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I'll be right there.
Piero was a real rocker.
Vivarelli who?
The one who wrote "24,000 Kisses"?
Piero was a lot of fun
handsome
simpatico, funny
erudite, a gentleman.
He wanted a taste of everything.
It was impossible to know what he did.
Once I asked him:
- What’s your job?
He was a film director,
a music consultant,
a journalist.
I said: - That’s a lot of things!
It’s not easy,
to have been a right-winger,
then a leftist.
A fighter.
A bit unlucky in his life,
going from music to movies.
A traveler.
A precursor.
Politically bizarre.
For many years Piero was considered,
a minor director.
Not even a king of B's.
Just a B's.
When we asked him to come to Venice,
to be paid homage to by the critics,
and by Quentin Tarantino,
we didn't extend his life, maybe.
But his ego a bit certainly.
Finally, here we are.
B
I guess B stands for good,
or beautiful.
My love for filmmaking started very early.
At the age of seven I wanted to join the navy.
Then I fell in love with Shirley Temple,
followed by Deanna Durbin.
So I decided to make movies,
because I wanted to marry them.
But I didn’t marry them.
I was studying in Milan.
A friend, with whom I would go dance,
the boogie-woogie,
one evening,
brought him along to pick me up at school.
After we went to the movies a couple of times,
he said: - I want to marry you.
We got married on January the 4th.
You have no idea what the church looked like.
Guess who was playing the organ?
Giorgio Gaslini.
When I walked down the aisle he played “Laura”.
We got into a huge fight because,
I in a long white gown. He was in an overcoat.
A gray one.
He wouldn't budge.
He was so unconventional.
With Piero we never got home before 4 am.
One of the reasons why,
aside from the women,
is that it was a really wild life.
Our apartment,
in via San Valentino, on a first floor,
was known as the Live it up Club.
Everybody stopped by at any hour.
Everybody, at any hour.
There were some fantastic people:
Oriana Fallaci, Goffredo Parise.
Oriana was a friend of Martinelli,
a Tuscan journalist.
She came to Rome not knowing anybody.
We would make fun of her because,
all the interviewed denied the things she published.
Piero would treat her...
Once he threw her on the ground, and started stepping on her.
He was so polemical. Mamma mia.
He would never go to bed.
At the time,
we were on the crest of a wave.
Piero was super important.
My newspaper will take care of all the publicity.
It will be a memorable evening.
You’ll see, don Leopoldo, it will be alright.
Thanks, you are beautiful.
They feared him.
In the pop music world,
he was a big shot.
No!
Haven’t you read Viker?
You’re young, but if you had,
you would know that pop songs,
have to return to a bare bones essence.
To a nudity.
Strip tease?
Yes, strip tease, but of a moral nature.
He was one,
who would listen to just a few notes,
and make a judgment that was on the money.
He had, as they say, a good ear.
He had this knack,
for anticipating tastes, trends and so on,
but then he would get lost.
He would fall madly in love with a woman,
for... like three days, and run off,
and let everything go. Then he’d come back.
At that time, he’d fallen,
for a married woman.
The one who,
left her husband for him.
When he went to Sanremo,
with 24.000 kisses.
I got there,
and I caught him,
in the hotel,
with this lady.
The next morning I was gone.
Piero Vivarelli was an anomalous director,
among directors of Italian genre movies.
He was proud of being a genre director.
He wasn't ashamed of that.
He claimed he didn’t do just one genre,
but many genres.
When I started out,
I wanted to attend a film school.
I went to talk to Mario Soldati,
and he said:
- What do you need a film school for?
Work with me as an unpaid assistant,
and you'll learn more than any film school.
When Piero Vivarelli tackles the musical movie genre,
he turns it upside down.
Non alone, it must be said.
He does it with Lucio Fulci.
Lucio Fulci was a genius.
Yes, I have big ideas.
We will organize something solid.
Like a festival.
Up until then musical movies,
were based on either the songs or the singers.
With Fulci we said:
- Why not make a rock’n roll movie?
Not a mono-thematic movie,
but one with all the permutations of rock music,
from Tony Dallara's melodic rock,
to Adriano Celentano's rock.
