It is an essay born of nostalgia, loss (and memory), and the profound meaning of life. "Sergio Leone: Myth and Poetry" (Edizioni Condaghes) by Filippo Pace is, first and foremost, a journey of discovery driven by the author's sensitivity and a genuine passion for the master of Western cinema. This critical text, characterized by rigorous expertise, delves deeply into the director's poetics, revealing previously unexplored avenues in the interpretation of Leone's universe.
"It was 2013 ," Pace recalls, "a day when my father had an important medical exam, and I, who usually accompanied him, had to stay home. That day I wrote the first page, perhaps a reaction to the idea of illness, and implicitly also of death. A way to go back to when, first as a child and then as a young man, I watched films with him, especially those by the great Roman director."
Thus the work is a tribute to his father Nunzio Pace, a literature professor and intellectual, a driving force behind politics and culture in Gallura, who passed away in 2024. "My fascination with fairy tales and myths is also the fruit of my relationship with him, who has always been a guide, a guiding light, a role model," says the writer, a PhD in Italian literature and a literature and Latin professor. "My father passed away in the winter, on the morning of December 31st. Our last conversation with him was about 'A Fistful of Dollars,' and the book arrived a few days later. On those mornings, I felt I had to write that essay on Leone: I owed it to my father and to myself."
In the broad panorama of works dedicated to the director, here is the originality of the gaze . "The idea was to delve deeper into the representation of the act of eating and the role of the mouth in the great director's cinema, as well as the representation of the body as a shrine to violence," the author observes. "These elements are not secondary, but rather contribute to revealing the coherence of Leon's poetic universe. Furthermore, I interpreted the Indian, played by Volonté in "For a Few Dollars More," as the tragic face of infantile evil, and I identified the innocents as the true good guys in Leon's cinema. Finally, I reconstructed the phenomenology of poetry that characterizes his films, thanks also to the great Morricone, and I highlighted how Sicilian literature—I'm thinking of Tomasi di Lampedusa with The Leopard, but also Verga—can be useful for a better exegesis of "Once Upon a Time in the West." I'm happy with the feedback I'm getting: many have told me that the volume says several new things about Leone and opens up new interpretative avenues."
The popular volume illuminates Sergio Leone's cultural impact and influence. "He is undoubtedly the most beloved, best-known, and most studied Italian director in film universities around the world, even more than Fellini," Pace recalls. "He changed the language of film as only Kubrick, Hitchcock, and Welles have done. And his influence is enormous; numerous masters have acknowledged their debt to him: from Scorsese to Spielberg, from Coppola to Kubrick, from Peckinpah to Tarantino, from Walter Hill to Eastwood, and many, many others."
The essay will be presented tonight at 6:00 PM at the Liceo Scientifico "L. Mossa" as part of the literary festival organized by the Municipal Library, "Sul filo del discorso." The meeting will be moderated by director Gianluca Corda; radio host Rita Nurra and poet Giuseppina Carta will be present.
How do you present Leone to a young audience? "I would tell young people that Leone is more relevant today than he was yesterday. Let's free him from stale and trivializing interpretative categories that consider him cynical and sadistic: Leone's cinema is myth and fable and, under the guise of the western or gangster movie, tells of nostalgia for childhood, for lost time, and the injustices of a world where money and the law of the strongest lead to violence and abuse," says the author. "His cinema is one of the desire for a more just world and an anarchic yearning for utopias and dreams. Our contemporary world is characterized by war and violence, and writing a book about Leone is, for me, also a clear political act, a clear statement."
His novels include “Once Upon a Time in the Revolution” (2013), “The Man Who Wrestled with Dogs” (2016), “The Ballad of the Headless Queen” (2017), and, in the field of literary criticism, articles on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Salvatore Satta, Antonio Tabucchi, as well as the monograph “The Existentialist Novel of the Second Twentieth Century Italy” (2014). The ebook Colte idiozie (2013) is dedicated to the world of schools. The preface to the volume is edited by the university professor at UniSS, critic and essayist, Aldo Maria Morace.
"I cannot help but thank my mentor Aldo Maria Morace, with whom I worked for years at the university. His preface to my little book is a gem that allows me to engage with my forefathers and the past, to continue fighting for the present and trying to improve the future, always keeping my feet on the ground and making generous use of self-irony, my lifeline in difficult times," the writer concludes. "Aldo Maria Morace taught me so much, and I will forever be indebted to him."
