Bernard Eisenschitz
Translated from Italian by Alexandra Tatiana Pollard
Originally published in Positif, n. 183/4, 1976; translated in Cinegrafie, n. 20, 2007
The following interview is the only one in which Raffaello Matarazzo spoke extensively about his work and his concept of film. Bernard Eisenschitz conducted this interview in March 1964 when he was just a young critic, and it appeared only in 1976, in issue 183/4 of Positif. It was promptly translated in Italian and that same year became part of the first volume of Raffaello Matarazzo. Materiali, published by the Movie Club of Torino. The following is the English translation of a revised and slightly modified version, though basically the same, of that (unsigned) Italian translation.
How did you start directing?
I was a journalist and not interested in film. IN 1929, with the arrival of sound film, I participated in a lot of discussions about the future of film and that is how I ended up meeting people like Camerini and Bragaglia. At the time people were saying that sound film had no future, that it was just some American invention... I remember the last silent film I saw was Asphalt by Joe May, and there were only two or three captions in the entire film. Of course there is always the danger of giving in to too much symbolism, of not being direct enough.
Anyhow, I met Bragaglia who asked me to write him a screenplay, and so I did. They bought it from me, but it was never shot. I was an assistant for Steinhoff and for Camerini; Camerini really taught me a lot about editing and découpage. Then there were two documentaries that I was not really interested in because I was anti-fascist. But I was very young, and it would have been difficult to say no, they would have asked me for an explanation.
What happened with your first film?
We shot all of Treno popolare [Middle-Class Train] in Orvieto because we did not have the money for a studio. As a result the film was obviously simpler, more truthful and honest. But at the premiere of the film - I remember it was at the Barberini - the audience, who saw these things for the first time, shouted and whistled like I had never seen before: they turned red from blowing so hard through keys, through whatever. I was twenty-three years old and the film is what was later called neo-realism. And so it was a very sad night for me. It was a film that showed people as they were, dressed poorly if they dressed that way. The fascists could not admit to such things because the truth is always the last thing to be said and so they protested against the film. Later on when the film came out in Milan, Filippo Sacchi, who was the critic as "Corriere della Sera," was the first person to defend it. And since we had a small budget, the film ended up recovering all the money we had put into it. It is still my favorite film today (unfortunately there are no copies left of it).* There is another film of mine from before the war that I like: L'avventuriera del piano di sopra [The Adventuress from the Second Floor]. One of the the things I like most about this film is the joke played on censors: you were not allowed to talk about adultery, and, in the last fifteen minutes, I make the audience understand, without saying it, that the man is about to leave his wife for another woman.
Treno Popolare (1933)
Before the war you also wrote plays. Did you become interested in theater because of film or is there no connection between the two?
I cannot say that film brought me to theater, it was different. At a certain point there was something distressing me within that I had to free myself from and I wrote this play Simmetria in ten or fifteen days, just for me. Then one day I showed it to Anton Giulio Bragaglia, the brother of Carlo Ludovico, who was really significant for Italian theater, and he told me he would take it without any changes. In 1959 my friend Franca Dominici, who directed a theater company, asked me to write and this time direct two plays. I would like to direct again in theater, just not stories written by me but modern comedies. With film, however, I feel much more comfortable with my own screenplays.
Did commedia dell'arte influence you at all in your films or in these theatrical works?
Commedia dell'arte is not simply an influence because it is our national form of theater; it is something that has marked everyone. Being influenced by an individual is possible, by Pirandello, but commedia dell'arte is a cultural atmosphere. It is something that corresponds to an Italian reality; the central character is someone who does not know how he will eat the next day, and in Naples, where commedia dell'arte was born, that was something that often happened, even recently.
What are the extensions of commedia dell'arte in the performing arts today in Italy? Eduardo?
I wouldn't say that Eduardo De Filippo is the modern heir of commedia dell'arte. You can fell that his works are entirely written, very structured, that they move toward something. In theater today that atmosphere of improvisatonn can only be seen in Peppino De Filippo, whose work Le metamorfosi di un suonatore ambulante you have seen in Paris; whereas twenty years ago this could still be seen in the cinema with the variety show, today only two or three places in Rome have it. The case of Gassman is a different story. He was a highly regarded dramatic actor; in film he had almost only played traitor roles. One day Monicelli told his producer, to his great surprise, that he wanted Gassman for a comic role in I soliti ignoti [Big Deal on Madonna Street]. It was such a success that Gassman decided to continue; after he did Il mattatore [Love and Larceny] that he had already showed in television, and everyone realized that he was truly an extraordinary actor, able to do everything. In film the only representative of this tradition is undoubtedly Totò.
