Intelligence Squared

Olivia Laing on Passion and Heartbreak in the Golden Age of New Italian Cinema

November 7, 2025

Key Takeaways Copied to clipboard!

  • Olivia Laing's novel, *The Silver Book*, uses the making of Fellini's *Casanova* and Pasolini's *Salò* in the mid-1970s Italian cinema world as a backdrop to explore themes of artifice, truth, love, power, and resistance against fascism. 
  • The novel focuses intensely on the intimate, interpersonal relationship between set maker Danilo Donati and his young apprentice Nicholas, highlighting the labor and community of the 'handmade' film world in contrast to modern AI-driven creativity. 
  • Pasolini's film *Salò* is presented as an anguished moral examination of fascism's spirit, focusing not just on cruelty but critically on compliance and complicity, a warning Laing feels is highly relevant today. 

Segments

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Introduction to Olivia Laing
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(00:02:14)
  • Key Takeaway: Olivia Laing discusses their new novel, The Silver Book, which blends a queer love story with a noirish thriller set during the making of two key Italian films.
  • Summary: Host Mia Sorrenti introduces acclaimed writer Olivia Laing, author of The Lonely City and The Garden Against Time. Laing’s new novel, The Silver Book, is set in the dream factory of Italian cinema. The book weaves fictional accounts around Federico Fellini’s Casanova and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò.
Focus on Italian Cinema Context
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(00:04:08)
  • Key Takeaway: Laing was drawn to the immediate, handmade world of mid-1970s Italian cinema, specifically Fellini’s Casanova and Pasolini’s Salò, as a contrast to 21st-century machine creativity.
  • Summary: The setting is Italian cinema in the mid-1970s, focusing on the films Casanova and Pasolini’s Salò. Laing found inspiration in this ‘handmade, very scrappy, very immediate world’ during lockdown. This focus contrasts sharply with the current era of AI and machine creativity.
Explanation of Pasolini’s Salò
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(00:05:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Pasolini’s Salò transposes de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom to the final, cruel days of the German-run Republic of Salò during WWII, serving as a moral examination of fascism.
  • Summary: Salò is an adaptation of de Sade’s work set deliberately in the final days of the German-run fascist regime in Northern Italy. The film depicts young people rounded up and subjected to horrors by four libertines, ultimately resulting in everyone’s death. Its moral intent is to examine fascism’s desire for control and the uncomfortable themes of compliance and complicity.
Researching the Film Set
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(00:07:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Laing immersed themselves in the world of the Cinecittà film studio in the 70s by watching documentaries, including Intervista, focusing specifically on the craftspeople and underlings behind the main action.
  • Summary: To capture the tactile nature of filmmaking, Laing watched documentaries about the making of Casanova and Salò at Cinecittà. They focused on the people in the background—those carrying clothes or applying makeup—to reconstitute this fascinating, self-enclosed universe. Cinecittà at that time was a complex, self-contained world full of riches.
Focus on Interpersonal Relationships
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(00:09:31)
  • Key Takeaway: The narrative zooms in on the daily life, intimacy, and shared meals between set maker Danilo Donati and his apprentice Nicholas, making their relationship the true stars of the story.
  • Summary: While the book covers great art, the lens focuses on small, brightly lit interpersonal moments between Donati and Nicholas. Initially conceived as a sinister character, Nicholas evolved into a wide-eyed, hapless young man damaged by mid-1970s homophobia. This focus allows the narrative to explore themes of love, chaos, and being caught up in larger circumstances.
Political Backdrop Research
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(00:13:50)
  • Key Takeaway: The 1970s setting is the ‘Years of Lead’ (Anni di Piombo), a violent period of terrorism where Pasolini acted as a vocal public intellectual warning against links between the government and the far-right.
  • Summary: The historical context is the Anni di Piombo, marked by extreme violence from both far-left and far-right terrorism. Pasolini was a politicized intellectual who publicly denounced the right, foreseeing the return of fascism. The book serves as a warning about the lethal danger of compliance, which Pasolini’s assassination attempted to muddy.
Contrasting Directors’ Styles
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(00:17:31)
  • Key Takeaway: Fellini is portrayed as a dramatic, expensive-film-making diva with complicated relationships, contrasting sharply with Pasolini, who was intensely focused and hurried while making Salò.
  • Summary: Fellini, making the expensive Casanova, is depicted as a theatrical figure constantly fighting with collaborators like Donati. Pasolini, conversely, is shown as super-focused, running from shot to shot with his camera, sensing a clock ticking on his work. Despite their different personalities, Fellini and Pasolini were friends who had previously collaborated.
Admiration for Danilo Donati
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(00:19:45)
  • Key Takeaway: Danilo Donati serves as the book’s moral center, embodying work and artistic creation as a refuge, and is admired for his visionary costume design and collaborative, earthy nature.
  • Summary: Donati, like Fellini and Pasolini, grew up under fascism, and as a gay man, understood the danger. He embodies the idea of communal creation as refuge, working collaboratively rather than as a solitary auteur. His costumes for Pasolini’s films are described as visionary art, and he is characterized as phlegmatic, funny, and brilliant.
Writing Process and Themes
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(00:22:52)
  • Key Takeaway: Writing The Silver Book in Rome was a unique, fast, ‘dictation-like’ experience, unlike Laing’s usual painstaking non-fiction work, and it continues their career-long exploration of fascism and resistance through art.
  • Summary: Laing contrasts the novel’s rapid, exciting writing process with the years required for their factual non-fiction work. The book continues a thematic thread across Laing’s bibliography: each work raises a question leading to the next, often focusing on artists’ lives, fascism, and resistance. Laing hopes the book encourages a new generation to heed Pasolini’s warnings.
Impact on Film Viewing
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(00:28:24)
  • Key Takeaway: Understanding the tactile, labor-intensive process of 70s filmmaking—how effects were physically created—adds an exciting, layered dimension to watching films from that era.
  • Summary: The research deepened Laing’s appreciation for how films are made, moving beyond the assumption that everything seen is real. Knowing the backstory of the dramas and physical construction behind the scenes adds excitement to viewing. This awareness creates two layers of viewing: the final story and the lost moments of creation and malfunction on set.
Future Projects
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(00:29:48)
  • Key Takeaway: Laing is considering a prequel to The Silver Book set in early 1970s London and is due to write the next installment of their Crudo quartet, which captures personal and political clashes every decade.
  • Summary: A potential next project is a prequel to The Silver Book set in London during the early 1970s. Laing is also due to write the next novel in the Crudo quartet, intended to be written every decade. This quartet aims to bear witness to the process of personal life smashing into political reality.