Pupi Avati, “The American Garden,” his new novel to be made into a film, begins with a frightening scene: the protagonist digs in his garden and finds a vagina sealed in a jar. It’s a dreamlike story, somewhere between detective stories and horror. After all, one of his first successful films, “The House with Laughing Windows,” was a horror film. And then Cedar, The Mysterious Enchanter, The Devil… Why?
“Because I grew up in a magical world. During the war we were displaced into the countryside, in Sasso Marconi: the bombing of Bologna looked like fireworks.”
Don’t like Pope Francis?
“Can I be honest? Not as much. If Putin had gone to the Ukrainian border on the day of the attack, he might have ended the war, like Saint Leo the Great did with Attila.”
But what could the Pope do?
“If you believe in God, you must believe in the omnipotence with which the Holy Spirit has filled you.” The priests no longer talk about life and death, sin and the afterlife. Once upon a time they accompanied you from there and were the guardians of the ineffable secrets of the dying person. Almost everyone would still need such priests: only the rich can afford secular proselytism.
What memories do you have of the war?
“We had the Nazi command on the other side of the house wall. To avoid having the Topolino confiscated, we buried it in the garden. A girl who went with the Germans, Cocchina, became a spy. The soldiers lifted the Topolino with weight.”
Sasso Marconi is eight kilometers from Marzabotto.
“We didn’t witness the massacre, but I remember the nights in the emergency shelters in Bologna. The sirens, the escape; the rosaries in bursts, the building shook all over; the whiteness of the air full of smoke, the screams of the women recognizing the dead.”
What memories do you have of fascism?
“Disgusting. The overwhelm, the fear. Everyone feared everyone. And war is the worst experience a human being can have.”
What was post-war Italy like?
“Unimaginable and happy.” I have a class photo from middle school at home: we are 35, each uglier than the other. We look like the Addams family. It’s not even clear what time of year it was: this one was wearing a coat and hat, this one was wearing an undershirt… And yet there isn’t one of them who isn’t smiling. Also because for many it was the first photo in their lives. Everyone cultivated their individual dream and expected extraordinary things.
What did you vote for?
“Dc. Then I fell in love with Berlusconi. He was like Fellini: when you were with him, you felt like the most important person in the world. As long as he was Berlusconi, I always liked him very much.”
Since when did Berlusconi no longer exist?
“For a couple of years. I remember an evening on Laura Betti’s terrace. They were all communists. When I said that I was a Christian Democrat, I met Moravia’s look of contempt. I knew they would never invite me again.
Have you paid a price for not being on the left?
By hand! That’s what they always want me to say; But that’s not correct. I’ve made all the films I wanted: the drawer is empty. I even managed to make the film about Dante and now bring it to Japan.
In the film she has Boccaccio say: “Dante knew the true name of all the stars…”.
“That sentence is mine, you know? Of course I’m not considered by people who like it. Friendship, as Fulvio Abbate calls it.
How is Meloni?
“I voted for her because I know that she not only wants to be remembered as the first female prime minister, but that she wants at all costs to successfully complete the project that has been failed by so many predecessors.” Even if I had deceived myself, that competence takes precedence over belonging. I suggested a committee of artists who had no interest in chairing it to make RaiTre a cultural network, without advertising. They didn’t take me seriously.
And Schlein?
“I don’t recognize myself in her, but I see excessive anger towards her.”
What is your first memory?
“The arguments between mom and dad. They were very different. He was a handsome, witty and cultured man who had married his stenographer. The father’s family was bourgeois and monarchist, the mother’s family was peasant and socialist.”
Is it true that your father was of Calabrian origin?
“He told us that he was descended from an aristocrat, Pio Avati. It wasn’t true. I spent two million lire reconstructing the family tree and in fact I found a Pio Avati: a beggar and a murderer.”
She became an orphan at the age of twelve.
“My mother was obsessed with Pascoli’s poem The Little Horse: when she heard it, she cried. We recited it to her out of spite and she ran away covering her ears. My father died in the car in Santarcangelo di Romagna, on the same bend, on the same day – August 10th – at the same time that Pascoli’s father was murdered. My maternal grandmother also died in the accident. They came to us in Rimini to celebrate the holidays in mid-August.”
How did his mother support the family?
