Note di Sciopèn
By Luciano Odorisio
April 23, 2019
The following is an excerpt from a hilarious interview
with the legendary Sergio Donati, with whom I worked for one of my projects
"Senza Movente", by A. Ferrucci and the also legendary Fabrizio
Corallo, a friend from his beginnings, for Il FQ, 04-21-19
"(...)
... Sergio Leone calls me, to chat on the phone, then we
make an appointment. "I have to talk about a project", he says
Western?
No. He illustrates the idea of a thriller set in the
Sestriere mountains. I listen to it. I take notes. We say goodbye and after ten
days I give him a cript of about twenty pages.
Immediate.
I never spent much time on scripts, for “C'era una il
sole il giorno” twenty days was enough.
Let's go back to
the meeting.
Leone reads it. He looks up, looks at me and says:
"Bravo, I like it, but the whole part that takes place in the remote
mountain cabin is actually set in this hotel in Sestriere". Sorry, but
why? "The owner of the facility puts up the money for the film, and maybe
during the shoot, he wants to fuck some actress as well."
Practical man.
Absolutely! He aimed right at the goal, and not only with
the camera: if he had an idea, he didn't stop, he knew the direction to take
and he never gave up.
His reaction?
I take a shot, inside of me I think: "Oh God, is
this the cinema?". So I greet it horrified, and I decide to abandon the
dream, and to focus on advertising: I enter a big company in Milan. And there I
build an excellent career.
Until?
Years later the phone rings, it was Sergio: "What
the fuck are you doing in the North?" Work. "But what is a job?
Forget it, I'm making a movie, but it isn’t convincing, I need your treatment."
Cede ...
I go back to Rome at his expense and he entrusts me with
the revision before “For a Few Dollars” more and then for “Il Buono, the Brutto
and the Cattivo” (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly); in particular, the latter
was longer than half an hour, so I cut it down and recovered it.
Officially you did
not sign it.
No, only Age, Scarpelli and Vincenzoni.
Your relationship
with Leone?
Great esteem but very different character, sometimes
irreconcilable, even today I sometimes wonder how we managed to conclude so
many films together.
What was Leone
like?
An immense talent, a phenomenon, one that already had the
final product very clear in his mind before shooting and knew how to conquer
his dream, by any means. Then he associated this with a difficult, very
self-centered character.
Arrives in Rome.
I meet him and he begins with all his confidence, of ways
and words: "I'm doing a gajardo film. A western ". A western in
Italy? "Yes, trust me." I read the script and it was identical to a
feature by Kurosawa (“Yojimbo” of 1961).
Did he say that?
Of course, and his response was: "Quiet, if this
film arrives in Caltanissetta, it is already a miracle. No one will notice.
"
Perfect forecast.
He was not wrong, to foresee that success was almost
impossible, and then the absolutely limited, indeed very low, budget, so they
took Clint Eastwood, instead of Cliff Robertson, enormously more expensive:
"We can't afford him," Sergio told me.
Between Leone and
Eastwood?
No cordiality, Clint was always on one side, always for
his cacchi, he was a bit shady like in the movies; and years later he did not
forgive Sergio for the historical joke about him: "Eastwood has only two
expressions: one with a hat and one without".
Fierce.
Sergio had no esteem for him, he called him an
"asshole" or a "dummy" able only to carry out the direction,
and even I did not believe much in his qualities; I was amazed at the great
career he has has as a director.
But was Leo
jealous of Eastwood?
He considered him a creation of his, and he got very
pissed when he demanded a real Hollywood star for “Il Buono, the Brutto e il
Cattivo” (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly); for Sergio it was a personal affront:
"I created him and this also allows myself to break him".
But he gave up.
Of course, he was obliged by the US major producers, but
with a little revenge: he could no longer reduce his share, the script had now
been approved, so in the film he left very ample space for the mimicry and
grimaces of the great Eli Wallach.
Eastwood took it
well.
Even Clint thought he had contributed to Sergio's
fortune, at least in this they agreed, only from opposite sides.
"Once Upon a
Time in the West".
(He gets up from his chair and takes out a huge tome). It
is the original draft.
Just her.
Before starting the shoot I told Sergio: "Eye that
is too long". And he: "Don't worry, some scenes are the
shortest". Impossible, I thought.
Absolutely
impossible or for someone like Leone?
Both of them, perhaps more for Sergio's style. Anyway,
after a short time he calls me agitated: "Please come here to Spain, to
Almeria, we need the script to be cut". So I loaded my wife,
three-year-old son and baby sitter into my car and stayed there for over a
month.
A month, like ...
