“Damn, I really wanted to talk about current events, maybe next time.” Said in the over-the-top, unmistakable Moretti manner, Nanni Moretti closed his press encounter at the Venice Film Festival with that line, delivered with the ironical style we associate with him. The sole film unseen before the Lido, and the one the director did not wish to present to journalists except at a press conference, Succederà questa notte, which hits theaters on December 3, is his new movie, applauded in the first two press screenings, and marks his return to Venice after 37 years, in competition. Yet, contrary to the widespread belief that he had been offended for decades by the lack of invitation to Palombella Rossa, he stressed that this was not true: “I simply usually shoot in spring, so it seemed natural to propose a film to Cannes; this time I shot in autumn.”
And speaking of “this time,” Moretti astonishes with a melodrama in every sense, drawing, as in Tre piani, from a book by the Israeli writer Eshkol Nevo. This time it’s a collection of stories. “Many years ago I coined a somewhat silly phrase,” Moretti explained at the press conference, “I’d like to make the same film again and again, preferably ever more beautiful. With time I realized that I don’t actually want to do that. This time, also thanks to the collaboration with the two co-screenwriters, Federica Pontremoli and Valia Santella, we imagined a rather powerful love story.”
In the process, as Santella recalled, “we chose the things that spoke to us the most—the core themes: relationships, the bonds”—which is the Italian title of the book. Bonds between people, fathers and sons, mothers and sons, men and women. On the basis of one of the stories, How Like Water, a great love story between two people who find each other again across time, we incorporated images, characters, or situations from other stories. The themes we chose for this love story, at this point, feel new.”
Seventy-seven years after, he returns to the Festival after a long hiatus, while the novelty, as the director pointed out, lies in his daily undertaking as the proprietor of the Nuovo Sacher in Rome. “A change I’m glad to experience, though it is quite demanding. Equally important is not assuming to know the supposed tastes of the audience and thus bending to them, but rather telling, each time, the story that feels most urgent to me at that moment. Naturally, changing the story means changing the tone and the style in which it wants to be told. When I founded Sacher Film I made three films I wrote almost by accident, Palombella Rossa, Caro Diario, and Aprile, in which I would shoot, edit, then re-shoot, often filling gaps in the screenplays during production, casually shooting with my production company. But from La stanza del figlio I realized I enjoyed writing with others, and that narrative freedom—though stylistically unconventional—was linked to the fact that they were very personal films. Afterward I chose the adventure, even the human one, of writing with others, then shooting with a solid screenplay behind me.”
D, after many years, Jasmine Trinca and Nanni Moretti returned to work together. The director explained that he chose her back during the making of The Son’s Room because, even from some short videos shot by his assistants in schools, she had something special. “She wanted to be an archaeologist, but then Giordana cast her for La meglio Gioventù, and she kept saying she wanted to be an archaeologist. Then she became an actress, and I called her along with other actors I had worked with for the ending of Sol dell’avvenire. In that close-up that I close the film with, I saw a great luminosity, and I had no doubt about calling her for this film.”
Asked about it, Trinca—after a light-hearted joke and thanking the question—“I never knew why he chose me twenty-five years ago”—spoke of the great emotion of reuniting with him. “He is the person I owe my arrival into this world to, but also the idea of cinema—not how one appears on screen, but the meaning of things. Then, as with fathers, there is a distance that helps undertake a personal path. These are things very different from the cinema we make together, which have helped shape parts of me as an actress and as a woman. I didn’t remember what he was like on set; I had forgotten, but it took me little to remember. He is always present, continually guiding the actors and the objects. He would say, how do I do this? He takes away pauses from acting, no tricks of the trade. There will be nothing left of me in this film, I told myself. Yet I later saw in the final product something magical and vital happening. Like that rhyme that speaks of love as the wise language of children who are confused and surprised, but who play that game together. And that moved me greatly.”
Regarding Moretti’s method, Louis Garrel made a point of noting two things. Two only. “First, he shows you first how he wants a scene, then makes you redo it. On one occasion I had to score a basket in a small basketball court. He did it on the first try, flipping the ball behind his back like Michael Jordan. And then he said, now you do it. Of course, after twenty-five takes of my mistakes, as he is a bit of a sadist, he asked the whole crew to review his take. The second thing is that I had a scooter scene in Rome, and I was expecting a Vespa. I arrive and see a Japanese scooter. But I say, why not a Vespa, isn’t this your film? He said, ‘Louis, I don’t like self-referential moments.’ In short, I’d go to Rome first to Sacher rather than the Vatican, I adore it, but making this film was both suffering and joy,” he joked.
This Will Happen Tonight is a film where singing and dancing—without excess—accompany a sequence of events that culminates in a Springsteen concert, and features a truly unusual song for cinema, the magnificent She’s a Rainbow by the Rolling Stones. Obtaining it was “very difficult, long, and costly,” as producer Domenico Procacci summarized. “Speaking of costs, I shattered my personal record for Keith Jarrett in Caro diario,” Moretti continued slyly. “By far,” Procacci concluded.
Comments