Socialism and the Left Should Be Reinvented, Interview with Marco Bellocchio

Marco Bellocchio is regarded as a political Italian filmmaker, a leftist filmmaker from the generation of Italian masters such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Francesco Rosi, Elio Petri and Giuliano Montaldo.

From his dark satire 1965 debut Fists in the Pocket (winner of the Silver Sail at the 1965 Festival del film Locarno), to his recent films Good Morning, Night, Vincere, and Traitor Marco Bellocchio was challenging the dominant ideology and power and criticising moral and religious values in the Italian society. As a Marxist filmmaker and an ex-member of the Italian Communist Union he had a great impact on radical Italian cinema in the mid-sixties. I conducted this interview with Bellocchio at the London Film Festival in 2006 after the screening of his film The Wedding Director. It is the story of a film director who feels despair after his daughter marries a devoted catholic and hide himself in a small village where he meets Bona, a Princess and falls in love with her when he was asked by Prince Ferdinando Gravina to shoot the wedding of his daughter, the Princess.

Parviz Jahed, UniversalCinema Magazine (UM): Wedding Director was your second film that I’ve seen recently at the London Film Festival. There has been always a sense of hope at the end of your films. For example in Good Morning Night we see Aldo Moro escapes from the hands of the terrorists of the Red Brigades and walks out into the street. In Wedding Director you end the movie happily and the director runs away with the bride and everybody is happy at the end. Are you an optimistic person?

Marco Bellocchio (MB): Yes I am optimistic in a sense. Optimism is legitimate for an artist. When I talk about a tragic period in history I think I have the right to change it slightly. It’s a kind of freedom to direct myself to change the history. Obviously the freedom of Aldo Moro in the film is not a true historical fact, it is untrue.

(UM): I know that it is an imaginary scene, a sort of fantasy. And it shows that you wanted his fate to be like this, not to be killed by the brigades in the end.

(MB): And I’ve added this to the image of tragedy. We see Moro walk away free in the morning but immediately after a few seconds we see the true images of the funeral of Aldo Moro. It’s a kind of dreamlike scene, a utopia, a fantasy to represent the ideal world but the history goes in another direction. But as for Wedding Director, it is not necessarily a happy ending, above the ability of the main protagonist to be able to stop the wedding which is suicide for the princes. I’m not interested in whether the two main characters go on to live happily ever after, because they live in Sicilia in two different trays.

(UM): You are addressing different issues in Wedding Director such as aristocracy, religion and politics but I think the most important theme of the film is cinema itself and the position of cinema in our time. My question is does the director in the film represent yourself in anyway. Can we take it as an autobiographical film?

(MB): No it is not an autobiographical film because there are three directors in the film including the wedding director. But the effort I made was in finding the original images and so makes a discourse about cinema and the crisis of cinema, and the fact that Italy is going through a crisis of images. It is made up of too many words and too few images. And images give way too much to words so more weigh is given to words rather than images. The images are at the mercy of words.

(UM): The second director commits suicide. Does it reflect the fate of the old generation of Italian filmmakers in our time, because he is suffering from the lack of knowledge?

(MB): Yes it is true. I think about my attitude, my conviction. The director commits suicide because he wants to be recognised and he wants to gain the prize from society.

(UM): But he gets the prize after his death.

(MB): The main protagonist doesn’t dismiss the prize. He puts his pride before the prize, a man as a human identity. And the other one once he gains the prize he recognises that this project won’t change his life in a significant way.

(UM): Politics was always important for you and your films have dealt deeply with the political situation of the world and Italy. The world has changed significantly since the early 1960s when you had just started to make films.  What is your view of the new face of the world?

(MB): In Italy politics is pretty mediocre and depressing. It is not the same situation as in the 60s when you had the idea to change the society through politics that doesn’t exist anymore. It is not necessarily to make Italy into socialist republic but in any case to change a few things radically. Because in Italy like the rest of Europe politics now is more based on  running a public administration and so there is not a big difference between left and right.

(UM): When you look back in your career in the last few years what is your feeling? Are you satisfied at all with what you have done in cinema?

(MB): I’m satisfied with some good films that I’ve done but I’m satisfied in a positive way because we have to continue to research, continue to work, and continue to make films. To be satisfied is an attitude that can be very negative. It serves your enthusiasm about your work and your life. That’s my attitude.

(UM): As a leftist director what is your opinion about Marxism and being a leftist in our time?

(MB): I am still on the left but socialism and the left should be reinvented. It is difficult. Basically old values are invalid anymore and we have to find new ones.

(UM): What do think about the new Italian cinema?

(MB): It is difficult to think about cinema as a whole, as a collective movement in general but there are single directors who do lot of talent and there are young directors around.

(UM): Can you mention their names?

(MB): They spanned different generation and I find it difficult to mention a specific name because that would be unfair but I can name Paolo Sorrentino or Matteo Garrone.

(UM): Have you seen any Iranian films at all?

(MB): Recently no. but I’ve seen some classic Iranian films. In many years no Iranian films were shown in Italy but I hope they will in the future.

Thank you for your time Mr Bellocchio.

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