Le réalisateur Marco Bellocchio (© AFP)
Marco Bellocchio : “The surrealist movement had great influence on the way I direct movies”
A moment for real cinema buffs on the quieter margins of the Festival. A filmmaker confides the secrets of his art. The Italian Marco Bellocchio took on the traditional Cinema Masterclass with great enthusiasm. The director of Vincere, presented in Competition in 2009, talked about his vision of cinema. Here are the highlights of this talk:
Cinema as an obvious way to escape solitude:
My initial vocation was to be a painter, but I gave up when I was about nineteen because the solitude a painter faces scared me. On the other hand, cinema forces you to be in contact with people. The 7th Art was for me a way of escaping this fear. After a year of training as an actor at the Centro Sperimentale de Rome, I started getting interested in directing.
The influence of drawing and painting in developing your films:
I often draw to pass the time while waiting for the reply from producers and actors to whom I’ve given my film (laughter). This allows me to immerse myself in the film. Often I no longer use these drawings when it comes to the shoot, because that’s when things change. Painting, in particular, surrealist painting, has greatly influenced my way of making films. As time goes on it’s increasingly the pictures I have in my head which inspire me to make a film.
London as the key place where you wrote your first script:
After my training in Rome, I left Italy for London and the London Film School. I needed to get away from the Italian capital. It was that crazy time of the Beatles. Personally, I preferred classical piano. The London atmosphere gave me massive inspiration for my first feature film, Les Poings dans les Poches (Fists in you Pockets) (1965).
Your first film:
I wanted to show a personal idea because I needed to find myself as a director. When I returned to Italy, no one wanted my script. So I borrowed the money to get the film done. This film ended up being a good business deal because I owned all the rights (laughter).
His first film in colour:
Colour came in with Au Nom du Père (In the Name of the Father) (1971). We worked in a very compact way, with very few colours. The end result was a lot like a colourful expressionist painting.
His way of managing scripts and actors:
For me, there’s no absolute rule. I never nail down a script completely, because I want the actors to still have some freedom. I don’t say a lot to them, but I insist on the details, because sometimes you just need to say one or two things to show the way to act a scene.
Shooting is where it all happens:
A film is really defined during the shoot. That’s when you find out if it’s going in the right direction or not. I don’t do a lot of takes compared to some directors. Afterwards you can save a few things in editing, but sometimes it’s too late.
BP.