I met Celentano at a musical tour.
When we made “The Juke Box kids”
we needed a rocker, a pelvic thruster,
I said: - Let’s call Celentano.
He didn’t have any song though.
Celentano’s brother,
had a rhytmic tune.
I said: - How does it go?
- Come back to Capri, mon amour.
I said: - Come on,
a rocker can't sing: "Come back to Capri, mon amour".
So on the spot,
with Adriano who hummed along,
and me writing the words,
we came up with:"Your kiss is rock 'n roll".
Piero played a big role in the postwar period,
during the postwar economic boom,
within the anthropological transformation,
of Italian society.
Especially in the phenomenon known as,
the "Invention of youths".
For the first time youths become a "market".
Become consumers.
Have an allowance.
Can spend some money.
Piero intercepts in Celentano,
a sort of irresistible monkey man,
between horrific and pure beauty,
a total electrical spring.
He glimpses in Celentano,
this form of change,
and he follows him,
from 24,000 kisses to movies.
Partly in tandem with Fulci.
They are all movies about youths.
One can see the first signs of sexual liberation,
of anti-Catholicism,
which was Piero trademark.
So you are saying that...
Your eminence, come on, in a country like ours?
We just point out the immorality of that sign.
- I kiss, you kiss...
Your eminence.
The key topic is always,
the anthropological opposition,
of the new generation against the old farts.
You see Rita,
there's always a war between the old and the young.
Now it’s my turn.
I have to fight it on my own.
And that’s ok.
Or else what's the pleasure in winning it.
All this anticipates the movements,
that will dominate 1967 and 1968.
Anticipation is the common thread,
in Piero’s life and career.
I met Piero through common friends: Franco Rossetti,
and Alberto Giommarelli. Both film students like me.
From Siena like him.
Then I was called by Franco Rossetti.
He said: - Vivarelli is doing a musical movie,
and needs a good assistant.
But I'm not a good assistant nor do I want to do that stuff.
So if you want you can do it.
Who’s that?
You don’t know him? He’s an amazing guy.
He's the president,
for the moral rectitude of entertainment.
Disgusting.
Who, the president?
No, I mean the parameters.
For us intellectuals, fashion is a going back to...
We’ll talk later.
Piero was yearning to direct a movie,
because he’d always been an assistant to Lucio Fulci.
My husband was a famous singer, Teddy Reno.
Let’s not talk about your father. Let’s talk about you instead.
In those days you didn’t have the deluge of TV programs.
Sanremo festival was huge for he Italian song.
People would run to go see these films.
The 50 million citizens of our Belpaese,
once the homeland of saints, poets and seafarers,
can now be divided into two camps:
25 million write, or want to write, songs.
The other 25 sing them, or aspire to.
So it’s not surprising that Sanremo,
cradle of Italian song, and pearl of the riviera,
is our authentic moral capital.
This is the homestead of Italian pop songs.
24 thousand kisses,
was meant to be the end song of my first film.
We recorded it,
then I thought: -This is too good for this movie,
let’s send it to Sanremo.
And here's Adriano, aka the pelvic thruster.
Piero and I intersected in 1959,
on a Fulci film:
"The Juke Box kids".
I was one of the boys.
Fulci used to call me "Dracula". I don't know why.
Dracula, follow me.
Piero was assistant director,
he wrote the script,
and a few songs.
The same year,
we made "Howlers in the dock".
In one film I had Chet Baker,
who was totally stoned.
He played the American.
He hardly said anything, he was always sleeping.
Chet Baker the American,
sleeps night and day.
But he’s a great jazz musician.
Since he slept everywhere,
I remember once a tragic instance.
He had a scene under a couch.
We shot the scene. Then we wrapped,
we go home.
Once at the studio gate,
Chet’s manager asks:
- Where’s Chet? - What do you mean, where’s Chet?
Chet had fallen asleep,
and was still on the set with his trumpet.
Once, in an elevator scene,
he started off well, then would arrive asleep.
He would always arrive asleep.
Towards the end of the film,
we were the whole gang,
on our Vespas, going to a park.
Chet was lying next to a tree.
