Just picked up this new book – well, it’s not all that new, it came out in May last year, but I haven’t seen any other mention of it. Comedy Italian Style: The Golden Age of Italian Film Comedies, by Remi Fournier Lanzoni.
According to the blurb:
“Comedy Italian Style” is an essential guide to the glorious works and filmmakers who make the world laugh with them. It is for all lovers of enduring, wry, over-the-top, side-splitting humor on film. “Comedy Italian Style” “officially” known as commedia all’italiana, served as a national cinematographic patrimony for some and a satirical outlook on the economic boom years for others. In truth, it functioned as the principal economic engine of the Italian-film industry.For in many ways, Italy and Italians, are best known through these works of biting humor and incredible grace. The landmark comedies are those of the 1960s and 1970s, when the political soil helped germinate a new society. But this radiant tradition is not contained within two decades; it started in the days before Neorealism and is continued well into the 21st century.Above all, now readily available on DVD and no longer the sole property of esoteric museum collections or art houses, these movies are terrific fun.Internationally acclaimed, from the work of Dino Risi (“The Monsters”), Mario Monicelli (“The Great War”), and Pietro Germi (“Divorce-Italian Style”), the high-water mark and high-wire act of commedia all’Italiana – its influence and tradition – are here explored through filmmakers as disparate as Federico Fellini (“8 1/2”, “Amarcord”), Ettore Scola (“The Terrace”), Lina Wertmueller (“Swept Away”), Roberto Benigni (“Johnny Stecchino”), and many others.
I haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but from a cursory glance it looks pretty good, not too academic. There are dedicated chapters to the likes of Risi and Comencini, filmmakers who have dropped off the critical radar for far too long. I’ll write more when I’ve delved a little deeper. It can be picked up from Amazon using this link.
