Author:
Francis Small
Publishing house:
Einaudi
Date of publication:
21-02-2023
The history of cinema is not so different from life: seemingly linear, but studded with chance encounters, chased or missed appointments, last-minute decisions and unpredictable coincidences. Crucial fatalities that allow a work to come to light, with the precise characteristics that everyone will later remember. The choice of an actress, the light on the set, the sentimental vicissitudes of the director or a co-star-as well as cuts in the budget or a suddenly changed scene-can write a page of universal genius in their own way. 1963 was the year of Fellini and Visconti. A decisive year for Italian cinema, which saw the birth of Otto e mezzo and Il Gattopardo. But before they became the masterpieces we know so well, they were two incredible bets, as well as the battleground between two rival and profoundly different artists: while Claudia Cardinale was changing her hair color according to the whim of her director, the entire Italian cultural context was preparing to espouse one or the other vision of cinema and the world. This is what La bella confusione is: chasing like a detective the figures and episodes that made History, Francesco Piccolo sifted through letters, films, notes and diaries, interviews, gossip, and testimonies. Because in this novel unlike any other novel, the characters are named Marcello Mastroianni, Ennio Flaiano, Sandra Milo, Tomasi di Lampedusa, Camilla Cederna, Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Burt Lancaster, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. Moving between myth and anecdote, the unmistakable voice of the author of The Wish to Be Like Everyone awakens millions of memories and gives us the lost light of an era. A documentary made of words: the power of art, the secrets of cinema, the duels of an Italy we could no longer imagine.