TORONTO – TIFF Cinematheque is currently running a retrospective of Marco Bellocchio’s decades long film career. Prior to the first screening Pier Giorgio sat with Corriere Canadese to discuss Italy’s past, present and future in the industry.
Does Buongiorno, Notte encapsulate your father’s approach to storytelling?
“No, simply because my father made another film of 6 hours in which he continued to tell the same story from another point of view. He made Buongiorno, Notte when the platforms for series didn’t exist [as they do today]. Films were still prevalent, and so you’d have to tell part of the story in a constrained amount of time. But years later, the world changed and streaming platforms arrived, and serial television became popular. And so you get a chance to approach a story with a broader range. To an author like Marco this gave him the opportunity to essentially make a six-hour movie. In this way, Esterno Notte is the maximum expression of Marco’s storytelling”.
Who were your father’s influences?
“Probably the films that have most influenced Marco are those related to the French Nouvelle Vague of the 60s and 70s. But right from the beginning Marco was very much his own director. He was independent and I think that he influenced other directors much more than what other directors did for him in terms of influence. He didn’t spend a long time “making it”, so to speak. He started right with I Pugni in Tasca. He started right from the beginning being a point of reference for other directors. So I think his style is his style. If I have to find the main influence on him I would say literature rather than cinema. If you see a screenplay written by Marco you will see the difference from one of his screenplays and screenplays written by other directors. For him, the movie set is just the end of the process that started with words on a page”.
What would you like to see from Italian Cinema in the next ten years?
“There’s a lot of great directors but I’d like to go back to seeing great authors at the forefront. There should be a specific policy and strategy for someone’s first movie. For instance, France produces 120 first works per year and when these directors get their movies released not every one of these directors gets a second chance. In Italy, instead what happens is that whoever does an okay first movie gets a second and third chance to produce another one. But they may not have a great talent or work with great themes. The main problem is the lack of great themes. So I think that we have to go back to thinkers. We need men and women who can talk about society, see the problems in society and speak up and describe these problems. But the courage must come first and foremost from the financiers to support these authors”.
(Photos courtesy of 01 Distribution and Radio France)
(read HERE part 1 of this interview)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
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