Mario Soldati

Soldati worked as assistant director to Ruttmann, re-writing Pirandello’s screenplay though uncredited. He heard about Ginzburg’s writing at a party, and sent her an approving telegram. Greene was a great friend — Soldati admired his raffishness, directed one of his stories for the cinema, and worried about his choice of biographer; they smoked opium together in Sierra Leone and visited brothels on Capri. Pasolini was a professional colleague (both of them very literary film-makers). Nykvist assisted and translated for him, while his old friend Carlo Levi designed the cover for his first successful book.