The red carpet parade
Plus, Italian hobbits and early autumn reading
The 78th Venice International Film Festival will come to a close this weekend with the usual lavish parties along the Lido. As ever the paparazzi have been out in force and the gossip columns this year have been filled with photos and extensive commentary about Timothée Chalamet’s dashing long-sleeved crewneck and Benedict Cumberbatch’s questionable loafers. The hype feels even bigger than usual. With Covid (hopefully) abating now, dozens of films are enjoying their long-delayed premieres. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation had its first screening over the weekend, and based on reviews it’s going to live up to all expectations. Other big releases include The Card Counter, a thriller staring Oscar Issac as a washed-up poker demon, Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel, which sees Matt Damon and Adam Driver hacking away at each other with medieval swords, Spencer, a biopic of Princess Diana starring Kristen Stewart, and The Lost Daughter, an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel, featuring Olivia Colman in the main role. As far as Italian cinema goes Il Buco, by Michelangelo Frammartino, a poetic celebration of rural Calabria, has been getting a lot of attention, as has Qui Rido Io by Mario Martone, which, against a backdrop of belle époque Naples, explores the life and work of the comedian Eduardo Scarpetta. Personally I’m most excited about Paolo Sorrentino’s latest, The Hand of God which received rapturous applause, and which is already being tipped as Italian film of the year. Check out the - rather minimalist - trailer below.
Sticking with cinema for a moment (or sort of) I enjoyed this rather fun novelty story this week. Nicolas Gentile, a 37 year old Italian pastry chef, must surely be one of the world’s biggest Lord of the Rings fans. Indeed, he is so fond of the books and the films that a few years ago he went as far as to purchase some land in Abruzzo where, together with his wife, he has been building a mock-up version of Tolkein’s ‘Shire’ ever since. This summer, to raise awareness about their project, Gentile and some friends embarked on a fundraising mission: clad in full LARPing fancy-dress they set out as a self-proclaimed “fellowship of the ring” on a 120 mile walk to Naples’s Mount Vesuvius [Mount Doom] where they purported to “destroy Sauron’s evil totem.” Their story has since been covered in newspapers around the world, from Europe to China.The Guardian, for example, has plenty of extra detail on how this all came about. If you’re particularly interested in watching Italy’s Middle Earth slowly come to fruition, though, I recommend you simply follow @myhobbitlife on instagram for real time updates.
Another - more salubrious - novelty story also caught the attention of the Italian media this week. On 2 September an elderly resident in Naples’s Stella neighbourhood went to her local tobacconist to inform the owner that she was in possession of a winning lottery ticket worth EUR 500,000. The shop assistant took the ticket to the backroom for the manager, a man named Gaetano Scutellaro, to verify. When Scutellaro saw the sum, however, he made an apparently split decision to make a run for it. Disappearing through a back door, ticket in hand, he headed straight to the airport with a plan to start a new life. Unsurprisingly, a few hours later, he was arrested at Roma Fiumicino (holding his boarding pass to Fuertaventura) and he’s now in jail in Caserta. This is, in a sense, typical tabloid stuff. What I find interesting about it, though, is less the events themselves than the way journalists, and some members of the public, have been narrativising them. A late night TV host has already cited the case as “evidence” that Naples is nothing more than a crime ridden hell-hole. Politicians have spoken of it as “a sad reflection of the state of the nation” as if Scutellaro’s opportunistic idiocy was categorical proof of Italy’s alleged moral decay. Such responses are, of course, ludicrous. But they do give some insight into the degree of melodrama and hyperbole that, sadly, continues to characterise public debate about law, order and crime here.
Arts and culture: myopia of the kino-eye
This Monday, green pass in hand, I went to a real life indoor cinema to watch a film by the Florentine director Haider Rashid. Europa, which was much hyped by the Cannes judges, follows an Iraqi refugee who is attempting to enter the EU via the Balkan route, all the while evading the border police and far-right vigilantes. It’s supposed to be an immersive watch and strives to ground the viewer in the first-person experience of its protagonist. Honestly, though, I couldn’t help wondering: what’s really the point of a film like this? Rashid puts a lot of emphasis on tracking shots, lens flare, long-takes and clever sound design. The aim, I assume, is to make the viewer feel they are themselves somehow involved in the dangerous journey. Personally, though, I found the opposite was true. The form was so spectacularized, and so medium-specific, that all the “innovative” techniques only served to highlight the artificiality of the viewing experience (and thus transform the real challenges these migrants face into a kind of perverse entertainment). The end result, for me, was “1917… only refugees”; interesting from a technical point of view but inappropriate and ultimately ineffective in furthering reflection on the subject matter. One to avoid I’m afraid.
On a more positive note: I was pleased to discover a new book release this week that somehow passed me by. Gianfranco Calligarich’s wonderful existentialist-coming of age novel L'ultima estate in città (Last Summer in the City) has just come out in English translation via Picador. People often liken this book to Hemingway’s early work and in particular The Sun Also Rises. When I read the novel years ago, though, I remember it being closer to Patrick Hamilton’s Hangover Square; it revels in its depressive alcoholic wanderings, yes, but also offers an oddly vitalistic, life-affirming breed of hedonism. I’m always happy to see Italian classics being made available to Anglophone readers, and while I can’t vouch for this particular translation, the original is a breeze and well-worth considering as an early autumn read. Pick up a copy here.
Recipe of the week: swordfish involtini
This unusual dish is essentially made up of thin slices of swordfish stuffed with a mix of breadcrumbs, olives, capers, parsley and cheese, which are then cooked in a tomato sugo. My favourite version is from Katie Parla’s book Food of the Italian South which, by the way, is full of lesser known regional treats. According to her blurb this recipe comes from Calabria, from Scilla specifically, where local fishermen smear their catch with a salty, briney paste and cook them up there and then in the market. Parla’s version for home cooks perfectly succeeds in capturing those flavours which are so unique to south Italy’s cucina povera. You could probably substitute any sturdy, meaty fish here, but if you can get your hand on it pesce spada does work particularly well. Check out Katie’s version here and give it a go.
That’s it for this week - as ever I do hope you enjoyed this instalment. If you haven’t already, please do follow the ‘Week in Italy’ Facebook page, or my twitter, for a few extra links and easy-access to the substack archive. If this email was forwarded to you, or you’re accessing on the web and would like to receive further updates, you can subscribe using this link below. Thanks!
About Me
My name is Jamie Mackay (@JacMackay) and I’m an author, editor and translator based in Florence. I’ve been writing about Italy for a decade for international media including The Guardian, The Economist, Frieze, and Art Review. I launched ‘The Week in Italy’ to share a more direct and regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds.
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