“My need to work on monologues stems from my love of literature. I usually choose novels that have little or no dialogue, so that I would consider a book to be a very long monologue. Since I make films where plot events are rare, if not completely absent The monologues help me to have something disguised as a non-existent plot, ”says Paolo Sorrentino during a special event on the art of the monologue organized by the Turin Film Festival and taking place at the Teatro Astra on Friday. Director David Jericho and festival director Steve Della Casa moderated the talk.
Reading notes written by Andrea De Rosa (who was unable to participate in the action), Della Casa listed three types of monologues found throughout Sorrentino’s film. The first is the inner monologue, in which the character speaks alone, often in her own voice, while the pacing of the scene tends to defy cinematic conventions. As examples of these inner monologues, Della Casa and Greco give excerpts from “Il Divo”, “The Consequences of Love”, and “The Great Beauty”.
Sorrentino revealed that Andreotti’s monologue taking “direct and indirect responsibility” for crimes committed during the Years of Lead was not present in the first draft of the script for “Il Divo”. It was already written some time before filming [the scene]or perhaps in the final draft. […] the decision [to add it] It was related to the indecipherability of Andreotti’s character.” Sorrentino made it no secret that he had some misgivings about his portrayal: “We’re going to die, my wife said. [after this]. Furthermore, Sorrentino asked Tony Cervillo to play Andreotti’s monologue in the same way he did in Mario Martone’s 1993 “Rasoi”, portraying the role of “il guappo” (“the trickster”).
The second type of monologue sees an actor speaking to a silent interlocutor, who, according to De Rosa, echoes a kind of “streams of consciousness and memories” comparable to those found in Chekhov plays such as “The Three Sisters”.
Excerpts from “Youth” and “Consequences of Love” were shown. Sorrentino revealed that it took Michael Caine about 15 takes to nail his monologue in “Youth”: “He was so eager to work on it – maybe too much – and he started making mistakes. So we had to do a lot of things. He was mad at himself because a mistake was something new to him, but he eventually manages to work it out. […] He only had a problem with that scene. He did a great job with the others.”
Speaking of his long working relationship with Cervelo, Sorrentino elicited laughter. He joked that the Neapolitan actor “always explains everything about the film and his character to him”: “Tony is a good thinker, he likes to speculate about things, things I write for fun… Fortunately, he ascribes meanings to them that I later use in press conferences.”
“We don’t talk much about acting, much less what we talk about. I’m skeptical about discussing character before making a movie or even rehearsing. I used to practice, but it didn’t work for me because whatever happens before a movie isn’t the movie,” he said, adding that he There is usually little room for improvisation in the monologues, as they are conceived of as “strictly structured and final”.
The third type of monologue is slander. The first excerpt was from the balcony monologue played by Servillo in “The Great Beauty”, which Della Casa and Grieco compare to Molière’s “The Misanthrope” and mention how the late Ettore Scola praised him. Rachel Weisz’s angry monologue to her absent father (Ken) in “Youth” and Cervillo’s ridiculous phone call to a random housewife in “Loro” were also featured.
Grieco zoomed in on “Loro” wondering why diptych didn’t work. Sorrentino replied that the two films had a great response from the audience, but that the critics received poor responses. “Maybe it came at the wrong time, it should have been made in 10-20 years. […] The problem is that the audience is often looking for the truth in the movie. But I’m taking the exact opposite path.
Finally, della Casa and Greco wondered if Sorrentino had ever considered working in the theatre. No, despite all my love and affection [for theater]I don’t want to be in a dark room all day. I prefer the chaos of cinema as the circus.
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