The Beautiful Summer is the title of the film adaptation of one of the writer's novels Cesare Pavese, written in 1940 and released in 1949. The film is in the Italian cinema halls twigs August 24th.
La Bella Estate, the film by Laura Luchetti
It is a drama film from 2023, directed by Laura Luchetti, with an international cast including: Yile Vianello and Deva Cassel, daughter of Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci, in her debut as an actress, Nicolas Maupas, Alessandro Piavani, Adrien Dewitte Cosima Centurioni, Gabriele Graham Gasco, Anna Bellato and Andrea Bosca.
The film was shot in Carignano, near Turin. The original soundtrack of the film is signed by Francesco Cerasi, recorded by the composer together with the Orchestra of Rome.
Here the trailer of the film:
From the same collection in 1955 Michelangelo Antonioni will be inspired by Among single women in the movie Le amiche, winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The other story, The devil in the hills, became a film directed by Vittorio Cottafavi.
The Beautiful Summer by Cesare Pavese
In 2020 Einaudi republished all of Cesare Pavese's works including the short novel "La Bella estate", a very modern text that focuses on the woman seen in her transition from adolescence to adulthood. It is a collection that contains short stories then put together: The devil in the hills (1948), and Among single women (1949). With this collection Pavese won in 1950 the Strega Award. It is the story of restless youth, with an elegant formal dress. Pavese is still one of the best-selling authors in Italy today.
It is a Bildungsroman starring the young Ginia, a country girl who discovers her own path to becoming an adult.
The story is set in Turin in 1938; the writer tells about the sixteen year old Ginia who hopes for a future filled with dreams, expectations and possibilities, as World War II looms. He meets another girl, different from her friends whom he frequents, who introduces her into the artistic circles of bohemian Turin and into a whole new world for her. A whirlwind of emotions is born in her that she manages to experience right in Summer, which explains the title.
A possibility, given by the film, to rediscover this giant of Italian literature.