What was the situation when you shot La fumeria d'oppio [The Opium Den]?
I had spent two years in Spain, and when I came back Rome was foreign to me. I no longer spoke the same language, everything had changed. You cannot imagine what happened in '43 and '44. Going to the middle of Africa and not understanding the language there is normal; but here I was so shocked that I was afraid of reality and I wanted to go as far away as possible making La fumeria d'oppio, then they had me make Catene [Chains] and the whole series. The producer, Lombardo's father, made use of my ability and trade, but the idea for the film and its concept were his. Afterwards, due to the public success of these films, I had to keep going on and only now I have managed to understand a little bit, now that I have seen little by little, through what they have told me about it, of what happened. I am beginning to return to what I was before. I read a lot. I am going back to the classics, the French classics. The 1800's in France were an amazing century. I have here the complete works of Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant, I have everything. I am under the impression that our century has forgotten humanism. We are coming towards the end of the century, there is incredible technological progress and, on the other hand, in literature there is nothing comparable to the 1800's in France, Flaubert, Courteline... I have also realized that intellectuals travel a lot less today when everything is possible in less than a day, than in the Middle Ages when a trip from Paris to London really meant something!
Where does your film La risaia [Rice Girl] stand in relation to the period you are talking about?
With La risaia I believe I began to get in touch again with Italy. On the other hand, the beginning was almost a documentary. It was a pleasure to make that film for many reasons: there were between five and six hundred walk-ons to direct who came every morning from the surrounding area by bus or by car; it was my first film shot in CinemaScope and so I had to learn a new technique, with long crane shots without getting too close to the characters. I also tried to make shots that worked with the format, like the one in the love scene when Elsa Martinelli is lying down and Rick Battaglia is seated, a scene that I think is successful in that respect. But I am not sure that it is always a good thing that a format makes you devise new but somewhat forced solutions. I do not think that CinemaScope is an ideal format. Whereas VistaVision is: it is almost the old format, but larger. In short, La risaia was a difficult but exciting film, we did eleven weeks of shooting in the area of Novara, and the film made 600 million despite that Minerva, the distributor, went bankrupt. It was the first part played by Elsa Martinelli in Italy.
La risaia (1956)
What do you think of the criticism that the film was a remake of Riso amaro [Bitter Rice]?
I do not think there is any connection with Riso amaro, which, if I remember well, was a rather chaotic and confusing story. In my film the situations and emotions are very simple. Ponti and I watched De Santis' films and we did not feel at all that we were remaking the same thing. Of course, it has a very unusual setting, but nothing else justifies putting the two films together.
What is your idea of a historical film?
Events from the past seen in the eyes of a modern man, that is what I would like to do. Also finding what for us is unusual in the habits of those times. For example, it was completely normal that Louis XIV received ambassadors from other countries and had important discussions with them while he was sitting on a chaise percée. Or the feudal custom of the lord's right, the old nobleman that goes to take women from the countryside and chooses them in front of their husbands who cannot protest. In this respect, I think Tom Jones is a very sucessful film.
Is that the direction you were going in with Paolo e Francesca [Legend of Love]?
I do not think it was a success; we had a very small budget. La nave delle donne maledette [The Ship of Damned Women] however demonstrates what I was talking about. It was my first film in color and I was able to shoot it in 32 days, mostly because of Aldo Tonti, with whom I tried to make shots in which one color dominated, for example by matching the tone of a suit with the tone of the ground...
La nave delle donne maledette (1953)
What happens in this film at the beginning of the song's scene? Was the song planned, was it written by Nino Rota for the film?
No, Malatierra was a song in vogue at the time (by Redi). One day Flo Sandon's, a singer who had worked in America, came to record it for us, and I shot the large pan shot of the women on the boat with the song in playback. It was improvised; the scene was created from the song.
Which composers do you prefer working with?
Nino Rota wrote music for film for the first time with Treno Popolare. Now he has stopped and works for film only when Fellini manages to tear him away from the music conservatory he directs. Lavagnino specifically studied the problems of making music for film for Continente perduto [Lost Continent]. He was the first to use the sound of a single amplified instrument, something Savina did also for Amore mio (the piano theme).
And Rustichelli?
He did the music for me in Adultero lui, adultera lei. I think that they are the top three: Rota, Lavagnino, Rustichelli.
Have you ever dealt with a composer who has used the music of one film for another as Renzo Rossellini and Roberto Nicolosi often do?
No, Rossellini only worked for me for the musical arrangement of Giuseppi Verdi, but I do know a composer, whose name I will not mention, who recorded music and then he uses it by fast-forwarding and rewinding... Obviously he always ends up with a new soundtrack!
