Ennio Flaiano
Encyclopedia
Ennio Flaiano was an Italian screenwriter, playwright, novelist, journalist and drama critic. He is best known for his work with Federico Fellini
.
In 1947, he won the Strega Prize
for his novel, Tempo di uccidere (The Short Cut). Set in Ethiopia
during the Italian invasion
(1935–36), the novel tells the story of an Italian officer who accidentally kills an Ethiopian woman and is then ravaged by the awareness of his act. The barren landscape around the protagonist hints at an interior emptiness and meaninglessness. This is one of the few Italian literary works (which has been constantly in print for sixty years) dealing with the misdeeds of Italian colonialism in Eastern Africa. A movie adaptation with the same title
, directed by Giuliano Montaldo
and starred by Nicolas Cage
, was released in 1989.
In 1971 he suffered a first heart-attack. "All will have to change", he wrote in his notes. He put his many papers in order and published them, although the major part of his memoirs were published posthumously. In November 1972 he began writing various autobiographical pieces for Corriere della Sera
. On November 20 of the same year, while at a clinic for a check-up, he suffered a second cardiac arrest. His daughter Lelè, after a long and grave illness, died at age 40 in 1992. His wife Rosetta Rota, sister of composer Nino Rota
, died at the end of 2003. The entire family is buried together at the Maccarese Cemetery, near Rome.
Flaiano left numerous passages relating to his Rome.
In the Montesacro quarter of Rome, the LABit theatre company placed a commemorative plaque on the facade of his house where he lived from 1952.
Critic Richard Eder
wrote in Newsday
: "To read the late Ennio Flaiano is to imagine a bust of Ovid
or Martial
, placed in a piazza in Rome amd smiling above a traffic jam. In his antic, melancholy irony, Flaiano wrote as if he were time itself, satirizing the present moment."
vein and by a vivid sense of the grotesque
through which he stigmatised the paradoxical aspects of contemporary reality. He introduced the expression saltare sul carro del vincitore ("to jump on the winner's wagon") into the Italian language
.
In the last section of his book The Via Veneto Papers
, journalist Giulio Villa Santa interviewed Flaiano for Swiss-Italian Radio, two weeks before his death. The interview concluded as follows:
was created in his honour. Recognizing achievement in cinema, theater, creative writing, and literary criticism, the international prize is awarded annually in Flaiano's hometown of Pescara
.
(1951), The Woman of Rome
(1954), Peccato che sia una canaglia (1955), La notte
(1961), Fantasmi a Roma (1961), La decima vittima (1965), La cagna (1972). With Tullio Pinelli
, he co-wrote the screenplays for ten films by Federico Fellini
: Variety Lights
(1950), The White Sheik
(1952), I vitelloni
(1953), La strada
(1954), Il bidone
(1955), Nights of Cabiria
(1957), La dolce vita
(1960), The Temptations of Doctor Antonio episode in Boccaccio '70
(1962), 8½
(1963), and Juliet of the Spirits
(1965).
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
.
Biography
Flaiano wrote for Cineillustrato, Oggi, Il Mondo, Il Corriere della Sera and other prominent Italian newspapers and maga ines.In 1947, he won the Strega Prize
Strega Prize
The Strega Prize is the most prestigious Italian literary award. It has been awarded annually since 1947 for the best work of prose fiction by an Italian author and first published between 1 May of the previous year and 30 April...
for his novel, Tempo di uccidere (The Short Cut). Set in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
during the Italian invasion
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo–Abyssinian War was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces of the Kingdom of Italy and the armed forces of the Ethiopian Empire...
(1935–36), the novel tells the story of an Italian officer who accidentally kills an Ethiopian woman and is then ravaged by the awareness of his act. The barren landscape around the protagonist hints at an interior emptiness and meaninglessness. This is one of the few Italian literary works (which has been constantly in print for sixty years) dealing with the misdeeds of Italian colonialism in Eastern Africa. A movie adaptation with the same title
Tempo di uccidere
Tempo di uccidere is a 1989 dramatic film starring Nicolas Cage. It is directed by Giuliano Montaldo. The film is set in 1936, when Ethiopia was an Italian colony, and was filmed in Zimbabwe...
