The Little World of Don Camillo (No. 1 in the Don Camillo series)

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Don Camillo: Monsignor (Italian: Don Camillo monsignore ma non troppo; French: Don Camillo Monseigneur) [9] It’s flat. Don Camillo’s world. Flat. Flatter than Norfolk. Flatter than the Netherlands. Flatter than a table. Completely, unrelentingly flat. Absolutely excellent. This is a series of short stories written for a magazine in 1950s Italy. They are primarily comedic and concern the village priest and the communist mayor of a small village. Their conflicts and collusions are entertaining as they try to do the best for their town. I think the main message and themes are about conflict and not hating your political opponents which is still relevant today. In particular the last three stories conclude in a very poignant moment between the two characters. Other favourite stories of mine included: rustic philosophy, city types and Juliet and Romeo. Victory, as such, is never sought; the wry wisdom of il Cristo seeks not supremacy but equanimity within the Little World, which is achieved through an understanding and acceptance of what being human means. Giovanni's message is that what works at the micro level of the Little World can be made to work universally, the world over. For my taste, too often disputes get out of hand and Camillo and the mayor end up physically assaulting each other. Most importantly, the tales are too repetitive.

The Little World of Don Camillo (1952) - IMDb The Little World of Don Camillo (1952) - IMDb

Don Camillo is the huge, brave, impetuous priest in the small, Po valley in Northern Italy, after WWII. Peppone – equally enormous, and stubborn, is the leader of the local communists and the town mayor. For most of the stories in this volume, the two men are at loggerheads with each other, although, ironically, they are often each other’s most likely confidantes and allies, when things get tough. No. 5: Don Camillo and Company (2018) ISBN 978-1900064408 (All 24 stories in this volume were published here in English for the first time)

In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978." [3] Synopsis [ edit ] The stories in this collection are fun.....but they are really not for me. I have read about half of them, and I have had enough. I do not think it is advisable to read one story after another, but neither do I have the urge to return to them after I have put them aside. I have read "Comrade Don Camillo" several times, and every time I am moved to tears at some of the scenes, and to laughter at others, and to tears by the overall tone and beauty. Comrade Don Camillo. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1964] ( Mondo Piccolo: Il compagno don Camillo, translated by Frances Frenaye) Christian-Jaque began filming the French-Italian film Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi [11] in 1970 but had to stop filming due to Fernandel's falling ill, which resulted in his untimely death. The film was then realized in 1972 by Mario Camerini with Gastone Moschin playing the role of Don Camillo and Lionel Stander as Peppone. A Don Camillo ( The World of Don Camillo; Italian: Don Camillo) film was remade in 1983, an Italian production with Terence Hill directing and also starring as Don Camillo. Colin Blakely performed Peppone in one of his last film roles. [12] Radio [ edit ]

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Un poetico ed esilarante spaccato di un piccolo pezzo d'Italia del dopoguerra, un grande classico da leggere e rileggere. a river blessing procession and the funeral of the town's generally respected old teacher, Ms. Christina, which are both kept strictly non-political despite the Communists' initial intentions. Giovanni claimed that the voice from the crucifix was merely the voice of his own conscience, but in the stories, it is a living reality which enables solutions so simple that they are beyond the reach of political minds clouded with ideology and the need to win. In Le Petit Monde de Don Camillo (released in Italy as simply Don Camillo) one of the characteristics is a certain balance between the two countries, since the original author, the place of action, and one of the two stars are Italian, while the director, the screenwriters, and the first star are French. The crew and the rest of the cast are also equally divided between both nations.Grazie agli amici aNobiiani che mi hanno permesso di superare la momentanea delusione e di tornare a innamorarmi di Giovannino;-) I first read Don Camillo in my early twenties, forty years ago, and for a long time I kept a copy of the stories beside my bed. On those nights when sleep came slowly I could dip in and out and find some peace of mind. It was also the highest-grossing film in France of all-time and is currently the sixth most watched French film at the cinema with 12,791,168 admissions and the 17th most watched film in France. [2] Sequel [ edit ] Contains La favola di Natale (Edizioni Riunite, 1946 - Guareschi's war-time experiences) alongside Don Camillo Christmas stories. The Einaudi arrest occurred after Giovanni's satirical magazine, Candido, which had helped engineer the defeat of the 'Fronte Popolare' (the Communists) in '48, depicted Einaudi at the Quirinal Palace, surrounded by a presidential guard of giant bottles of Nebbiolo wine, suggesting perhaps that his love for the wine he produced on his farm near Dogliani might have eclipsed his commitment to the people.