He played and sang “Arrivederci".
It was so beautiful.
Music, movies and myself,
have always been intertwined.
I’ve always loved music.
As a child,
I would listen to jazz records.
In “I kiss, you kiss”,
Vivarelli goes beyond Fulci.
When Mina’s sings,
“Il cielo in una stanza”,
inside a minimalist set:
white trees on a black background,
It effectively anticipates,
the video clip culture,
that would have arrived only years later.
I remember for “Il cielo in una stanza”,
we had Mina on a camera track,
amidst these fake silver trees,
inside the theater.
She sang while sitting down.
She was like in a cloud of naked trees.
It was beautiful.
Piero had the idea.
Piero was a restless guy.
And being a restless guy,
he was always experimenting,
with new pathways.
His most interesting work to be,
“East Zone, West Zone”.
Our story begins,
when between the two zones there was still free transit.
Although our characters are fictional,
the situations are true to what takes place in the...
“East Zone, West Zone”
I love "East Zone, West Zone” for two reasons:
because it’s about the Berlin wall,
and I'm proud,
that the movie was forbidden,
in both East and West Germany.
Piero's cinema at this point,
is more socially conscious.
He wants to show that he is not just a provocateur,
pursuing the latest trends,
as with the music movies.
He wants to prove that he is also,
as he really was, a man of great culture.
Of great historical sensitivity.
The government of East Germany,
has decided to stop free transit,
and all communications between the two zones of the city.
A wall is erected on the border line.
Another reason I'm happy to have made it,
is that I upstaged Bertold Brecht.
There was this actress Nana Osten,
who was a young circus equestrian,
and Brecht had taken her in at the Berliner Ensemble.
A Swiss who had a cabaret said to me:
- I’ve got an actress who studied with Bertold Brecht,
I'd like you to see her.
What do you do here?
I work here.
As what?
I'm a cosmonaut.
With the Russians or the Americans?
Let say I'm self-employed.
What a nutcase.
I went to see her, and she was amazing.
So much so that, alas, I fell in love on the spot.
So in love that,
at the time,
though I was married in Italy,
I had a fiancé.
Since she was blonde and blue-eyed,
I had given her a part in the film.
When my fiancé arrived in Berlin, I had an affair with Nana Osten.
At that point, it was a triangle.
At that point my fiancé had become like a wife.
And a new fiancé, Nana Osten.
My love.
I am very honest, very sincere.
Even with my real wife, the numero uno,
I had never worried about hiding my love affairs.
So at this point I said:
- Well, you wanted to be like my wife?
she said: - Absolutely.
- Always sleep with me?
- Absolutely.
- Wake up in my arms?
- Absolutely.
- Bring me coffee in bed in the morning?
- Certainly.
- Just like my wife?
- Yes.
-Then, just like my wife, you’re a cuckhold.
And I must say it was in bad taste.
She got really pissed off,
and put me in my place.
She bit my lip so hard,
I’ve still got a scar.
You have no idea how much blood flows,
when you get a bitten lip.
The spurt is incredible.
What's going on?
It's the American tanks,
going to Chekpoint Charlie.
The film didn’t get seen much,
although producer Rizzoli liked it.
When it was released Rizzoli even had,
to complicate my life,
Nana Osten come for the premiere.
I traveled to Milan to enjoy the film with her.
Bad luck that,
Who was in the lobby of the hotel in Milan?
My other fiancé. The one I had in the film.
In East Zone, West Zone,
once again Piero private life and art are intertwined.
He falls for the lead actress,
had a fling with the secondary one.
He probably wasn’t super focused on set.
But this has never been the cause of success or failure of a film.
Come back.
Western imperialist,
will never suppress the will for peace of democratic workers.
It could have been Piero's launch,
into another level as a director. but it didn’t happen. A real pity.
That object prevents me from seeing who you are looking at.
You.
"il Vuoto" is a film that could have gone on forever.
It was a love story between a married man,
a type of story I knew very well,
and a young woman who was in love with him.
If I had a date with you,
I would be talking with a formula.
The film as usual didn’t pass censorship,
because it was too erotic.
