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."
