Books. La Bella Vita – The screenplay by Francesco Bruni and Paolo Virzì

It’s in bookstores, for Edizioni Erasmo, La Bella Vita – The screenplay by Francesco Bruni and Paolo Virzì, edited by Claudia Spinelli. The volume is part of the series “The Cinema History Notebooks” edited by the Centro Studi Commedia all’italiana.

“La bella vita” is a 1994 film directed by Paolo Virzì, making his directorial debut. With this debut work, Virzì won both the David di Donatello and the Nastro d’argento for best debut director in 1995. The cast includes: Claudio Bigagli, Sabrina Ferilli (Nastro d’argento in 1995 for best actress), Massimo Ghini, Giorgio Algranti, Emanuele Barresi.

Bruno (Claudio Bigagli) and Mirella (Sabrina Ferilli) have been married for a few years and live in Piombino. He is a metalworker and she works as a cashier in a supermarket. Their marriage goes through a crisis for two reasons: first, he is facing a period of depression as a result of losing his job (we are in the 90s and part of the steelworks in Piombino are being shut down), and second, Mirella, attracted by the illusion of a more comfortable and worldly life, is seduced by Gerry Fumo (Massimo Ghini), a “star” of a local TV station. After a painful separation, Bruno slowly manages to rebuild his life, while Mirella realizes that her attraction to Gerry Fumo was just a passing infatuation.

In the foreword of the book, Fabio Canessa writes: “This book arrives at the right time to celebrate the thirty years of a film that marked an epochal turning point: historical, political, cinematographic, social, anthropological, civil. Who knows how much Paolo Virzì (… and the other screenwriter, Francesco Bruni) was aware of it or instinctively sensed the changing times? It may even be that he was guided by the tools of the trade, that is, that the sophisticated and popular recipe learned from the master Furio Scarpelli already contained the abscissa and ordinate that guided the Cartesian plane to this result. Because La bella vita prophetically anticipated many themes that time later complicated. Like all works that represent the dividing line of a period of transition, one wonders if it is the last Italian comedy or the first example of a new Italian cinema.”

The curator of the volume Claudia Spinelli was born in Piombino in 1975. She has a degree in Literature with a historical-artistic focus from the University of Florence. She loves reading and is passionate about cinema. She has already edited, also for the “The Cinema History Notebooks” series by Edizioni Erasmo, the volume published in 2022 “Ciak! Si disegna. Staino tra fumetto e cinema”.

The book can be pre-ordered at local bookstores or directly from the publisher at Tel. 3396376985 – Email: info@erasmolibri.it.

These are the volumes published by Erasmo Libri in the “The Cinema History Notebooks” series Centro Studi Commedia all’italiana:

La Storia del cinema. I capolavori;

Scola-Maccari, Il sorpasso. La sceneggiatura edited by Massimo Ghirlanda;

Age & Scarpelli, In nome del popolo italiano. La sceneggiatura edited by Massimo Ghirlanda; Age-Scarpelli-Monicelli. L’armata Brancaleone. La sceneggiatura edited by Fabrizio Franceschini;

Ovosodo. La sceneggiatura di Virzì, Bruni e Scarpelli edited by Massimo Ghirlanda and Federico Govoni;

Miraggio di un film. Carteggio De Castro-Rossellini-Zavattini edited by Maria Carla Cassarini;

Il sorpasso. La sceneggiatura di Scola e Maccari edited by Massimo Ghirlanda;

Furio Scarpelli. Pennello, china e macchina da scrivere edited by S. Perucca, A. Sarasso, G. Scarpelli;

Basta un no. Zavattini e le carte inedite di un monologo interiore edited by Maria Carla Cassarini;

Ciak! Si disegna. Staino tra fumetto e cinema edited by Claudia Spinelli.

La bella vita – The screenplay by Francesco Bruni and Paolo Virzì edited by Claudia Spinelli.