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Guido Piovene

94 quotes

“The problems of culture today move to the foreground, leading us to react on this terrain where slow infiltration, served by the crowd of mediocre intelligent people, replaces the massive frontal attack.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The self-criticism that I like is quick, dry, turns the page immediately.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The successful man, within the walls of his own home, is often unsuccessful and unhappy.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The writer must give himself whole, only once the trajectory is completed will it be possible to judge where in it he has focused best.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I believe that the modern writer must live everything in public, in the company of dialogue with others, outside the myth of restraint.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the offices of art is to convey regrets and remorse.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every new moment of life is an additional right to refuse death.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every human pleasure finds its opposite and its destruction within itself.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate remorse, which ties man to the past. I believe it is right to revolt in the face of injustice and in fact there are martyrs, but I hate collectors of revolts, who love the revolt itself: it is a terrible chain. (p. 53)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soul is what you make, and the bonds are good if they enter it, bad if they remain against or outside, even if they call them holy. (p. 59)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are no holy laws, in the physical world and in the moral world; but all the laws, as they are discovered, are holy. (p. 61)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are men whose character is given almost exclusively by their way of thinking, but they too exist in nature, no less than the active and the adventurers. (p. 69)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The soul lives for the work, only for the work. Without the work one is not a soul. (p. 124)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sky is divided into three, the nearby moon, the stars that burn and escape, and in the middle, half of man and half of the world, the quiet planets, great still affectionate beings that reconcile love and sleep. (p. 129)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The vogue for James Bond is on the decline. The favor of the general public is no longer what it once was. Agent 007 represented a moment, not without interest for me, in the history of the adventure film-story. Whoever makes the history of the genre will not be able to forget it.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The cultural industry is largely a myth, a target of convenience, as the devil and witches were in other times. If anything, the industry and public moods are in the same boat: the set of products ends up regularly corresponding to a genuine demand.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The films of James Bond, to the usual mixture of violence, sex, technology, add something more, which marked the moment: an aestheticism of images, a touch of dandyism, a preciousness of the horror, in which motifs typical late nineteenth century machines seemed to filter through futuristic and science fiction machines.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The genre film, or novel, of espionage is today moving towards new formulas. The triumphant, invincible hero, all gesture, without soul, is replaced by another formula, the meditative, psychologizing spy, who feels the meanness, the sadness, the filth of his profession, the disappointed and disgusted hero.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In You Only Live Twice the director (Lewis Gilbert) does not bring a fresh invention. The actor, Sean Connery, has aged. The "bad guys" are insipid, they don't stand out, they don't cause any fear. The love scenes seem wrapped in cellophane”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, De America, Garzanti, Milan, C.E.1961.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, The puppets and the flying dragon, La Fiera Letteraria, October 19, C.E.1967”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, The Straw Tail, Baldini Castoldi Dalai, C.E.2001.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, La gazzetta nera, Oscar Mondadori, C.E.1968.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, The Furies, C.E.1958.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, The cold stars, Mondadori, C.E.1976.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, American Novel, CDE, C.E.1980.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guido Piovene, Viaggio in Italia, Baldini & Castoldi, Milan, C.E.2013. ISBN 978-88-6852-019-9”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Loveless Lovers (C.E.1948) – screenplay”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Letters of a novice (C.E.1960) – subject”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Clarifying to Italians that race is a scientific, biological fact, based on blood affinity, is the first task that the book [Contra Judeos] encourages; second, to demonstrate that the inferiority of some races is perpetual; that in crossbreeding the inferior prevails over the superior; that the Italian race must be jealous of its immunity... The Jews can only be enemies and oppressors of the nation that hosts them. Of different blood, and aware of their bonds, they cannot help but unite against the alien race. The enormous number of eminent positions occupied in Italy by Jews is the result of a tenacious battle. As foreigners, they attempt to obtain triumph over the national culture of others, bringing it to "Europeanistic" forms, detaching it from the popular roots of art, as happened in Italy.