About This Book
Writing about 1350, in the shadow of the devastating Black Plague, Giovanni Boccaccio looked with a survivor's warmth on humanity's follies, passions, joys, and ennoblements in the hundred stories of his Decameron. Four Seasons of Love are contemporary screenplays based on stories from this great work. The four screenplays represent the natural changes and guises of love in the lives of their men and women-young, old, foolish, wise, eager and compassionate. The screenplays make cinematic the original stories and characters in their own terms and time and give them a timeless glow. Joseph Cone has succeeded in blending Boccaccio's brilliant plots and vivid dialogue with the language of film, in a way that does justice to both. He's managed to update the sometimes stately, sometimes earthy language of Boccaccio while preserving its signature sparkle. . . . And Cone tosses off inside jokes with a light touch reminiscent of Shakespeare in Love. As I read these screenplays I couldn't help but imagine casting and locations. - Prof. Regina Psaki, University of Oregon I've read your four screenplays with amusement and great pleasure . . . congratulations. - Prof. John Freccero, New York University
