_{GAETANA MARRONE}       

^{The Cinema of Francesco Rosi}

^{(Istituto Italiano di Cultura - New York)}

The Cinema of Francesco Rosi is the first work that approaches Rosi’s intellectual and artistic career in its entirety. Gaetana Marrone had at her disposal primary sources of great interest which Rosi himself provided and which she employed in the best way possible. Thanks to this extensive documentation, we rediscover Rosi’s cinema in depth: its ties to literature, anthropology, history, and social criticism. We rediscover also its more intimate layers thanks to firsthand biographical information. Gaetana Marrone meticulously retraces the paths of both man and author in a study that is analytically rigorous but as rich, vivid, and enthralling as a novel.

The Cinema of Francesco Rosi stands as a model for film studies and for research on Italian cinema d’auteur. Gaetana Marrone does not limit herself to a single aspect of Rosi’s cinema; instead, she addresses all the elements of the cinematic language that Rosi so eloquently mastered: from treatment to script, from costume design to acting, from cinematography to music. It is for this reason that Rosi’s films, once analyzed for their ethical and moral essence, also stand out for their aesthetic and formal values, reflecting an originality that had an innovative effect on both Italian and international cinematic grammar, as Martin Scorsese confirms in his enthusiastic review of Marrone’s work: “I’m so heartened to see the publication of [her] book, a celebration and an investigation of one of the true masters of cinema.”

It is for this reason that bestowing Gaetana Marrone’s book with the Flaiano prize also serves to honor and celebrate the international scope of a tradition in which Ennio Flaiano himself had a leading role, thanks to his cinematic and dramaturgical interests.

Press release, 18 June 2021

Carla Tiboni, President, Associazione Premi Internazionali E. Flaiano