Of crazy and beautiful work, of usual discussions on how
and where to cut, on the lines, of relationships with the actors.
In particular,
with ...
I remember Charles Bronson very well, he was chasing me
to study together, "I want to understand the part well," he told me.
It was not like
this?
From time to time he tried to correct something, and at a
certain point I also showed a hint of annoyance, from the series "I am the
screenwriter and you the actor"; then all of a sudden I understood: all of
a sudden I realized that his problem was the words with the "he", he
had the classic zeppola.
But he didn't say
it.
He pretended not, so when I revealed my discovery to him,
he was frowning, as if I had offended him. I had underestimated his complex in
particular and in general.
In general?
In the midst of a cast of phenomena, he felt like a half
cartridge, so he posed.
Henry Fonda.
With him Sergio made me die.
What did you do?
Fonda was an old man.
No!
Before Spain the preparation was carried out at
Cinecittà. One day we are just waiting for Fonda, with a little emotion, at
least on my part. At a certain point a production car arrives, it stops two
meters from us, and Mrs. Fonda comes down with two watches on her wrist, one
with Italian time, the other with the American one; after a couple of seconds
the other door opens and we find ourselves facing a shabby old man.
Fonda.
Sergio attends the scene and goes into crisis, blasphemy:
"What do I know with this?" We try to calm him, he didn't feel
anyone. Fortunately, he listens to the production manager: "A Se’, wait,
it's not what it looks like ". Then he brings Fonda into the dressing room
and gives him the stage costume. He gets dressed. And in the end a whole other
person joins us on the set: it was Henry Fonda. And the beauty is that he
followed Sergio's instructions enthusiastically, he never protested.
Cinema magic.
Out of the clapper the old man who was saying before came
back, and in the afternoon he passed him by my son to see the cartoons. A
pensioner. Sergio shook his head, he couldn't believe it.
The relationship
of the actors with Leone?
They respected him, indeed they feared him, because
Sergio knew how to shoot, he could communicate, he was born on the set and
lived on set; let's not forget that he was the son of a director and an
actress.
Born on the set
...
Bread and cinema, and you could see it from security;
certain attitudes are innate, they are not acquired but they can only be
perfected over time.
Among his actors
also Mario Brega. . .
Together they were two from Trastevere, they spoke the
same language, the obsessive search for the popular, when the cynicism and
irony pursued by each other, and for Brega the boundary between legal and
illegal was not always respected.
In "Once Upon
a Time in the West" there is a joke addressed to the Cardinal who would be
judged sexist today. "If someone touches your bottom, you pretend
nothing."
(Bursts out laughing). Do you really find it sexist?
Sergio was a bit of a chauvinist, and the Cardinal with him often found himself
lost because he was massacred by repeated takes, even 35 for a single scene.
35 are many.
He was so absolute, a perfectionist, he wasn't satisfied,
and the others were silent. He was the master and the producer; for this reason
he had no affectionate relations with the actors.
And between you?
In the end we were limited to just the set, a bit to
avoid discussions and a bit because a lot of our life was there. Ah, it was
annoying for age ...
Meaning?
Sergio was only four years older than me, but when we
went out together, maybe in the United States, they mistook us for father and
son and he systematically got angry.
Between Leone and
Verdone?
I introduced them to myself: one evening I go to a small
theater near San Pietro and witness the spectacle of a young comedian. The next
day I call Sergio: "You must see this boy, very good". And from there
they left.
With him, was the
bond really there?
I think so, with him yes. And then Carlo is a rare person
in character and talent.
In short, between
you ...
After Giù la testa (Duck You Sucker) we had many projects
together, but he always looked for the masterpiece, he was obsessed. That's why
at a certain point we moved away, I decided to look elsewhere.
Litigavate.
We blew up.
Currently he lives
on almost only in the United States. How is Leone rated?
Attention: it is necessary to know how to separate the
human judgment from the professional one and Sergio is one of the greatest of
the cinema, even overseas they know it, and they rightly judge him a master to
study.
Together you also
had to make a film about the siege of Leningrad.
And how! For this reason, one evening we go out with a
very important Russian director, at the end of the fifties he filmed “Quando
volano le cicogne” (The Cranes are Flying) (Mikhail Kalatozov) 1957. During dinner
Sergio asks about the film, the Russian is completely satisfied and replies:
"Did you really see it?". "Of course, and I really enjoyed the
great scenarios, the broad perspectives." Then silence falls. And the
Russian coolly replies: "In reality it is shot and set in two
strings". In short, he had not seen him, he was bluffing.
Liar?
We say creative, he tried to get to the goal. But this is
also true cinema.
An adjective for
Leone?
Lion…
No comments:
Post a Comment