“It was a miracle. And the prerequisite for miracles to happen is belief in them. I sold frozen food…».
Which?
“Findus sticks, sole, spring peas. I saw Fellini’s “Eight and a Half” and decided to make films. I shared it with my mother, who had always dreamed of becoming an actress but had never told me about it. She went to the stationery store, bought a large notebook and wrote in it: Pupi’s films. Then he said: We need an office in Rome. So he rented a boarding house full of American students. Mom answered the phone, when a producer called she would answer, “Pupi just came out.” But I was in Bologna selling frozen food.”
How were the beginnings?
“A disaster. There were five of us: me, an antenna installer, a greengrocer, a property manager, a manager of the cinema museum in Bologna. We wasted over two hundred million on our patron who called himself Mister X.
Who was?
«Carmine Domenico Rizzo, building contractor, leading taxpayer in Emilia Romagna. Even if he were really Calabrian. It was a time when, in order to raise money, cinema owners were asked to sign bills of exchange, which were then discounted to the Bnl and refunded with the proceeds of the film. The merchants were your partners. Today, the owner of a multiplex cinema doesn’t even know what films he is showing. Multiplexes are the ruin of cinema.
There are television series.
“They hardly become a cinema. It’s mostly commercial speculation to expand the story.”
She played jazz.
“I stopped when Lucio Dalla joined the group: he was too much better than me.”
Is it true that he wanted to throw him from the Sagrada Familia out of envy?
By hand! I invented them. Half of my life is the result of inventions.”
However, you can’t tell lies to Corriere readers… The success came in 1975: “The Mazurka of the Baron, the Saint and the Fiorone Fig Tree”.
“Another miracle. I suggested the film to Paolo Villaggio, who accepted. But the producer, Giovanni Bertolucci, Bernardo’s cousin, doesn’t trust it: “Villaggio always says yes to everyone and never delivers!”
Was it true?
“Paul was bad and unreliable, but of superior intelligence. The fact is that the producer wants proof: Villaggio’s signature on every page of the script. I start following Paolo through cabarets, theaters and tennis clubs.
And the miracle?
“Ugo Tognazzi is calling me. He was the actor of the hour, he had already filmed “My Friends,” which was number one at the box office. But with incredible humility he asks me: “Do you think I would be suitable for this film?” Then he invites me to dinner at his house in Torvaianica.
And you?
“I’m in a hurry with my wife. Tognazzi greets me and immediately tells me that he had a misfire with a woman the night before. His intimacy in failure meant that after a minute we were already friends. We stayed like that all our lives. In the end, both Tognazzi and Villaggio made this film.”
Maurizio Costanzo was one of the first screenwriters.
“Extraordinary talent. At the time he was working in radio. He invented it but was afraid of the video. To gain courage, he took two Optalidons and a coffee. When the P2 lists came out, he tried to deny it and hid in an apartment building on Via Po. I visited him and convinced him to call Pansa and tell the truth. It started again with a private television station in Sardinia.”
Is it true that you were one of the screenwriters of Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom, Pasolini’s last film?
“Yeah, but he didn’t like it. So I visited him at home, at Via Eufrate 9, in Eur. He opened the door for me, I asked him if it was true that he didn’t like the script and he answered mercilessly: Yes. I told him that I, like his father, came from Bologna. He let me in, he was very nice. Together with Citti, who was to act as director, we began to rewrite the film. We discussed violence and coprophagia, and every now and then Susanna, Pierpaolo’s mother, asked us whether we wanted the eggplants fried or with tomatoes. I understood that “Salò” would be the decisive film for him, with which he crossed the abyss of horror. And it went even further. “Salò was to Pasolini what the Requiem was to Mozart.”
What was he like as a person?
“I knew Pasolini during the day: sunny, happy, bright. We talked about football, I was a Milan fan, he was a Bologna player. But I didn’t know Pasolini at night. He invited me to the premiere of “The Flower of the Arabian Nights” and had me sit next to his mother. Susanna whispered “Let’s hope it’s good”, then she took my hand and held it for the whole movie, at the end we hugged and cried: “Was Pierpaolo good?”, “Yes, he was good”. Having my mother entrusted to me like the Madonna San Giovanni was the most beautiful thing Pasolini could do to me.