The two characters on holiday,
see a girl in the other building,
who takes all her clothes off.
Seeing her naked, they get horny.
Today I would have shot it that they fuck.
Instead they just lower themselves,
and the camera stays on her.
A woman without complexes.
The film was produced by Federico Aicardi,
an Argentine,
who had made money,
with smuggling.
The film then,
had been selected by the Venice Film Festival.
They asked us to bring a copy.
He got in his car,
left for Venice,
nodded out,
and ended up in a ditch, him, the car.
It never made it to Venice.
My dear daughter, you must learn,
that in every artists’ career,
there is always a flop.
It might be a small flop, but is always there.
Compared with other directors,
who feel already dead in their 40’s or 50’s,
after suffering a defeat,
he was willing to start over for a next round.
“Rita, the American daughter”,
is a fine film.
A great comedy.
A very good musical comedy.
It features Totò,
in a melancholy turns.
He played melancholy very well.
You must be strong, you must be brave.
Never give up.
That's my motto: insist.
Posterity,
will judge.
He managed to put three different worlds in one film:
the beat music of the Rokes,
Rita Pavone,
the most popular singer of the moment.
And the great Totò.
A proto-hipster Totò.
A beat Totò. Outside the box. A long-haired Totò,
who shared the stage with Rita Pavone and the Rokes.
You're begging my love,
but I hate your love, I hate you.
Vivarelli was a transgressive character.
Totally outside the box.
He was a big fan of mine.
The fact that I was the favourite singer,
of (Communist secretary) Palmiro Togliatti...
All this made me of interest,
to the leftist intelligentsia who wrote about me.
And it also attracted Vivarelli.
Rita.
Daddy.
Rita.
Here I am.
Stop it.
At fourteen I was a fond reader of Big.
Big was a youth magazine,
about youth culture and pop culture,
and Piero Vivarelli wrote the editorials.
I learned so much when 14 -15,
from Piero Vivarelli’s editorials.
In my world Big is worth just as much as any,
of the sophisticated magazines I read later.
Big is on the same level as Quaderni Piacentini.
Big was like
the Bible.
For those in music biz like me,
you just had to read Piero.
Don’t insult me. What are you insinuating?
- I'm not insinuating. - So shut up.
I’m running to the paper to be the first,
who breaks the news that the ye-ye have a new idol!
You, get cracking! Move it!
Us youngs, and less young people,
we were hanging on his every word.
He was living with this black girl, who was very cute.
She was often an extra,
in dance scenes.
I was close with Totò and Rita Pavone.
To this day if I met Rita or Patty Pravo on the street,
I'm sure they are among the few people,
who would recognize me.
Will you write a piece about us?
Girls, I accepted to help you out.
Piero is a friend. But we can’t go overboard.
Friendship is a beautiful thing,
but the paper isn’t mine.
I’m happy to publish a picture,
I need something newsy. New ideas.
Piero was a bit reluctant to give me work.
He was jealous, he was possessive.
So Piero, you want new musical ideas?
We’ve got them. Listen.
- I’m listening - Come on...
He was,
the lost love of my life.
She’s crazy.
- A total nutcase. - Nuts, but simpatica.
-Shall we sit?
I'm with this bum photographer.
I’m the one who gives you all your smokes!
Piero had an office in Via Veneto,
and a friend of mine, Tommasini,
took me to his study.
I got to know him, and it was like,
I was the morning lover.
He would come see me every morning.
Piero was really extraordinary.
He was a very nice person.
He respected women.
And he had a great admiration for black people.
I think I was one of the big loves of his life.
I first heard of Piero Vivarelli from Sergio Corbucci.
He told me:
- Myself, Lucio Fulci and Piero Vivarelli,
we were the left side of the street on via Veneto.
He explained how the left side of via Veneto had two features,
it was where the leftists went,
and it was where the hookers were.
That was the key thing that made me understand,
Sergio Corbucci, Lucio Fulci and Piero Vivarelli's cinema.
Piero had the greater imagination.
Sergio was the more solid one, more concrete.
So they were a good duo.
Genius and recklessness.
Their filmmaking was not second rate cinema.
