration with Il Corriere della Sera. In 1971, Sciascia returned again to mystery with Il contesto (The Challenge), which inspired Francesco Rosi's movie Cadaveri eccellenti (1976; Illustrious Corpses). The novel created Polemics, due to its merciless portrait of Italian politics, as did his novel Todo modo (1974; One Way or Another), due to its description of Italy's Catholic clergy. At the 1975 communal elections in Palermo, Sciascia ran as an independent within the Italian Communist Party (PCI) slate and was elected to the city council. In the same year, he published La scomparsa di Majorana (The Disappearance of Majorana), dealing with the mysterious disappearance of scientist Ettore Majorana. In 1977, he resigned from PCI, due to his opposition to any dealing with the Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democratic party). Later, he would be elected to the Italian and European Parliament with the Radical Party. Sciascia's last works include the essay collection Cronachette (1985), the novels Porte aperte (1987; Open Doors) and Il cavaliere e la morte (1988; The Horseman and Death). He died on 20 November 1989 in Palermo.