In Italian culture, Andrea Camilleri is something of a cult figure. Not only has he been the author of the highly successful series of INSPECTOR MONTALBANO books, but he is an award-winning theater director and trainer. Luza Zingaretti, who plays the older Montalbano, is one of his former learners.
This program consists of a series of extended interviews with the eighty-plus writer and director. We learn that he does not take life too seriously, and intersperses much of his professional work with extended leisure time. The Montalbano books are in fact written extremely rapidly, in a matter of days, and Camilleri has the plot and characterization worked out well in advance before setting down to write.
Now a highly wealthy individual, Camilleri enjoys the trappings of the good life with a large Rome apartment and a seaside villa in Sicily.
That is about all we learn in this program, where the interviews veer towards the sycophantic, giving Camilleri the chance to expound his homespun philosophy without any rigorous questioning. It's interesting to see the background of Montalbano's creator, but as a person he does not seem especially engaging.