, directed by Giuliano Montaldo
Giuliano Montaldo
Giuliano Montaldo is an Italian film director.While he was still a young student, Montaldo was recruited by the director Carlo Lizzani for the role of leading actor in the film Achtung! Banditi!...
and starred by Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...
, was released in 1989.
In 1971 he suffered a first heart-attack. "All will have to change", he wrote in his notes. He put his many papers in order and published them, although the major part of his memoirs were published posthumously. In November 1972 he began writing various autobiographical pieces for Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
. On November 20 of the same year, while at a clinic for a check-up, he suffered a second cardiac arrest. His daughter Lelè, after a long and grave illness, died at age 40 in 1992. His wife Rosetta Rota, sister of composer Nino Rota
Nino Rota
Nino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...
, died at the end of 2003. The entire family is buried together at the Maccarese Cemetery, near Rome.
Flaiano's Rome
Flaiano's name is indissolubly tied to Rome, a city he loved and hated, a caustic witness to its urban evolutions and debacles, its vices and its virtues. In La Solitudine del SatiroThe Via Veneto Papers
The Via Veneto Papers is a memoir collection by Ennio Flaiano, originally published in Italian in 1973, with a new expanded edition by Rizzoli in 1989 and translated into English by John Satriano in 1992.-Synopsis & Narrative Style:...
Flaiano left numerous passages relating to his Rome.
In the Montesacro quarter of Rome, the LABit theatre company placed a commemorative plaque on the facade of his house where he lived from 1952.
Critic Richard Eder
Richard Eder
Richard Eder was for 20 years variously a foreign correspondent, a film reviewer and the drama critic for the New York Times. Subsequently he was book critic for the Los Angeles Times, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and the National Book Critics Circle annual citation...
wrote in Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
: "To read the late Ennio Flaiano is to imagine a bust of Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
or Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, placed in a piazza in Rome amd smiling above a traffic jam. In his antic, melancholy irony, Flaiano wrote as if he were time itself, satirizing the present moment."
Literary Style
A fine and ironic moralist at once tragic and bitter, Flaiano produced narrative works and various prose permeated by an original satiricSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
vein and by a vivid sense of the grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
through which he stigmatised the paradoxical aspects of contemporary reality. He introduced the expression saltare sul carro del vincitore ("to jump on the winner's wagon") into the Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
.
In the last section of his book The Via Veneto Papers
The Via Veneto Papers
The Via Veneto Papers is a memoir collection by Ennio Flaiano, originally published in Italian in 1973, with a new expanded edition by Rizzoli in 1989 and translated into English by John Satriano in 1992.-Synopsis & Narrative Style:...
, journalist Giulio Villa Santa interviewed Flaiano for Swiss-Italian Radio, two weeks before his death. The interview concluded as follows:
Villa Santa: This evening it seems to me, Flaiano, that you have opened yourself up as perhaps you have never done before, that you have revealed an anguish and above all a faith behind your humour. But this gives rise to the suspicion in me that at bottom you are a man from another period if not from another age altogether; is that an unfounded suspicion?
Flaiano: It's a legitimate one. We don’t know who we are, we are just so many passengers without baggage, we are born alone and we die alone. Once a woman writer quoted me in a book of hers, and in the English translation the English writer translated my name as Ennius Flaianus, thinking that this Ennio Flaiano was some Latin author. A few months later we met each other in a restaurant in Rome and were introduced and, naturally, she experienced an awkward moment, for she didn’t think that this ancient writer was still alive. However, we did agree that certain characteristics of my person, a certain style of life, indicated that she was right. I perhaps was not of this age, am not of this age. Perhaps I belong to another world: I feel myself more in harmony when I read JuvenalJuvenalThe Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...
, MartialMartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, CatullusCatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
. It's probable that I’m an ancient Roman who is still here, forgotten by history, to write about the things that the others wrote about far better than I – namely, let me repeat, CatullusCatullusGaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
, MartialMartialMarcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
, JuvenalJuvenalThe Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...