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On A Garibaldino at the Convent Vittorio De Sica made another excellent film, in which he demonstrates his usual skills, accuracy, finesse, zeal, the right ear, the complete measure, and this time something more. [...] The film is good for the delicate painting of the two opposing families, of the family members, of the conventual pietism, of the Bourbon soldiers (if it ever has a flaw it is that it is too beautiful, too finished and polished); it is good for smaller, lively and freshly invented figures; it is good for the dialogue in which writers have collaborated, for example Adolfo Franci; then in the last scenes, the siege, the escape on horseback, the chase and the charge of Garibaldi, pressing, full of anxiety, De Sica finds the best in him.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Between blue and white, on the background of the opaque green hills, Genoa is mysterious in the manner of London, the other European city made up of watertight compartments. The imagination, Stevenson says, is stimulated in London, because London is an interlocking of secret circles to each other. The soul can thus play with mystery, delight in acrobatics that today would be called metaphysical, imagining here a, here a cheat, an old duchess, a rubber merchant, a dynamiter, juxtaposing them, mixing them, placing them in occult relationships. Such mysteries are never encountered in simple Italian cities, but Genoa is perhaps the only one that arouses the imagination of clandestine backstories. A mystery book that takes place in Rome, Venice or Florence has something incredible, but if it takes place in Genoa you can believe it (or almost). And, just like London, Genoa has the special theatricality of beings and events on which one feels something occult hanging. (p. 220)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mention has been made of the Genoese cult of the dead, which sometimes reveals a grandiose concept of class. A visit to Staglieno, the most famous cemetery in Italy, shows how that concept was handed down from the aristocracy to the philanthropic bourgeoisie. Not even the Monumental Cemetery of Milan offers such an anthology of self-celebrations through the tomb. Here you see the financier in a white marble waistcoat, taking leave of his weeping wife; but he takes his leave in a palace; And to die is to go beyond a brocade curtain with rich folds. Another deceased appears in the guise of an angel pouring a shower of gold coins from a bowl; and another, says the epigraph, "ceased to live but not to benefit – by binding to pious institutes – a non-humble part of his rich census". (pp. 227-228)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The splendid Malatesta Library in Cesena is the heart of Romagna's culture. Built in the mid-fifteenth century by order of Novello Malatesta on the back of an older convent library, in the wake of that of San Marco in Florence, it is a perfect creation of the genius of the Renaissance. Not only for the illuminated choral codices, incunabula of great value that it contains, but for the stupendous hall, the work of Matteo Nuti, a pupil of the Alberti. With the Malatesta temple of Rimini, with the The Ducal Palace of Urbino and with the later palaces of the Este family in Ferrara is the purest that century has given us in which culture reached the extreme point of refinement. [...] The marvellous room appears, with two rows of columns in perspective and the walls to which time has given green and pink shades. It is difficult to associate more distilled purity with more impetus of imagination. (p. 319)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tuscany is among the most famous regions in the world for their beauty. It is a cliché to talk about the sweetness and grace of its landscapes. The valleys around Florence, in the Pistoia area, in Lucca and elsewhere, with their play of light olive trees and dark cypresses, have an enchanting appearance that smacks of painting and artistic perspective, Yet, if you look closely, sweetness is not the most intimate characteristic of the Tuscan land, as it is of Umbria. Even in the most pleasant parts, such as the Mugello valley and Chianti, under the graceful envelope one discovers a precision, a purity of contours, a meagre rigor of design: while the eye is enchanted by the sweetness of the first appearances, a more severe lesson slips into the soul. Tuscan beauty is a beauty of rigour, of perfection, sometimes of asceticism under the aspect of grace. (pp. 359-360)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Salerno is different from Naples, in appearance and spirit. This is where a lot of clichés about southern Italy fall. The appearance is in fact almost northern, and the cleanliness almost Swiss. The speeches are dry, short, typical of active people. [...] Those who know Salerno life intimately tell me that it is a mixture, typical of southern Italy in this phase of transition, and in the leading places, of still patriarchal customs and modernisms sometimes even strange and excessive. [...] If you look closely at Salerno, you get the impression of a fairly typical centre of the transformation phase of southern Italy. Industrialization and prosperity are progressing, even if the old liabilities still weigh heavily. (pp. 477-478)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Royal Palace of Caserta The charm of this Neapolitan Versailles [...] comes for me above all from a certain gratuitous and fabulous that emanates from this palace of disproportionate size rising in the middle of a flat plain: there is, as we have already said, a Neapolitan avant-lettre surrealism, which was born from the theatrical splendour of Naples: and which consists in living great architectural fantasies where they least expect them. The park itself, crossed by the waters falling from a mound, then flowing in a slight slope from basin to basin, interrupted by white groups of large statues, animals, divinities, winds that swell the cheeks, Actaeon transformed into a deer and torn to pieces by dogs, is a macroscopic fantasy, in which everything seems to be a little bigger than it should be; This generates a disturbance of the imagination, which the Baroque called wonder. There is a clear desire to surpass in pomp the great