Years ago, on a local station’s Sunday football show, the host gave the floor to a girl forced into the role of an attractive valet to announce the results of the day’s competition. Instead of reading one by one, the unfortunate girl said eleven, and instead of one by zero she said ten. He had not seen the hyphen that was always important, be it for Marxism-Leninism or the center-left movement. In fact, these numbers, respected in their separate identity, could have been ones, but instead when added together they would make a two, when put together they turned into a ten.
Numbers are important in our lives. For scientists, researchers and programmers, they are a wonderful chest full of possibilities. With numbers we arrived in space, with numbers the atomic bomb was built, with numbers the digital network that envelops the world was born, and the algorithms that now control our behavior are fed by them.
Italy’s most popular television game is ultimately dedicated to numbers. While quarrels often arise between television presenters over one percent more or less viewers, “Affari Tui” regularly goes past twenty-second like a punctual train and at the end, when the story of each episode knows its tuning fork, reaches thirty percent. More than the national football team. It is the program with the highest public television audience this year.
In “Affari Tui” – hosted by Paolo Bonolis, Pupo, Antonella Clerici, Max Giusti, Flavio Insinna – which has been broadcast since 2003 and comes from a Dutch format, numbers play exactly the role they play in the lives of each of us , namely mere mortals. Not Archimedes, Leibniz or Fibonacci. We who use numbers for three things. For playing, remembering, counting, mainly winnings and debts. “Your company” is in the middle of this triangle of meaning.
The twenty participants, one per region, select a package without knowing its number. It can contain a number that corresponds to an amount of money between 0 and 300,000 euros. The connection between the parcel number and the amount contained therein is known only to the notary and the “doctor”. The participant is selected from twenty people, like a hero who emerges from the ranks of the choir and enters the stage. All regional representatives can take turns playing. At least there are no hierarchies or misalignments here. The game is simple and based on some characteristic elements of everyone’s fate and character: luck, courage, strategic skills. Essentially, throughout the entire forty-eight minutes of television broadcast, the competitor must decide whether to keep the package he has chosen until the end or give in to the blandishments of the “Doctor,” who asks him to change it or accept offers from more or less seductive characters . The game consists of nothing. It’s light as air. It’s like Morra, tombola, lottery.
And yet… And yet, upon closer inspection, it is a hodgepodge of Italian stories. Not those chosen by the algorithms of pain or horror. But those of a few hundred people selected from the nearly forty thousand people who ask to participate each year by registering on a website or calling. It occurred to me to come here, to the legendary Teatro delle Vittorie, to talk to the protagonists after watching an episode in which two boys from Abruzzo played, who, towards the end, with a mixture of modesty and pain revealed that a certain number was important because it indicated the unfortunate fate of their little girl. They suffered as they said it, and it was clear that they did not want to continue. It was already much, too much for her, something like that.
The host of the show, Amadeus, didn’t do what anyone else would have done, especially the fortune tellers of other people’s tears. He didn’t ask any more questions, he didn’t want to know how and when or anything else. This was not news of public interest, it was pain humbly acknowledged. I once again really appreciated Amadeus’s rare dimension.
On this and many other evenings, I thought that this program, as light as the “hands” that herald spring in “Amarcord,” contained more real life than many others. We casually encounter the lives and stories of people who are not there to tell their stories or immediately report a crime. They are there to play, feel emotions and try to win something that will change maybe their life, maybe their car, maybe just their jacket. But whether they win or lose, whether they are happy or disappointed, they leave without regrets.
Because “Your Business” is not a game of chance. For the simple reason that the participant himself does not risk anything. Even with the lottery or bingo you have to buy numbers and cards to “try your luck”. Not here. Here you win in whole or in part, but never lose anything. And in any case, as all the competitors say, you will have had an “extraordinary experience” when you leave and when you return to the city pub, because fortunately the coffees in the cities still do not arrive by drone, for example while you are in the spotlight the attention of citizens like you. Throw it away in stingy times like these.
