Marco Spagnoli, director of Hollywood sul Tevere, speaks to Gloria Lauri-Lucente about inspiration, Italian cinema and why Malta should host an international film festival.
Marco Spagnoli is a film critic and journalist. He is a regular contributor to a number of leading film journals among which Il Giornale dello Spettacolo, Cinema and Video International, Nick, La Rivista del Cinematografo and Globalist.
He is currently director of the Galà del Cinema e della Fiction in Campania, of the ‘Italian DVD Awards’ and of ‘Premio Golden Graal.’ He is also deputy director of the ‘Festival of Bari – Per il Cinema Italiano’ (2009 and 2010).
His numerous publications include works on Oliver Stone, Mel Brooks, Malcolm McDowell, Woody Allen, Marilyn Monroe, Alberto Sordi and Groucho Marx.
In Hollywood sul Tevere, recently screened in Malta as part of the ‘Italia Film Festival,’ you recount through a montage of sequences in black and white restored images the history of two seminal decades of world cinema by focusing primarily on the awards, the gossip, and the scandals surrounding the star system of the time. How did the idea of making Hollywood sul Tevere come about?
The adventure begins one summer night in Via Veneto. No memories of the dolce vita, though, quite the opposite.
It was 3.30 a.m. and I was working on the organisation of a very big festival. I had just finished arguing with the publicist of a Hollywood star on the size of the hotel room which was supposed to host her.
While driving home I wondered how the so-called ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’ had started and grown in a time with no e-mails, no mobile phones and no fax machines.
What a gigantic effort and how much paperwork had succeeded in bringing so many stars to our country? A few months later, when the then Istituto Luce asked me to come up with a project for a documentary, I wanted to satisfy that night’s curiosity to go back to those years, thanks to the extraordinary wealth of images available within the Luce archives.
Hollywood on the Tiber, therefore, is first and foremost the symbol of this great quantity of images re-interpreted and re-edited in such a way as to show their fascination and power as well as their great sensuality and beauty.
In the two decades that you focus on, the 1950s and the 1960s, some of the most famous stars and film directors visited Italy. At one point, the narrating voice in your documentary says that not only Rome but all of Italy was being transformed into a set. What can you tell us about this metamorphosis of Italy into a film location?
Like Malta, Italy is a perfect location for films, not only because of the quality of the light and craftsmanship of the people who can build everything: the fact is that Italy, in the last 70 years, has been a land where movies are made, so people know how to work in cinema and television. When the great motorway from Milan to Reggio Calabria, the so-called ‘Autostrada del Sole’ opened, any place in Italy was easier to reach and so films could leave the premises of Cinecittà and be shot practically everywhere.
The narrating voice which guides us through the montage of sequences describes the 1950s and the 1960s as particularly significant years for Italian cinema which seems to have discovered a new expressive mode suspended between the commitment of neorealism and the desire to be distracted of the commedia all’italiana. Can you comment on this transitional phase of Italian cinema?
Italy had lived her so-called ‘boom’. And this favourable economic situation reflected on the stories told on screen. The country was changing. The roaring 1960s were exploding in Italy as well with their allure of sexiness, rock, levity and freedom.
It was another age, and new models, both male and female, were appearing on the horizon. In 1960, Federico Fellini directed La Dolce Vita; Italian and international cinema changed forever, because of his vision.
While carrying out research at the Istituto Luce, did you come across any unexpected footage which took you by surprise?
I had many wonderful surprises: Frank Sinatra singing Night and Day in Rai Auditorium in Rome; Greta Garbo getting off Aristotle Onassis’ yacht Christina; Alfred Hitchcock putting his hand in La bocca della Verità’fountain; Charlie Chaplin’s interview… it was like asking a child to be in charge of the largest toy store in town - pure cinematic heaven. My favourite footage, though, is Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in Venice on the gondola… I think it’s breathtaking.
I was particularly struck by the irreverent tone sometimes adopted by the journalists reporting on the stars who were visiting Italy. Can you explain why this was the case?
For several reasons: first of all because they had no clue they were living in an extraordinary age. Plus, because of the provincialism that, from time to time, gets hold of Italian journalism and also because they thought their comments were funny.
Being a journalist who has interviewed numerous stars, in what ways do you think today’s star system is different from the one which is depicted in Hollywood sul Tevere?
At the time, stars were actors. Nowadays they are sometimes more like small industries attached to several interests. In those days they mixed with local actors and had several opportunities to meet people, whereas today they live in luxury but they are transported here and there in private planes.
The difference is that, in those days, everything was about movies and filmmaking whereas now it’s mostly about glamour and how to promote one’s own image.
By commenting on the montage of sequences you retrieved from the archives of Istituto Luce, Hollywood sul Tevere can also be described as a film on filmmaking. Can you comment on the metatextual nature of your documentary?
I think in the last years we saw the blossoming of a new genre called ‘Cinema on Cinema’ and hopefully my film is a worthy example of it. Martin Scorsese has been doing many wonderful things such as his last work A letter to Elia on Kazan and other directors and filmmakers are narrating stories about moviemaking.
I think that what has been done with books, from now on will be done more and more with documentaries and films. It’s the right way to express love and passion for such an important art.
The seventh edition of the Italia Film Festival in Malta, the brainchild of Arturo Mingardi, who is also the director of Cinema Nuovo Italiano di Ragusa, was particularly successful in attracting a broad spectrum of film goers. Why is it important for Malta to host film festivals of this nature?
Malta is at the centre of the Mediterranean and the island should assert its cultural role. For years I’ve been deputy director of Taormina Festival and when I look at Malta with a professional eye, I think it could become better and more important. I think the time for Malta to host a great international film festival has arrived. It is a perfect location with wonderful people. Can you ask for more?
Hollywood sul Tevere was nominated in 2010 for a David di Donatello in the best documentary category and for a Nastro d’Argento as Miglior Documentario sul Cinema.
Gloria Lauri-Lucente is head of the Italian department and deputy dean of the Faculty of Arts. She was coordinator in Malta of the seventh edition of the ‘Italia Film Festival. La Sicilia del Sud Est e Malta. Cosi` vicini, cosi` lontani’. The festival included the screening of eight Italian films by Gian Paolo Cugno, Marco Spagnoli, Giuseppe Tornatore, Marco Amenta and Manuel Giliberti.