Vitaliano Brancati
Il bell'Antonio

Introduction to the work and its content

‘The dreams of Sicilians are often filled with women’ stated a writer interviewed by journalist Enzo Biagi for a book of an inquiry program, born from a traveling journey through some areas of the country, recounting its history and culture (including literature), ‘Cara Italia’ (second half of the '90s).

The woman is one of the elements addressed in the novel by Vitaliano Brancati, ‘Il bell’Antonio’, a work I came across thanks to the title of the 1960 play of the same name with Marcello Mastroianni and the viewing of a two-part Rai fiction in 2005 with Daniele Liotti.

The protagonist of Brancati's tragicomic novel is a young man from the great Catanese bourgeoisie, Antonio Magnano, of notable beauty, driving young women all over the city crazy, but with a terrible problem, frowned upon by the entire city society: sexual impotence.

It's the '30s, during Fascism: Antonio returns home from Rome after a 2-year stay for study reasons in the capital, summoned by his father Alfio, with the need to solve some economic problems.

This includes the almost obligatory marriage proposal by the latter with the daughter of a wealthy family from the city, Barbara Puglisi, for the dowry, which would help improve the family's difficult situation.

A year after their marriage, Barbara is still not pregnant: her father awkwardly goes to Alfio Magnano to inform him of the problem (the daughter ‘still the same as when she left home’) and embarrassingly defines Antonio to a disbelieving and then indignant Alfio as ‘impotent’ (imagine the tones of 'old' Sicilians).

With the same need to solve economic problems, Barbara's father, after the marriage is annulled on the pretense of a lack of children, gives his daughter's hand to the very wealthy Duke of Bronte as compensation for old unpaid debts.

During the war, in the city bombed by the Allies, Alfio dies in the house of a prostitute he had gone to, to prove the virility of a Magnano, due to a bomb that destroys the house while he is making love.

With the death of the father, Antonio loses his impotence (caused by an excessively severe punishment from him when he was a boy, for making love with a young maid).

The main theme

The theme addressed in the book, light in tone, is impotence: sexual impotence against the myth of strength and virility proclaimed by Fascism which hides the moral impotence of Italian society at the time, as explained to Antonio by the wise uncle Ermenegildo (in the fiction a masterful Leo Gullotta).

Comparison between the film versions of the novel and more

Having presented the journey that led me to the book, I would like to express a few words both on the technical aspects of the screen versions of the novel and personal opinions on the portrayal of some characters and the beauty of the protagonists:

a) the play with Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale, directed by director Mauro Bolognini, faithfully follows the story’s progression but changes its setting to the Catania of the Economic Boom period, the country's economic resurgence;

b) the fiction with Daniele Liotti and Nicole Grimaudo, directed by Maurizio Zaccardo, although respecting the novel's setting, lacks some important characters of the story and the light tones of the same (the only one to return some of this is the character of Alfio Magnano, interpreted by Luigi Maria Burruano, especially in the conversation about Antonio's 'impotence' with Barbara's father, played by Marcello Perracchio – Doctor Pasquano, the forensic doctor from the ' Commissario Montalbano ' series);

c) the depth in the protagonist's existence, words, and actions is not entirely maintained by Mastroianni, whereas Liotti manages it, almost giving him a touch of 'nobility';

d) the same goes for the character of Barbara where the convincing portrayal is not by the Cardinale, but by Grimaudo, who perhaps renders her deeper and more 'present' than in the novel itself;

e) on the beauty of the protagonists, Liotti and Grimaudo soundly beat Mastroianni and Cardinale, being enchanting (especially Grimaudo) while the others are just fine (and the former creating a dream couple).

On the beauty, I add a curiosity: in the book, it talks about the unmarried daughter of the Magnano's neighbor, lawyer Ardizzone, who in the movie is more beautiful than Barbara, whereas in the fiction much more the opposite (it was the enchanting Nicole Grimaudo who made me fall in love with that version [and her - never found as enchanting neither before nor after]).

Going back to the beginning

Thanks to the recently reviewed fiction I was able to read the novel, watch the film, and one fine day propose it to the DeBaser users, launching enthusiastically into a comparison between the emotions of the identical film and fiction*.

A journey started in 2005 and completed today to officially proclaim that the best ' Antonio' is in the two episodes of the Rai Uno fiction: this was made possible thanks to... everyone.

* I found the book a little disappointing