For Amadeus, numbers are “Madeleines, a mnemonic to activate memories, moments, joys and pains.” Competitors use them to select or avoid packages and use them as sentimental references. And it is precisely through the use of numbers that they open up and begin to tell stories. Someone told me that not even a psychologist had ever said so much about themselves. And they don’t do it out of cunning, it wouldn’t add anything, they do it out of emotional prompting, because of the power of identification between numbers and faces, between numbers and the moments of their own experience.” Numbers as feeling. Isn’t that a paradox? Maybe not.
Alex Bellos writes in the introduction to “The Wonderful World of Numbers” that “the world of numbers is an extraordinary place.” I would recommend a visit.” The “Doctor” is just “an entity” for the show’s viewers. He has no face, his voice cannot be heard, and it is even legitimate to doubt his true existence. It is suspected that he is hidden somewhere and connected to the host by telephone just to defend the already empty Rai treasury and is therefore ruthless, vicious, smart as a weasel and incapable of feelings. But no. Pasquale Romano – can you say the name? Yes, that’s possible – he is the head author of the show, he studied philosophy, then became a journalist and has been responsible for the entertainment programs on the first station for years.
He is a cultured and friendly person, he looks neither like Rockerduck nor Scrooge from Dickens. “My job is not so much to save the company money. In fact, for someone who wins more than the betting budget, there are bound to be three who take home less. Instead, what drives me to make decisions, make offers and propose changes is a single goal: to lead the competitor to a meaningful end. The ideal ending is “all or nothing.” You achieve this goal with something more complicated than a mere monetary exercise; You get there by imagining the person in front of you and their choices. The qualities for everyone are courage, the ability to decipher moments and feelings, the cunning to camouflage one’s own designs. Everyone has a role. The candidate is the hero, the doctor is the enemy. Sometimes I didn’t want to “win”, I got emotional and hoped he or she would make the right choice. Once these numbers are applied to real life, they cease to be ephemeral: they become powerful, warm and inclusive.”
Amadeus says: “I’m on the side of the competition. I can’t help it because I don’t know what’s included in the packages. But I argue with them and try to be useful to them. In this edition we introduced two new features: the final game, to keep an additional hope of victory open and, most importantly, the second competitor, a relative or a love interest, which enables a completely different narrative dynamic. The relationship between them, the shared decision-making, leads to something that quintuples the emotional value of the story. They talk to each other, choose, comfort each other. Ultimately, that’s exactly what viewers at home do when they wonder what they would do if faced with the game’s various options.”
Stefano Mignucci, the director, confirms to me that this choice made the “text” of the game much warmer. “It always seems to be the same because “Your Business” has its fixed dynamics. But the visual relationship between the participants alone makes for a much more exciting montage. It’s not like filming a news broadcast, I use the zoom in to enhance the play of the eyes, the uncertainties, the silence.” Yes, the silence. This program has another feature. There is no rush. The participants can discuss, reflect and take their time. Television without time like the guillotine: strange and beautiful.
Meetings with the writers who tell me how they choose the cast: simple interviews, without the ambition to find phenomena or new comedians: I point out that in the end, whether voluntarily or not, those are the people who are in front of the Camera parade, who hope and tell their stories, ultimately constructing a, perhaps involuntary, history of the real country based on the numbers present in their lives. I think Cesare Zavattini would be more interested in a show like this than many reality shows.
Before registering, I meet two guys who were drawn as competitors. One comes from Melia di Scilla in Calabria, his name is Domenico, he is 25 years old and is accompanied by a young mother. After completing his hotel management studies, he is a dock worker by profession because he can take better care of his small farm: 23 dogs, 4 calves and lots of chickens. «If I won a lot, I would help my sisters and then I would like to open a small restaurant. If I don’t win, that’s okay too. I was here and made so many friends. I have discovered how television works and I happily return to my small village of 700 people.
Matteo, 44 years old, comes from the mountains of the Aosta Valley, his community has 200 inhabitants, it is called Alone. He climbed Mont Blanc and works in the hospital in Aosta. He, who is holding his partner’s hand, is also happy to have been there. In two hours it will be a little more or a little less. But in the meantime… “If I won, the first thing I would do is treat all twenty of the guys I shared eighteen episodes with to dinner.” And then I would buy an apartment for my mother. I earn 1,700 euros a month. Whatever comes is okay. And thank you all.”
Numbers, games, stories. Everyone used to tell it. Without intentions, without the intention to do this.
It happens, just like in life.