L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2026 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 2 P i c t u r e a f i n e J u l y d a y . W e a r e i n Castellaneta, in the province of Taranto, where a deep grav- ina – the name given in Puglia to these great ravines – sepa- rates a large agricultural town from a broad valley dotted with olive groves. From above, the view opens toward neighboring Basilicata. That is where Grand- father Agostino came from. He h a d l e f t t h e s m a l l t o w n o f Bernalda to seek his fortune in America, a fortune that his tal- ented grandson would later find on a far greater scale: Francis Ford Coppola, whose name would become inseparable from the history of cinema. But let us return to Castellaneta, or rather follow the director, producer, writer, screenwriter, editor and musician, born in Detroit, Michigan, who over a career spanning more than sixty years has directed films such as The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and Bram Stoker's Dracula. We see him walking through the narrow stone-paved streets, bright under the summer sun, until he reaches a small doorway on the right. The six-time Academy Award winner steps inside the Rodolfo Valentino Museum on Via Vittorio Emanuele. For an hour, he listens to stories and anecdotes, and studies the original documents and memorabilia preserved there. He asks about the first great star of silent cinema, then leaves his From Valentino to Coppola, Hollywood to Venice: cinema between Italy and America From the Editor signature in the guest book, a gesture still fondly remembered by the Foundation that works to collect and preserve everything connected with the most famous Apulian in film history: Rudy, who died barely into his thirties and left behind an absence deeply felt by the public of his time and beyond. There is a profound connection between Hollywood and Italy, and Rodolfo Valentino and Francis Ford Coppola are only one example of it. The Venice International Film Festival has just come to a close, and there too, amid gondolas and glamorous red carpets, that cinematic relationship was very much on display. From Al Pacino to Robert De Niro, from Sergio Leone to Quentin Taran- tino, and now George Clooney, who has just received the Gold- en Lion for Lifetime Achievement, Venice has once again reflected a love affair between American and Italian cinema that has lasted for almost a century. Hollywood has often represented Italy through stereotypes and myths, but Italy, in turn, has repeatedly taken hold of the American imagination and transformed it. It happened with the Western, the gangster film, action cinema and even the very idea of how a major star should be created. These exchanges have been extraordinarily fertile. Over the decades, the Lido has welcomed American directors and actors who would go on to become legends, while Italian cinema has continued to find there one of its most important international showcases. Hollywood and Cinecittà may seem far apart in terms of industry and language, yet they have influ- enced one another continuously, and many performers have developed a particular affinity with Italy, if not a much deeper personal bond with the country. Al Pacino, for instance, who brought Italian-American iden- tity to the screen with a force that became universal, was born in New York into a family of Sicilian origins. His Michael Cor- leone in The Godfather is perhaps the character who, more than any other, transformed the memory of Italian immigration into cinematic language. Alongside him stands Robert De Niro, another actor from an Italian-American family who became essential to directors such as Martin Scorsese and Coppola, and who helped move the immigrant and the Italian American away from caricature and toward something tragic, complex and central to contemporary culture. Sergio Leone chose him for Once Upon a Time in America, while Bernardo Bertolucci cast him in 1900, showing just how deeply an American actor could enter the imagination of major Italian filmmakers. Sergio Leone himself, however, showed that the exchange ran in both directions. For his spaghetti Westerns, he looked to America and recreated its myths through an Italian lens; Holly- wood, in turn, later absorbed and reworked the spaghetti West- ern, using it to shape a new idea of epic cinema. The relation- ship has always been reciprocal, which is one reason so many American actors have found something like a second artistic home in Italian cinema. John Turturro, also of Italian descent, is another example, moving easily between American indepen- dent film and European cinema. So let us return to where we began, and to the two names that perhaps best encapsulate this relationship between Holly- wood and Italy. Valentino, one of the most iconic Italian and Italian-Ameri- can figures from the earliest years of cinema, had to leave for America to become a myth. Francis Ford Coppola, by contrast, had to return to Italy to turn his cultural inheritance into an essential part of his cinematic language. The Corleone saga is American in form, but deeply Italian in its imagination: family, honor, memory and the relationship with one's roots all lie at its center. That is why the Venice Film Festival is more than a red car- pet. It is also one of the places where this long history of exchange, influence and return continues to be written. Simone Schiavinato, Editor Simone Schiavinato NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Member of FUSIE (Federazione Unitaria Stampa Italianaall'Estero), COGITO L'Italo-Americano Please send correspondence to P.O. Box 40156 Pasadena CA 91114 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano Newspaper (a 501(c)(3) non- profit organization), www.italoamericano.org, is the largest and longest-running Italian news- paper in America, not to mention the cultural and news resource for all things Italian in the US. A bilingual newspaper which represents an historical landmark for the Italian American Communities in the West Coast and throughout the US. L'Italo-Americano benefits from subsidies by the Italian Government, Memberships and Donations intended to support and not interrupt a mission that began in 1908 to preserve and promote the Italian language and culture in the USA Periodicals postage paid at Monrovia, California 91016, and additional mailing offices. 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