By VCXY
In 2011 I met Sophia Loren who took the time to impart her views and notions, refined with experience, on love, individuality, grace and power…
As life progresses, our moments of nostalgia may become more frequent, given that there is more material of the past to ponder on. Yet nostalgia is not necessarily stasis, nor even a sepia tinged longing for a past long beyond presence. It informs the present and may mobilize the self towards harmony in diverse ideals, values and way of being.
“I think I am an ensemble of many irregularities,” says screen-legend Sophia Loren. Her words are inexorably poetic, the deployment of each teeming with insight. Even those considered the most perfect and adored are marginalized and flawed in some way. The enlightened phraseology of this self-consciousness, the unabashed admittance, makes Sophia Loren more relatable than ever. Today, at age 77, she emanates the confidence and self-awareness that comes with age. “I would say I feel attractive enough, serene enough, crazy about my sons, crazy enough about my profession.”
Self-admittedly stubborn and determined, Sophia expresses that these are crucial qualities to pursuing one’s dreams with utmost persistence. Wanting to move beyond being an individual voice subsumed and drowned out by the collective, she decided to become an actress. ‘I wanted to be an actress as a way of transcending enormity, of being an individual’. After enrolling in acting classes, she was soon selected as an extra in Mervyn LeRoy’s 1951 film ‘Quo Vadis’, launching her career as a motion picture actress, changing her name to Sophia Loren. Soon she was discovered by the director De Sica. ‘Directors like De Sica… loved me deeply and I really miss him…’, as he is not physically near her anymore. ‘What can I say about De Sica? His presence in my professional career cannot be compared to anything else in my career. He was my first true teacher. The friendship and deep affection that tied us were really rare. Unique. We didn’t need many words — and we trusted each other — and this is the most an actress can wish (for) herself.’
She speaks of an inner self that drives one to ‘concentrate all… strength on a particular trend, never truly becoming a ‘carrier’ of another.’ ‘When you achieve something in life it is because of your personality because you have wanted to be what you are and you have found the will to achieve it. I am still working trying to find vehicles appropriate to my career, and of course the most wonderful moments has (come at) dozens of prices.’ –an arbitrary wording she adopts that invokes both the instance of sacrifice and that of rewards — ‘The greatest achievement of my career: 2 Oscars!’ Sophia Loren won the Academy Award in 1962 for Best actress for her role in ‘Two Women’ (a mother who is brutally raped because of protecting her daughter) becoming the first actress to win an Academy award for a non-English speaking performance. Altogether, Sophia Loren has won 50 international awards. In 1964, her career reached its culmine (peak) when she received USD1 million to act in The Fall of the Roman Empire. In 1991, she received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievements.
Sophia Loren says she strives, “in [her] films, to bring some love and passion to [her] public”. She also credits much of her success to Carlo Ponti, her lover, husband, mentor and soul mate who she says, “strongly believed in [her] since the very beginning. He chose for me everything in my work that would apply to my inner feelings.” What one finds attractive in a man is, in Sophia Loren’s mind, “something you cannot define. You see a man and you say, that’s it! He may even be ugly accounting to the rules of classic beauty; my grandmother used to say beautiful is what is likable.”
What ultimately attracts her to a man is gentleness, coupled with intelligence and understanding, as it indicates a good education and refinement; and what she hates in a man is stupidity and arrogance. A romantic meal for Sophia Loren is a candlelit dinner with “the right man to inspire” her, but notes “it is what you have in your heart that creates wonders”. Sophia Loren first met Ponti in 1950 when she was 15 and he was 37, and they were to marry on 17 September 1957. Marriage brought about immense serenity for her. “I’ve always considered it a privilege to be able to seduce and to be seduced. We in Italy never stop to dream. We live in a beautiful country we never forget about happiness.” She misses her husband who sadly passed away, yet her optimism survives: “All encounters are new events by which you come out richer and wiser. Each encounter leaves you richer. Some of them leave behind great memories.”
Sophia Loren describes her life now as peaceful, spending her time mostly reading scripts, always looking to find the one that is simply good enough. She says she has been able to remain vibrant and positive because “I have always been honest with my feelings and I have always been eager for new things and keeping my interests alive and always retaining my curiosity”. As she lists the simple joys at this stage of her life, she includes, “a beautiful shining dawn, a walk in the garden, listening to classical music, and a wonderfully serious chat with my sons.” She and Ponti had two sons, Carlo Ponti Junior and Edoardo Ponti.
As a veteran film actress, Sophia Loren comments on the films being made today. “I resent the lack of good stories,” she says. “It seems to me that the main target today is that of offering violence and sex.” She finds the elements only acceptable if they are the consequences of “a good solid, creative plot”. On modern society she says, “I think that family is the only and strongest bastion against the [bad] things of today’s society.” Being situated in films, becoming so intimate with good, solid creative plots through the re-enactment of initially alien personas, perhaps has granted Sophia Loren ease in introspection and self-reflection.
“I don’t have many regrets,” she says. “The most I regret is the glory of fresh youth.” Despite the evident training in dialectics, Sophia is content with the inexpressible, “I am very religious but I don’t think you can talk about some things so intimate and personal as your dialogue with God.” I tend to think her secret to eternal beauty, lies primarily in her state of preserving her own happiness. She reflects on moments that invoke her nostalgia, musing: “Happiness is always relative… I have moments of joy and serenity, but in the role of my life I think that work and family have always left space, sometimes, for me.”
Our selves encompass what we have invested in others as well as the resultant interactions. Sophia Loren’s severe appreciation for others in her Life, where others may transcend their ‘otherness’ to become a part of her selfhood, is what contributes, ultimately, to her happiness.
