The Prompter: Nil Difficile Volenti

 Fabio D’Avino’s short film, The Prompter, is as beautifully made as it is intriguing. The film seems born of real experience with the theatre, both the good and the bad. One of the reasons the film is so intriguing is that it seems to be a small part of a larger story, also entitled The Prompter. What we have here in this extract is a charming juxtaposition of youth and age. A portrait of one just entering the world of theatre, full of energy and with wide eyes, and of one who is at the end of an illustrious career who can barely keep his eyes open.

But judging from the dedication, the film is also meant to resonate with anyone who’s ever had to deal with a difficult actor. The film is in Italian with subtitles, but there is no translation provided for the dedication, but, since I know some Italian, I will venture one of my own:

“Dedicated to those damned actors, sublime sons of bitches, geniuses, eternal kids and ball-breakers with whom we are all hopelessly in love…to Gianni”

The film follows Tiberio Ettore Muccitelli, who plays a young actor who has beaten out scads of other applicants for a job as a ‘prompter.’ A prompter is someone who reads an actor their lines in the theatre when they forget. In this case, and with a tremendous buildup, we learn that Tiberio will, if he’s accepted, be a prompter for a legend of the stage who is old and who, like Marlon Brando, never bothers to learn his lines. Everyone in the theatre, including the director, played by D’Avino, who also wrote the script, is terrified of the man. Tiberio is warned that the elder statesman of the stage will probably ask him to do shots with him first thing in the morning. For his job turns out not only to be about helping the actor with his lines, but also driving him around, and generally taking care of him.

Tiberio does a great job playing the young tyro, overjoyed at his first shot at a real job in the theatre. But the real star, and the man we wait half the film to meet, does in fact steal the show. This is Franco Nero, who has in reality had an extraordinary career. He was in both Django Unchained (the 2012 Tarantino film) and he starred in the original Django, in fact playing Django himself. He’s also made appearances in the John Wick franchise and in Die Hard 2. But here, in Il Suggeritore, he plays, as mentioned, a Brando-type character; macho, revered and with an extreme gravitas. The entire film builds to Nero’s arrival, and he does not disappoint. He’s an elderly actor who, as promised, cannot remember his lines. He’s very exacting in his demands of the prompter. Nero, even in this short film, is a fascinating character. We’re never quite sure if he’s just pretending to be much more addle-minded than he really is. When everyone says he should visit a hospital, he refuses. And when it’s time to go back to his hotel, he insists that Tiberio bring him to a restaurant where friends are waiting instead. There is even a rumor that there is something terribly wrong with Nero and that it would be better if the young man Tiberio knew nothing about it since he’s bound to become too attached to Nero.

But what’s really going on here? Is Nero really the invalid he seems to be, or is he just acting? Perhaps in the longer version of the story we get some clue, but here we only get tantalizing hints.

Another mystery is the subtitle of the film, the Latin phrase, nil difficile volenti, which translates roughly as, ‘nothing is difficult for he who wants it.’ This is apparently etched somewhere in the piazzale delle belle arti in Rome. But what does it mean in the context of this film? Is this meant to be sage advice to an aspiring actor? Was the maxim that has allowed Nero to lead the life he’s led to this point? It’s not entirely clear.

The other great mystery here is the final image, which combines a classical image from the theatre and that only makes sense in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. Again, these are intriguing hints at something that we cannot quite make out. With any luck, we will one day see the entirety of this story on the screen. But in the meantime, Il Suggeritore is certainly worth watching and pondering.