Wertmuller, Don Walter’s funeral homily: “Always on the side of the humble and oppressed”

“He recounted humble and oppressed, always putting himself on their side, with intelligence and irony, ‘singing for those who had no luck’, as the passage from ‘Film of love and anarchy’ says. of ordinary people “. To underline this ‘figure’ of Lina Wertmuller, during the funeral of the director in the Church of the Artists in Piazza del Popolo in Rome, was don Walter Insero, a personal friend of the director. Many personalities from the world of entertainment arrived to say goodbye to the director. Among the first to arrive, the star actor of many films directed by Lina Wertmuller, Giancarlo Giannini, who with a voice broken by emotion said: “We have lost a great woman and a great director: without her I would have done nothing”. But outside the church, in front of the churchyard. where the coffin on arrival was greeted by a long applause, a few hundred ordinary people gathered who wanted to testify their admiration for the director. “We remember – Fr Walter said during the homily – a great artist, a woman who expressed and communicated her joy of living, who defined herself as a ‘director of good humor’ and who loved Pope Francis because she said that he came to her heart of people with her sympathy. She transmitted sympathy through her works, even with those white glasses that were her hallmark “.” She had a natural tendency to walk on the sunny side of the road – he added – as he underlined by paraphrasing Louis Armstrong . I was struck by her being a simple woman, despite her great success and international awards: she did not pay attention to awards while appreciating their value “. Don Walter also observed that “Lina has kept her soul of a street urchin all her life, she never suffocated the little girl who was inside her. She remembered, quoting Fellini, that life is a party and must be lived together. She said not to let life play with you but to play with life “. And Lina Wertmuller knew how to play really well … (by Enzo Bonaiuto)