. (p. 251)
Flaiano Prize
In 1975, the Flaiano PrizeFlaiano Prize
The Flaiano Prize , is an Italian international award recognizing achievement in the fields of theater, cinema, television, and literature...
was created in his honour. Recognizing achievement in cinema, theater, creative writing, and literary criticism, the international prize is awarded annually in Flaiano's hometown of Pescara
Pescara
Pescara is the capital city of the Province of Pescara, in the Abruzzo region of Italy. As of January 1, 2007 it was the most populated city within Abruzzo at 123,059 residents, 400,000 with the surrounding metropolitan area...
.
Quotations
- In Italy, fascistsFascismFascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
divide themselves into two categories: fascists and antifascists. - ChastityChastityChastity refers to the sexual behavior of a man or woman acceptable to the moral standards and guidelines of a culture, civilization, or religion....
is the mirage of obscene people. - In my love stories remorse used to come afterwards, now it goes before me.
- I got so upset I couldn't sleep the whole afternoon.
- In 30 years time Italy won't be like its governments intended, but as its TV dictated.
Filmography
Flaiano was a successful screenwriter and collaborated on several notable films including Roma città libera (1946), Guardie e ladriGuardie e ladri
Cops and Robbers is a 1951 Italian cult comedy film directed by Steno and Mario Monicelli. It stars a famous comedian Totó, and it was cinematographied by future film director Mario Bava. Its style is close to Italian neorealism. It had troubles with censorship because its view of clumsy police...
(1951), The Woman of Rome
The Woman of Rome
The Woman from Rome is a 1947 novel by Alberto Moravia about the intersecting lives of many characters, chief among them being a prostitute and an idealistic intellectual who, after an interrogation by the Fascist officers, during which he betrays his colleagues , becomes completely disillusioned...
(1954), Peccato che sia una canaglia (1955), La notte
La Notte
La Notte is a 1961 Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It is considered the central film of a trilogy beginning with L'avventura and ending with L'Eclisse.- Plot :...
(1961), Fantasmi a Roma (1961), La decima vittima (1965), La cagna (1972). With Tullio Pinelli
Tullio Pinelli
Tullio Pinelli was an Italian screenwriter best known for his work on the Federico Fellini classics I Vitelloni, La strada, La Dolce Vita and 8½.-Biography:...
, he co-wrote the screenplays for ten films by Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
: Variety Lights
Variety Lights
Variety Lights is a 1950 Italian film directed and produced by Federico Fellini and Alberto LattuadaThe film launched Fellini's directorial career, but was a collaboration with Alberto Lattuada...
(1950), The White Sheik
The White Sheik
The White Sheik is a 1952 film by Federico Fellini starring Leopoldo Trieste, Alberto Sordi, and Brunella Bovo.- Plot :Two young newlyweds from a provincial town, Wanda and Ivan Cavalli , arrive in Rome for their honeymoon...
(1952), I vitelloni
I Vitelloni
I vitelloni is an Italian comedy drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Recognized as a pivotal work in the director's artistic evolution, the film has distinct autobiographical elements that mirror important societal changes in 1950s Italy....
(1953), La strada
La Strada
La Strada is a 1954 Italian neorealist drama directed by Federico Fellini in which a naïve young woman is sold to a brutish man and goes on the road as a part of his itinerant show....
(1954), Il bidone
Il bidone
Il bidone is an Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. It features Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart, Giulietta Masina, among others....
(1955), Nights of Cabiria
Nights of Cabiria
Nights of Cabiria is a 1957 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini. Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina, plays Cabiria Ceccarelli, a feisty but naive prostitute in Ostia, then a seedy section of Rome...
(1957), La dolce vita
La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...
(1960), The Temptations of Doctor Antonio episode in Boccaccio '70
Boccaccio '70
Boccaccio '70 is a 1962 Italian portmanteau film directed by Mario Monicelli, Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti and Vittorio de Sica, from an idea by Cesare Zavattini...
(1962), 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
(1963), and Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits is a 1965 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini that uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape"...
(1965).