By: Your Friend Who Just Wrote a Screenplay Called “Space Italians”
I wouldn’t call it “cinema Italiano” nor would I classify it as strictly Kubrickian, but the script certainly marries the two auteurs.
Before I sat down and wrote what’s most likely to win Prix un Certain Regard at Cannes, there were really two schools of thought: Martin “Marty” Scorsese and the reclusive Stanley Kubrick.
My dad seems to think my screenplay falls into the Kubrick camp, while my mom, a philistine, said it had flashes of “The Departed.”
“Space Italians” is not a mere commentary on what it means to be an Italian-American supercomputer named Sal living in a lunar colony, it’s a commentary on our very idea of the “commentary genre.” At least, that’s what it attempts to do, successfully.
Do I think it’s a problem that I’m not Italian myself? That didn’t cross my mind once.
It’s a good thing I’m cultured. My dad’s best friend lived in Italy for a year, so I sorta know all things Italian—which helped a lot in the script. For example, Planet Meatball remains uninhabitable for the entire second act until Sal and his friends start gesticulating with more gusto.
As for Kubrick, you just know it when you see it.
Published in the Oct. 2023 edition of The Every Three Weekly
Dan Gutenberg 