You have also worked with Christian De Sica.
“He was a kid, he sang more than just acting. With his brother Manuel he formed the most extraordinary comic duo I have ever seen; It’s unbelievable that they’ve never worked together before. Giovanna Ralli took me to Carlo Ponti, the producer, who offered me 60 million to make two films, one with Christian and the other with Luca De Filippo. Children of Art. I refused.
Is it true that you wanted Lino Banfi as the protagonist for Regalo di Natale?
“It’s true. I took him to dinner, he devoured a tray of oysters and he said no: he wanted to do Inspector Logatto with Dino Risi. I started looking through a photo album, saw Abatantuono and thought: That’s him. Diego had left the cinema and ran a nightclub in Rimini, the Lady Godiva. I changed his life. It’s nice to give happiness. When I called Edwige Fenech in Lisbon to suggest a film to her, she began to cry with joy: it had been seven years since anyone had suggested a film to her.
What was Fellini like?
“He only talked about money, about all those who had cheated him. He had a brother, Riccardo, who also wanted to be a director, but Federico forced him to change his last name; Riccardo refused. When he died, Fellini suffered greatly, he felt guilty. Luckily I have a wonderful relationship with my brother Antonio, I owe him a lot.
They were always married to the same woman, Amelia, who was called Nicola like her grandfather.
“I first saw her with her boyfriend at the time, an Earl. I overcame it through exhaustion. With beautiful women you have to do that; and she was beautiful. In a couple there is always someone who loves more; and that was and is me. I felt like this girl was the missing puzzle piece of my life and I could never find one again. One evening we went out, it was September 18th, it was five minutes before midnight, I said to her: It’s my birthday soon, I’m alone in the world, can you give me a kiss? He gave it to me.”
A nice birthday present.
“Actually my birthday is November 3rd. Now my wife and I don’t hug each other anymore, we sleep in separate rooms. Time brings humility. But we are not alone. Sometimes I look at it and think it’s exactly the same as it was sixty years ago. That really appeals to me.”
How do you imagine life after death?
“I cannot imagine my absence, a world without me.” I think of the pain that my children Tommaso, Alvise, but especially Maria Antonia will feel: between father and daughter there is always a privileged line.”
What relationship did you have with your mother?
“I never accepted his death. I rehearsed, I went under his window when I knew he wasn’t home – my mother always looked out the window when I came over – but it didn’t help. I already find myself thinking: I have to ask my mother for advice.”
The protagonist of the novel always carries photos of his dead with him. Have you ever received a signal from the beyond?
“Never. But I talk to my dead. On my computer I have a list of 250 names of loved ones who have left me: in the evening I read them all, remembering them and feeling them come to help me overcome my fear. Now I’ve added Burt Young and Sergio Staino. I suggested the same method to Francesca Fagnani – I am a friend of hers and Enrico Mentana – and the following evening she called me: “Do you know, Pupi, that it works?” We are indebted to those who came before us . Instead we have erased the past, the memory. Once upon a time, we went to the cemetery and left flowers for everyone. Who else does that today?
In Cedar, she imagines a cemetery where bodies are reborn. A year later, Stephen King published a novel called Pet Sematary based on the same idea.
“It was definitely a coincidence. The intuition came to me after my mother-in-law thought she would see her cocker again, who was dead.
When do you get old?
“When they tell you one by one that the girls in your life are gone. Old age is hard. The body becomes unruly and no longer obeys you. You are overwhelmed with regret for what you didn’t do, for the books you didn’t read, for the people you didn’t meet.
But she has faith.
«My faith is based on a sentence by Jung that was found in his home in Basel: “Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit”; Whether you call on Him or not, God is here. I made ceramics out of it to display in the country houses of my amateur friends. My constitution is almost two thousand years old and infinitely better than that of 1948. Article one: The last shall be first.”
But what’s on the other side?
“I still hope for a final miracle, I trust that something can happen so that I understand the meaning of my life. Surely there are more things between heaven and earth than we see and even than we can imagine.
After this interview they will say that if you are not a liar you are crazy.
“Creative, slightly crazy people are indispensable for us. They are the ones who expand reason, for whom nothing is impossible and for whom everything can be achieved. I thank my mother for teaching us the unthinkable.