Comedy Italian Style: The Golden Age of Italian Film Comedies

(Paperback)

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This book explores the work of Dino Risi with The Easy Life (1962), The Monsters (1963), The New Monsters (1977), and Scent of a Woman (1974), Mario Monicelli with Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), The Great War (1959), and Amici miei (1975), also Pietro Germi with Divorce Italian Style (1961), as well as filmmakers as disparate as Federico Fellini with Amarcord (1973), Ettore Scola with Down and Dirty (1976), Lina Wertmller with Swept Away (1974), Luigi Comencini with The Scientific Cardplayer (1972) and many others. In addition the volume explains how the genre was able to reveal during two decades (1960s and 1970s) many acting talents and confirmed the future legacy of picturesque icons such as Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, Stefania Sandrelli, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti, Giancarlo Giannini and Ugo Tognazzi, all of whom depicted the Italian resilience in the utmost idiosyncratic manner.

Reviews

The so-called Comedy Italian Style has been, in a certain way, engendered by Neorealism, and is often considered a realistic comedy; but it was also a fusion of "bitter and sweet", a genre of entertaining films that at the same time told something on a particular moment about an Italian society in rapid transformation. This comedy Italian Style was able to reveal on the big screen the common denominator among Italians: their gift for improvisation, a gift to look at reality with a knowing smile, even as a comedic satire. Lanzoni's Comedy Italian Style offers a faithful and interesting portrait about a unique period in Italian cinema. --Dino Risi, Director of The Monsters, Scent of a Woman and A Difficult Life
The subject of this book is one of the most important in Italian film history. Commedia all'italiana was a series of comedy films based on farse that dealt with current events, not evasive, but with their bold humor very pointed about societal difficulties. --Mario Monicelli, director of The Great War (La grande guerra) and Big Deal on Madonna Street (I soliti ignoti).

Author Bio

Rmi Lanzoni earned his M.A. in French from the University of South Carolina at Columbia, USA, and his PhD in French from Florida State University, USA. He also earned a second PhD in Italian from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. He has written two books, French Cinema: From its Beginnings to Present (2003, Continuum) and Comedy Italian Style: The Golden Age of Italian Film Comedies (Continuum, 2009) as well as several articles on Italian cinema.