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Raffaele Viviani

Italian postcard. No. 385. Raffaele Viviani, "Il sorriso" [The Smile].

Raffaele Viviani, born Raffaele Viviano (Castellammare di Stabia, January 10, 1888 - Naples, March 22, 1950), was an Italian actor, playwright, composer, poet and translator. He belongs to the school of realism in Italian literature; his works evoke the lives of the poor of his time in Naples as well as petty crime and prostitution.

Raffaele Viviani appeared on the scene at the age of four. Already at the age of 20 he gained a strong national reputation as an actor and playwright. During his career, he also played abroad: Budapest, Paris, Tripoli and throughout South America. His plays are in the "anti-Pirandello" style, less concerned with people's psychology than the life they lead. Considered the best work of Viviani is L'ultimo scugnizzo (The Last Urchin, 1931), the "scugnizzo" being the child of the Neapolitan street. Viviani also composed songs and stage music for many of his earlier works. One of his well-known melodramas is Via Toledo di notte (Via Toledo at night), a 1918 play that even incorporated American cakewalk and ragtime rhythms to tell the story of the “street people” of via Toledo, the most famous street in Naples. Critics have called Viviani a "self-taught realist," meaning that he acquired his skills through personal rather than academic experience.

A few years ago, the lost film with Viviani, Un amore selvaggio (1912), also with Viviani's sister Luisa Viviani and Giovanni Grasso, was traced at the Dutch Eye Filmmuseum, restored and performed again e.g. at the 2011 Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, and at the 2018 Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna. Italian Wikipedia dates the film as 1908 and claims Viviani may have acted also in two hitherto lost films also from 1908, L'accusato (Cines, 1908), based on a song by Viviani. and La catena d'oro (Cines, 1908), although these films are not mentioned in the reference books of Bernardini and Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano. Bernardini/Martinelli do mention La catena d'oro but as a Cines film from 1912. In 1912 Viviani also acted at Cines in a third film, Testa per testa, though Italian Wikipedia claims this was a production by the Neapolitan firm Partenope Film. L'accusato is not indicated in Bernardini/Martinelli, neither for 1908 nor for the later years, 1909-1913. So, it is rather probable that Viviani acted in three films made in 1912 at Cines and a fourth is doubtful if even made, but more solid research is necessary.

In these early films Viviani often co-acted with his sister Luisa, with whom he also often performed together on stage. In the sound era Viviani acted in two films: La tavola dei poveri (Alessandro Blasetti, 1932) based on an idea and co-scripted by Viviani, and L'ultimo scugnizzo (Gennaro Righelli, 1932) after an idea by Viviani. The first film still exists. Valentina Venturini writes in the Dizionario Treccani that in 1942 Luchino Visconti planned to direct an adaptation of Viviani's Pescatori, scripted by Gianni Puccini, Gino Doria, and Viviani's brother Vittorio, and with Raffaele in the lead. The project stranded, though, but in 1946 Gianni Franciolini filmed it as Notte di tempesta, with new screenwriters and with Fosco Giachetti in the lead. However, the Visconti project may be just a rumor, as no document at the Visconti Archive proves this suggestion.

Sources: IMDb, Italian and French Wikipedia, Aldo Bernardini/ Vittorio Martinelli, Il cinema muto italiano, vol. 1905-1909, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1913, www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/raffaele-viviani_%28Dizionar...

Taken on: September 11, 2016

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