In terms of modern literature, what do you like? I see you have the records and books of Brecht, Lorca...
Yes, but I cannot say I approve of either Brecht or Lorca because I do not share their ideas - even if I like The Threepenny Opera. I agree with the ideas of Benedetto Croce, according to whom the artist and the work are inseparable. I think that if I were a thief or a pimp I would not make good films. One can't come and tell me that René Clair goes pick-pocketing at night; that just is not possible. I know that ever more frequently people think the contrary. Croce and Croce's aesthetics were very significant for us Italians. Croce made a certain number of ideas that were in the air clearer and that needed to be expressed. He had a very simple way of writing, almost anyone can read him. He called himself "his own employee" and had extraordinary work capacity and discipline. For Croce a work of art is not something transcendental; it is something strictly connected to man. Anyhow, I think it is useless to talk about Croce's aesthetics in terms of film, which is just a craft. When a painter paints a tree, he creates the whole tree; the filmmaker has to shoot the tree already existing. And there is more, in film you have two creators: the screenwriter and the director, and in my opinion the screenwriter is always the more important one. I think that the use of technology can and must always be reduced: in fact now, with smaller formats, you can practically do what you want. In 1935 they said to me: it is impossible to take a shot of a man against a wall, we cannot light him properly. Everything has changed tremendously. But overcoming these obstacles should also be a source of stimulation. You play a do, you get a mi, you have go to work that me into the rest. In my opinion film is an evolved and improved form of theater. The difference is just a question of technique. The forms of the performing arts spring from the needs and tastes of the public. In different times people wanted to relax, go into the foyer, meet up, talk; people went to the theater also for these reasons. This is why plays were divided in acts. Do you know what the theaters were like in Elizabethan times? People stood, talked out loud, walked around. The need to catch the attention of the audience led to Shakespeare's volcanic theater. Today, with the scientific development of the twentieth century, a change in technique was necessary. But in the end it is basically the same thing. In the theater the viewer, by himself, with his own mind, automatically does the découpage himself. A character moves, you follow him with your eyes. He says something important, you see only his face. He acts, the scene fills up with people: a very long shot. I cannot accept film in which the camera just goes where it wants to, starts from the left foot of the character, shoots an ashtray... Ok, film also has realism, but it is not something completely impossible to do in the theater.
What do you think of television?
I have only had indirect contact with television; one of my works was presented on television last year. but it is something entirely different: you are no longer in touch with the audience. At the theater you are behind the scenes, you see the audience's reaction: they laugh more at a certain joke, they do not respond to another one. For the next performance you can change the joke. With film it is the same: you can orient yourself according to the reactions in the cinema. This is no longer possible with television: you are completely isolated. The following day maybe you receive letters, but those letters are not representative enough of the public in order to be able to judge.
Do you have a project that is particularly important to you?
The film I dream about making, but unfortunately impossible, is a film about the ridiculous elements of modern life. Take a funeral for example; there is nothing funnier than a first rate funeral or a big wedding. That a man says to a woman "I love you" and they start making love is natural and therefore beautiful, but with convention we have gotten accustomed to a lot of absolutely ridiculous things. This is the film I would like to make. Treno popolare came close, in which I made use of an Italian institution: Sunday, people could buy a ticket for almost any Italian city and make a trip there and back spending almost nothing with these trains. You would see these people arrive in Orvieto, and they would go visit the cathedral where there are magnificent statues, which naturally are seen better from far away. And all of them get closer to touch the statues. In St. Peter's in Rome, there is an angel made of marble that holds up a font; one of the angel's thighs is completely black from all the people who have touched him!
Adultero lui, adultera lei was something similar, but more comic than satirical.
No, more satirical than comic because, as I said last year, it was based on an Italian law that really exists. If a married man is caught in the act of adultery, he does not really risk anything; the wife, in the same situation, gets into a lot of trouble and at the very least she goes to jail.
You have launched the careers of a lot of actors and actresses... is there a relationship between this and the fact that you have made a film about seven children?
I like working with young actors, I feel like I am working with virgin material, and it is pleasing to be the first. I was satisfied with directing children, they are natural actors; it is something that disappears early in boys, with girls it stays a bit longer, up until the age of thirteen, fourteen, then it is gone, they move toward having a career and they stop being actors. But I would not repeat the experience of I terribili sette, in the end it wore me out. It is so difficult to express yourself, to capture their attention for a long time...
March 1964
* Matarazzo was, fortunately, mistaken; extant copies of Treno Popolare do survive.
