Stefano Accorsi has a birthday. Let’s retrace his career by isolating the five most iconic roles for which he lent himself on the big screen.
On March 2, 2023, the Bolognese actor Stephen Accorsi blows out fifty-three candles. Throughout her career she has had the opportunity to collaborate with great authors of the Italian scene (such as Pupi Avati, Nanni Moretti or Daniele Luchetti) and interpret unforgettable roles. We all remember him also for his debuts away from the big screen but decidedly iconic (such as the appearance in the video clip of A love songa song by 883, or in the TV commercial for Maxibon ice cream).
Stefano Accorsi has always lent himself to projects of different genres without sparing himself, passing from comedies to sentimental dramas, working both in authorial cinema and in the more commercial and mainstream one. They are all movies (or television series, as in the case of 1992) who manage to highlight a multifaceted talent and which often deserve to be brought back to the minds and eyes of the beholder. We therefore decided to offer (remotely) our very personal birthday wishes to the interpreter, giving advice five jobs (proposed in chronological order) which we believe are among the most successful and most iconic of his filmography.
1. Radiofrequency (1998)
The singer-songwriter’s debut feature film Luciano Ligabue unexpectedly becomes a small generational cult. Stefano Accorsi plays the protagonist and the role will not only definitively consecrate his career by opening it to new horizons, but will also earn him the David di Donatello as best leading actor. We are in the Emilian province at the end of the seventies. Free radios proliferate more and more and become the refuge for a generation of young people who feel under-represented in the society of the time and feel the need to try to communicate with someone, remotely, in the silence of a broadcasting studio. The protagonist played by Stefano Accorsi perfectly embodies these characteristics and feels an unease that is decidedly common to people who share his generation, without however being able to completely overcome it. The actor is very good at restoring all these nuances in a character that seems perfectly tailor-made for him. Full of unforgettable songs and prestigious cameos (first of all those by Francesco Guccini), radiofrequency returns without filters the Italian province of the seventies, with all its limitations and its light-heartedness, a non-place from which to flee but inevitably then return. Luciano Ligabue will direct Stefano Accorsi again in a new 2018 film titled Made in Italy.
Hypersomnia, the review: Stefano Accorsi in a “not very Italian” dystopian thriller film
2. The Last Kiss (2001)
Without a shadow of a doubt, it is the most famous and popular film among those directed by Gabriel Muccino. The last Kiss consecrates the career of the director and consolidates the iconic success of Stefano Accorsi. The film was a success of the past, remaining in theaters for almost six months and prompting Hollywood to plan a remake in 2006. The style is that of the most typical Muccino films, with relationships taken to the extreme and the camera follows at breakneck speed the marital crises of the characters. Stefano Accorsi plays a thirty year old crushed by the sense of responsibility linked to the pregnancy of his partner (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and the overwhelming passion which instead will call him into the arms of the younger Francesca (Martina Stella). On the one hand, family stability, on the other eternal adolescence. On the one hand the impositions dictated by an inevitable growth, on the other the fear of losing the freedom and drive of the younger and fresher years. Many have seen in the Accorsi of The last Kiss a kind of continuation of the Accorsi di radiofrequency. In fact, albeit with all due proportions and distances, the two films are not that far apart, but above all they demonstrate how the actor is perfectly at ease and able to portray the fears and emotions of his generation on the screen. In 2010, Muccino and Accorsi collaborated again on the sequel to the film, titled kiss Me againwhile in 2018 it will be the turn of another unrelated but equally successful project, Everyone at home is fine.
All well at home, the actors: “Only Gabriele Muccino could have directed the series”
3. The ignorant fairies (2001)
Also in 2001, Accorsi achieved fame and the peak of his career also with regard to auteur cinema. You make them ignorant is probably the most successful and popular title among those directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Here, Accorsi plays Michele, a homosexual who confronts the widow of his lover. The theme is certainly hot and slippery. In fact, the film fails to avoid all the traps that the project presents beforehand, however the acting of the two protagonists (Stefano Accorsi and Margherita Buy) is destined to remain etched in the collective memory. According to many of the critics, among other things, it is the best career performance for the Bolognese actor. Yet the great added value of this work is precisely the natural and spontaneous alchemy that is created with Buy. The two are really believable and genuine in all their fragility and in all their emotions. Accorsi will return to work with Ferzan Özpetek also in Saturn vs (2007) e The goddess of luck (2019), yet it will remain right You make them ignorant the most successful and successful film of their collaboration.
4. Crime Novel (2005)
The collaboration between Michael Placido and Stefano Accorsi begins in 2002 with the film A journey called love and continues in 2004 with Wherever you are. However, the most successful and iconic piece will be the third (and so far last) dating back to 2005: Criminal novel. Based on the best seller by Giancarlo De Cataldo, the film is the fictional reconstruction of the Italian chronicle linked to the years of lead and, more specifically, to the Magliana gang. The film, strong in a choral setting, includes an exceptional cast among which the names of Pierfrancesco Favino, Kim Rossi Stuart, Claudio Santamaria, Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Jasmine Trinca. Stefano Accorsi plays Commissioner Nicola Scialoja, the man in charge of hunting down the criminal organization and who will have to compromise on the edge of legality to try to restore order and justice. His is a “classic” detective all lights and shadows, internally fought by a desire for revenge that will have to collide with the legality of his work. The test is useful for the actor to try to distance himself a bit from the more dramatic and sentimental roles that had characterized his career up to now and try to come to terms with nuances of a different kind. Criminal novel it is a decidedly ambitious project with certainly more international than Italian aims. In fact, the success was not slow in appearing, both in our peninsula and abroad, and the film would then be further developed into an equally successful television series of the same name.
5. Fast as the Wind (2016)
Directed by Matthew Oak and freely inspired by the life of the rally driver Carlo Capone, Fast as the wind is remembered by critics as one of the most interesting and promising recent Italian projects. Accorsi plays Loris, a former drug-addicted pilot who for a long series of reasons will find himself coaching his sister Giulia, played by the then newcomer Matilda De Angelis. The film intertwines a family drama with the most typical sporting dynamics of international cinema. The alchemy between the two performers is certainly the added value of a project that is already very solid in itself but which sees in the fraternal relationship between Loris and Giulia a sort of passing of the baton perfectly returned by the actor’s legacy that Accorsi seems to want to grant to De Angelis.
From Swift as the Wind to Lidia Poët’s The Law: Matilda De Angelis and the Profession of Equality