Little World of Don Camillo - Goodreads The Complete Little World of Don Camillo - Goodreads

The stories centre around the ongoing love/hate relationship between Don Camillo and Peppone. Both love their town, but fight madly over what the best path to its success might be. The characters evolve beautifully over the years, and other characters make regular appearances, so you get to know them too. Also important are Don Camillo's mental conversations with Jesus, who admonishes him when he errs, and tweaks his nose when he gets too big for his boots. But this need not be, for "Le Petit Monde de Don Camillo" (1951) does exist in an English-dubbed version. The only one of the five films to get the treatment, it is quite well done (once you get around the fact that it's dubbed in the first place). "King of Dubbers" Robert Rietti (Rietty) takes on the roles of both Don Camillo and Peppone, while none other than Orson Welles provides the voice-over narration and, in that capacity, the voice of Christ which Don Camillo hears in answer to his prayers. The narration is intrusive at times (they got their money's worth out of Welles), but the movie overall is a faithful adaptation and interweaving of some of the more memorable early Don Camillo tales.

Don Camillo is constantly at odds with the Communist mayor, Giuseppe Bottazzi, better known as Peppone (meaning, roughly, 'Big Joe') and is also on very close terms with the crucifix in his town church. Through the crucifix he hears the voice of Christ. [3] The Christ in the crucifix often has far greater understanding than Don Camillo of the troubles of the people, and has to constantly but gently reprimand the priest for his impatience. Last fall my mom brought up a series of stories she used to enjoy with my grandfather when she was young - "They were about this Italian priest in a little village, and the communist mayor who was his enemy, and they would fight all the time - they were funny." I got this book as a gift and it was a funny, heartwarming, enchanting little story, unlike anything I have read. The story starts in a small [albeit unnamed] town, simply known as "a small world", in the Po lowlands of northern Italy, in the early summer of 1946. The town's Communist party led by Peppone has just won the majority of seats within the city council, an event which they exploit for propagandistic purposes – and with some non-vocal, but church bell-assisted protest by the outraged Don Camillo, the spiritual leader of the town's Christian political party –, when an unexpected event puts an instant stop to this arising conflict: Peppone has just added a new member, a son, to his family, and following a personal and pugilistic appeal by Peppone himself (as well as some admonishment from Christ) to a reluctant Don Camillo, the child is baptized in Camillo's church. Similar conflicts arising in the course of the story are settled between Don Camillo and Peppone in a similarly conflicting, but ultimately unified fashion, such as:

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Little World of Don Camillo

In one story, Don Camillo visits the Soviet Union, pretending to be a comrade. In another, the arrival of pop culture and motorcycles propels Don Camillo into fighting "decadence", a struggle in which he finds he has his hands full, especially when Christ mainly smiles benevolently on the young rascals. In this later collection, Peppone is the owner of several profitable dealerships, riding the "Boom" years of the 1960s in Italy. He is no longer quite the committed Communist he once was, but he still does not get on with Don Camillo – at least not in public. Don Camillo has his own problems: the Second Vatican Council has brought changes in the Church, and a new assistant priest, who comes to be called Don Chichì, has been foisted upon him to see that Don Camillo moves with the times. Don Camillo, of course, has other ideas. Having read all of Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo stories, several times, I was very pleased to find "The Little World of Don Camillo" on YouTube. And I was further pleased to find it rather faithful to the original work by Guareschi. a b "La classifica dei film più visti di sempre al cinema in Italia". moviplayer.it . Retrieved September 29, 2019. The author of these stories, Giovannino Guareschi, was a journalist, who, like the characters in this book, shared a history in WWII. Indeed, the character of Don Camillo himself was, supposedly, based upon a real priest, who was a partisan and, later prisoner at Dachau, during the war. Although the war is only alluded to by Peppone and Don Camillo, it is obvious that both men were comrades, during that time, and their shared history has made them trust each other. I hadn't read any of the individual Don Camillo books, but my wife had read several of them in her youth, and spoke very fondly of them. So I bought this for her birthday, and then read it myself - and they are entirely delightful!

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There are logically five books in this collection, covering the period from the early 1950s to the mid-1960s, a period in which Italy steered itself from a broken-down post-war economy to a wild and swinging destination for fashionistas. And these stories focus on Don Camillo, the priest of a small town in the valley of the river Po, and Peppone, the leader of the local communist party. I see at IMDb that more modern versions of some Don Camillo stories have been made, and I hope to see them. Eventually. That doesn't matter, not at all. Peppone the mayor is an ardent communist, Don Camillo a Catholic priest who has Jesus as a conscience. Both were involved in the partisan war against the Germans and have a healthy respect for each other's physicality. This doesn't stop them doing battle over the conflicts in their beliefs and anything else about which they have chosen to disagree. In spite of this both men remain humane and capable of working together in an emergency, putting political differences aside.