European palaces and the great metropolises; the contrast between this dream and the reality of the environment means that Caserta, much more than that of Versailles, is a fantasy palace. (pp. 493-494)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You climb the tawny yellow side of the mountain; at the foot there is the plain, the immense quadrilateral of the palace; Then you go inland, and the plain disappears. There exists in Provence a splendid and illustrious city abandoned among the rocks, Les Beaux; , Lombard, built in the eighth century, formerly the seat of bishops and counts, is its Italian equivalent. Only Les Beaux is of two styles, medieval and Renaissance, Caserta all medieval; and Les Beaux is celebrated in France, while old Caserta is almost unknown to us. Capable of accommodating many thousands of people, it contains about two hundred. It is a knot of dead and monochrome houses and alleys, the yellowish color of travertine; all around a landscape of barren, stony hills, sown with spikes of towers; A still and perfect landscape. (p. 494)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Benevento is not Naples, and he wants to let you know. Their character, the people of Benevento point out to me, is already very different from that of the rest of Campania: harder, more closed, more Alpine. Salerno has something Milanese about it as much as is possible in the South; I found in Avellino perfect specimens of a certain type of Southern intellectual, intelligent, pessimistic, who contemplates himself and his ailments as a chapter of history. The people of Benevento, on the other hand, carry, if anything, to the South some characteristics of the Trentinos. The climate itself is cold, not very Campanian; The beautiful views of the province are alpine. (p. 496)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Ascoli Piceno [...] is one of the most beautiful small towns in Italy, and I don't see any other that resembles it. Gide preferred it [...] as beautiful as some cities in southern France, not so much for this or that monument in a special way, but for its whole, for its anthological quality, for an enchantment that comes from nothing and everything. More than any other, it must be defended from stupid disembowelment. You must have walked through it, starting from Piazza del Popolo, the Italian square that together with that of San Marco in Venice gives more of an impression of a hall, surrounded by arcades, closed by the stupendous apse of San Francesco; or along the Baptistery of the Duomo; or along the steep banks of the Tronto; and in the narrow streets, called "rue," where the palaces are countless; and that spread out into small squares [...] Ascoli is a city of towers, anthological as we have said, because there are many styles, the Romanesque, the Gothic, the Renaissance, the Baroque. But the Romanesque remains the constant background, the color; stone-walled, windowless churches; a travertine of a warm, uniform grey, without plaster [...] That grey marble is all ornamented, worked, engraved [...] here, on every door and window, you see fruit, foliage, female caryatids, flowers, animals, stars, or even simply proverbs and carved sentences. (p. 534)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On Calabria It is certainly the strangest of our regions. In its vast mountain areas it sometimes does not seem to be in the South, but in Switzerland, in South Tyrol, in the Scandinavian countries. From this imaginary North you jump to olive forests, along coasts of the classic Mediterranean type. It is wedged with canyons reminiscent of the United States, stretches of African desert and corners where the buildings retain some memory of Byzantium. It would seem that the debris of different worlds has collapsed together here; that an arbitrary deity, after having created the continents and seasons, amused himself by breaking them to mix their shining fragments. (pp. 559-660)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You can reach it from bare beaches, and suddenly you see a mushroom grove of tall modern buildings. Power is growing visibly, gripped by building fever. This cladding of tenements [...] surrounds the old core of the Bourbon town, which, however, is far from dead. As soon as you enter it, you find it again, with the main street narrow, and with the alleys arranged in such a way as to cut the wind; In fact, Potenza is a city in the middle of the mountains, with fine and windy air. The wide, modern streets are on the outskirts. The interior has its grace, and some beautiful churches, such as the cathedral, St. Francis, St. Michael the Archangel. (p. 738)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“On the whole, Bari does not resemble Milan, as is claimed, but rather Genoa; and, between the two cities, Bari is more composed and more northern in appearance. In fact, there are few cafes; the street life has neither the importance, nor the color, nor the flair usual in the South. The street of Bari is a passage, with only a practical function, not a living room or a stage; with the exception of the working-class neighborhoods of old Bari. The people of Bari, and the Apulian in general, especially of Swabian descent, have a taste for cleanliness that is not felt even in the Po Valley. Even in the poorest streets, the inhabitants never cease to scrub the houses, polish them, give them lime. (pp. 768-769)”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“«Now I understand what good the horror of renunciation and the terror of dying can do. Well, now I say to myself: there is only one way to avoid meeting death, that of dying first. I will have to be afraid, very afraid, and thanks to it I will not give up anything, I will not break any bonds, I will not admit abandonment: I will close myself alive in an absolute world, which is already the afterlife. Then the vice of cowardice and selfishness, avarice and pride, will become a non-mortal loyalty, in which death cannot have an effect, because its passing will be any moment of our absolute life. This is why I won't let you die away from me.”
Guido Piovene (1907–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source