“It is not clear why, but as soon as the word “moral” comes into play, the clarity of thought becomes cloudy.”
A book that could be deceiving in size (if someone were to think of being able to read it in a couple of hours) and title (American hallucinations have such a broad meaning!), but not in quality, which is high with peaks that are not very easy to scale; but after all, how could we expect less from Calasso?
The father of Adelphi gives himself, and gives us, an analysis text on two Hitchcock films: “Vertigo” and “Rear Window” generally considered by fans as two diametrically opposed films, but which Calasso theorizes to be two twin films, with many more references and connections than one might have imagined.
Calasso’s thoughts are scattered throughout the text, and even the stylistic code used is that of fragments of even a single page where scenes, dialogues, protagonists, secondary characters and their characteristics, clothing and the symbolism hidden within the whole are resumed. Here comes the most important question for future readers: do you have to have seen the two films in question to read the book? Yes, it helps a lot to have them fresh in your mind due to the punctuality of the references in the text. We saw the films both before and after reading, and we can guarantee that you will see everything with different eyes.
We really appreciated the comparative reasoning made on the world of cinema and that of books. How over time cinematography has managed to acquire more and more space in describing everyday life, perhaps to the detriment of the written word. The mental constructions of every man that in cinematography find new paths, then extended to the whole of American society. Perhaps these are the real American hallucinations that give the work its title.
Do we recommend it? Yes, but precisely with all the specifications above to know in advance what you are going to read, and not be disappointed in the case in which the text does not exactly fall within your reading preferences.
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Roberto Calasso, Allucinazioni americane, Adelphi, Milano, 2021