Cinecittà Dreams

What price do we pay for beauty?Acclaimed novelist and critic Olivia Laing brings the charged eroticism of 1970s Italian cinema vividly to life in 'The Silver Book', set amid the Cinecittà studios of the great filmmakers Fellini and Pasolini.Part fact, part fiction, the novel explores the uneasy space between illusion and reality, tracing the jealousies, obsessions and euphoria of creative collaboration.In conversation with film critic Francine Stock, Laing reflects on the dark underbelly of cinematic fantasy and the real-world violence that sustains it.