Sophia Loren: A Cinematic Body of Work

PostED ON 13.10.2015 AT 11:10AM

Last September, at age 81, she posed as a muse for an Italian couture and cosmetics brand, for a new lipstick that bears her name. In the image, we notice those eyes that sparkle as if to hide a melancholy glow, that mouth that seems to be drawn into model-perfect lips, the grace of the wrists and the interlaced long fingers. It is well known that plastic surgery and photo editing software can do wonders, but still: no matter what the malicious "tabloids" claim, Sophia Loren remains an icon, the epitome of Italian beauty. And the homage of the Lumière festival with Two Women (1961) by Vittorio de Sica, based on the novel by Moravia, will remind us all of how this great actress knew how to use her luminous and voluptuous physique to her cinematic advantage.

This role, which earned her the Best Actress Award at Cannes as well as the Academy Award for Best Actress (the first awarded to an actor for a non English-speaking film), is also the film for which she was the least primed.. Her announcement that she will star years later in A Special Day (1977) by Ettore Scola, which she will describe the best role of his career. Perhaps because both are close to what she experienced as child in Pozzuoli, near Naples, growing up poor during the war. Unadorned, in a grocer's apron or in a house dress, Sophia Loren always remains a credible woman of the people.

She claimed she found her "nose too long, her mouth too big for her small face," yet has always inspired with awe. Sofia Villani Scicolone, her real name, was fifteen when she won the title of "princess of the sea" during a beauty contest. She was seventeen when the jury of Miss Italy gave her an honorable mention, creating a special prize for her elegance. The jury was right: from her first screen roles (under her real name or under Sophja Lazzaro between 1950 and 1953, and then under the pseudonym Loren Woman of the Red Sea and the ultra kitsch Aida, directed by Clemente Fracassi based on Verdi's opera), she has never ceased to radiate, and for many other reasons other than just her lovely figure that was sometimes exposed during her first appearances. The era will put her in perpetual rivalry with Gina Lollobrigida in terms of erotic provocation, but their respective filmographies do not have much in common in terms of quality.

We have often spoken of the physical presence of certain actors like Marlon Brando (with whom she gave a masterful performance directed by Chaplin in A Countess from Hong Kong in 1967) or that of De Niro, his ability to lend his entire physique to the characters. But it should also be noted that Sophia Loren was anything but a figurehead with a pretty face. Always with the same class and the same intelligence, she knew to carnally embody with an impressive nature, the sense of the comic or the tragic. From the studios of Cinecittà to those of Hollywood, in dramas, comedies, musical films, shot alongside countless American, French or Italian stars (Mastroianni, above all, with whom she has shared a dozen feature films), whether she plays a commoner from Naples, a pizza vendor, or a lady of high society, her performances reach well beyond the aesthetic beauty of her very Mediterranean sensuality.

Pierre Sorgue