DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross. This week marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Mario Puzo's "The Godfather." A new edition has just been released with an introduction by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola and Puzo co-wrote the screenplays for...
READ MOREIn the late 1960s, Mario Puzo retreated to the basement nook that served as his office to work on a new book. The broom-closet-like space beneath his Long Island house had enough room for a desk, a typewriter and little more. The basement also held a pool table, and while Puzo typed away, his five children would come down and play loud games, forci...
READ MORESi fa un gran parlare dei Soprano, in occasione dei 20 anni della serie tv, di come abbia raccontato l’America e gli americani e, soprattutto, rinnovato il profilo del gangster italoamericano, liberandolo da molti cliché e, allo stesso tempo, giocandoci sopra. Non c’è dubbio che James Gandolfini e lo sceneggiatore e regista David Chase abbiano fatt...
READ MOREWith the exception of Louis Zamperini in 2014 "Unbroken", it has been almost impossible to find Italian American positive characters in the Hollywood storytelling of last decades. While Italian Americans have proved their talent and their hardworking attitude with an exceptional positive contribution to American society, economy, culture in any pos...
READ MOREEveryone knows that the first regional group among the Italian community in the US is the one from Sicily. The period of mass emigration, the one starting in 1880 and ending more or less in the early 20's of the XXth century, didn't see at the beginning Sicily as the main region of departure. Some Sicilians had previously gone to New Orleans (at th...
READ MOREKnowing the existence of a few books about the literary production of the Italians in America - from 1776 to World War II - written by a Neapolitan professor named Francesco Durante, we asked him to be interviewed, not knowing that thanks to him we would discover a world. An exceptional world, information very interesting and known by only a few, w...
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