Monicelli's dramatic last scene

"Farewell to the master of Italian comedy", headlines La Stampa. Mario Monicelli, director of La Grande Guerra (The Great War - 1958) and I Soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street - 1959), killed himself by jumping from the 5th floor of a hospital in Rome. He was 95 and suffering from a terminal cancer. "In his final months, he embraced the protests against cuts to culture, encouraged young people to rebel for a better future, complained that the cinema of today could not talk about Italy as it is, but he couldn’t see a future for himself,” writes La Stampa. In a country where euthanasia is still taboo, his death was a final proclamation of freedom in an anarchic life. "He wanted to decide everything all by himself right to the end, as in his movies", commented critic Paolo Mereghetti to Corriere della Sera.