One hundred years after his birth, the exhibition Vittorio Gassman – Il Centenario (“Vittorio Gassman – The Centenary”, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome from April 9 to June 29, then  at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa) is a tribute in which the CSC could not fail to participate, because Gassman was truly one of the most beloved actors in our history, as well as one of the most “complex” ones, capable of embodying the heroes of classical theater but also, and with the same credibility, “many wonderful cowards. And he also gave us some fools, some extraordinary idiots”-as Mario Soldati wrote. It was the 1960s and Soldati could not have known this, but later on Gassman would have given us many other characters, neither cowards, nor fools, nor idiots: and these are the ones that, still today, perhaps move us the most.

To immerse oneself in the documents, the testimonies, the letters, the readings, the photographs, the films that keep him alive, also means to bring to light the complexity and versatility of Vittorio Gassman’s talent-not only as an actor-, of his passions, of his biographical, artistic and intellectual pathways that have so much to do with the history of our country and with our imaginary.

Throughout the entire exhibition, the visitor will find many materials coming from the Centro Sperimentale: a selection of contributions from the Luigi Chiarini Library, which provides vintage pressbooks, books, letters, scripts and treatments, and from the Photographic Archive of the Cineteca Nazionale, whose images (production stills and film frames) punctuate the itinerary of the exhibition. We are certain that these materials will contribute to making “Vittorio Gassman – Il Centenario” an authentic journey through time and into our memory as spectators.