Abstract

John Fante’s work as a screenwriter has attracted little scholarly attention. However, a thorough examination of these works can shed light on interesting aspects of his personality. This essay aims to analyze all the films based on scripts written by John Fante and explore the connections between these works and his novels and short stories. On the one hand, Fante’s scripts present an increasingly skeptical reflection on the activity of writing and on the value of books as shown by explicit and implicit references to Ask the Dust and to The Road to Los Angeles. On the other, several screenplays are set in Italy and therefore have a remarkable biographical value, as they reveal the way in which Fante relates to his father’s home country