Bologna. Above all, there is a treasure that Luca Guadagnino inherited from his idol, Bernardo Bertolucci, and that is “the ability to be a great storyteller, capable of attracting not only with images, but also with words”. . Yesterday at Cinetecca di Bologna’s Cinema Retrovetto, Guadagnino presented it to his friend and historical Bertolucci producer Jeremy Thomas and an audience of very young people, hypnotized by his flight of fancy, his brazen confession, his almost childish impatience: Cinetecca “Ever since I was a child, I have been a cinephile, I was always looking for something that interested me,” he said after being introduced by Gianluca Farinelli, the director of the film. I started doing it in my father’s library, when I learned that there were directors like Hitchcock, Leni Riefenstahl and Bernardo who were the hallmarks of cinema. What impressed me the most was their human impact. I felt an instant, sensual attraction that remains to this day.”
Over time the passion grew, until that fateful first meeting: “I was doing a film course in Rome, Bertolucci came to give a lesson, I approached him saying I wanted to talk to him. He told me his number was in the phone book, I called him, he wasn’t there, I talked to his wife, Claire Peploe, I was living in student housing at the time, a few days later Bernardo called me, I Remember laughing when someone told me he came over to say “Bertolucci is on the phone”. They thought it was a joke.” Last evening, in Piazza Maggiore, Guadagnino performed dreamer With which Bertolucci launched Eva Green, the story of a love triangle at the beginning of French 68. In the last pictures, fires, clashes and protests were seen on the streets of Paris, similar to the scenes on TV these days: “I think these reactions of extreme violence – Guadagnino believes – a society are inevitable responses to a reality steeped in neo-liberalism that is, like the French, applied to a reality that is not at all free, in a nation that outwardly looks open, liberal, but essentially maintains a distinct identity . President Macron has imposed a certain ideology and what is happening is the result of that”. Even though, as he points out, his cinema is not interested in a direct representation of reality, Guadagnino remembers that they built Home Front A Trip to Italy by Domenico Quirico by Paola Piacenza, and has been engaged for some time in the preparation of another documentary, titled intimacy , in which, «we speak precisely of the current state of exception in Europe, France after the attack on the Bataclan. In short, I do not make films on current events, but I try to reflect the effects of the crisis in our contemporary age. Meanwhile Guadagnino turned challengersProtagonists Zendaya, Mike Feist and Josh O’Connor are in the scent of attending the next Venice Film Festival, while she’s busy shooting the new movie at Cinecittà. Weird, based on the book by William S. Burroughs, starring Daniel Craig. Regarding France and the contrasts between appearance and actual behavior, the author would like to tell you challengers It will not be seen beyond the Alps “due to very strict laws relating to the relationship between theatrical distribution and streaming”.
Bertolucci’s text, even concerning the more political part of his creation, clearly harkens back to Guadagnino’s words: “Every filmmaker must begin with the intention of expressing his ideas. dealt with what was considered taboo in Hollywood, he always firmly believed that there is nothing that can’t be done just because someone tells you it can’t be done. What matters is that the feelings how is expressed “not with the script, but through the perspective from which you look at them. I think of films like conformist, in which the feeling of oppression is communicated, which is widespread, and which also does transformative work in the public. Cinema is not just a form of audiovisual language, but a place where the audience should be challenged and prompted to respond. Big stars should never “resort to technical acting, like Bernardo I try to guide iconic actors, always seeking their truth once on set”. And films, the author adds, “are always made by the director, it is he who establishes the effect to be given to the images.”