Not at all.
But let’s call it "minor cinema".
Less pretentious than,
Neorealism, Italian comedies.
Different from the genial Fellini,
or the introverted Antonioni.
If it hadn’t been for our movies,
Antonioni could not have made “La Notte”,
or “Il Grido”.
Because his films didn’t sell internationally.
Our films instead traveled around the world.
With those profits,
producers could afford to use part of the money,
to make so called 'auteur' movies.
Antonioni owes his movies to us.
There was a time when Piero was being,
constantly badgered by Corbucci who wanted him,
to hand in a script.
Then there was Django which he wrote,
with Lalli Rossetti.
You have to realize that Italy,
in the early 70’s, made 350 movies a year.
They saturated the Italian market,
then mostly traveled abroad.
In those days,
a screenwriter or a director,
would meet with a producer.
Sometimes without a script.
He would tell the story, he would act it out.
He would say: - A close up here, a dolly there.
That’s how he would sell the movie.
And the producer: - Ok, let's do that.
Corbucci said to me: - I’ve got an idea.
- So, let’s hear it.
- I want to make a movie that starts with a man,
who is dragging a coffin.
I was pretty impressed.
In those days, we really believe in this stuff.
So I said: - Yup, that could be pretty good.
And he said: - So try writing it.
I said: - What do you mean? Then, what happens?"
- That’s what you need to write. Why do you think I told you?
- I got it.
So that’s when I thought to call Piero.
Sergio called me and said:
-Piero, do you feel like doing a script polish?
If you've got nothing to do.
Lalli Rossetti is on the script, but he's totally burned out.
I need a fresh mind.
I said: -Sure Sergio, gladly.
He said: -Then go to the production office.
Your contract for the polish is ready.
There was no story, no script.
It was a weird situation.
I went to the production office. I signed a contract.
Then I went to Sergio’s to read the script.
He said: -Let me tell it to you.
The movie starts with a man walking through the mud.
Since we shoot in wintertime,
it could be raining.
A saddle on his shoulders, dragging a coffin.
-Fuck! That’s a great beginning.
-Yes, in fact I sold the film on this.
-And then what happens?
He said: -I have no idea.
-What do you mean, no idea?
-I don’t even know what’s in the coffin.
Is there somebody in there?
One named Django.
-But I signed a contract for a polish.
-Come on, Piero, don’t get fussy.
We used to write a treatment.
Then we'd go over each scene.
Then Sergio would dismiss us,
by saying: - And now, go write.
I had lent him my Django Reinhardt records.
I said: - I'd like my Django Reinhardt records back.
- Let’s call it Django.
He was the famous Gypsy guitarist,
who played with two fingers missing on his left hand,
in the Hotel de France.
- So then what happens? - Look, I shot one movie,
that ends up with the main guy who’s blind.
Then one with Mark Damon, where the hero becomes deaf.
I said: - Then our guy ends up with his hands mangled.
- That’s a great idea. - Yup, his hands are mangled.
-And who mangled them?
-The Mexicans.
-Why the Mexicans?
We wrote the screenplay starting from the ending.
Our models in those days,
were Eisenstein, Pudovkin.
Russian cinema, and also French.
That’s what we talked about, who our references were.
Django,
is very Vivarelli style, it’s very Sienese.
Since both Piero and Franco Rossetti are Sienese.
You need to know Siena, to understand Piero.
I remember in September of '43,
while Siena was being bombed by the Allies,
Piero darted out of a doorway in pajamas,
and a fascist army overcoat.
He started screaming insults,
against the Allied bombers.
I joined the Decima Mas,
when the fascist militias,
became the National Guard,
and entered their Navy seals and paratroopers unit.
Decima Mas,
was never fascist.
We had believed in a proletarian fascist Italy.
Then we had been paid back as we know.
So it seemed a logical step,
for many of us,
to join the ranks of the Italian Communist Party.
I knew Borghese very well,
up until January 11, 1950.
He had already left jail, thanks to the Togliatti amnesty.
I had already joined the communists.
Then I got married, and went on holiday in Sardinia.
Then we came to Rome,
and paid a visit to Valerio Borghese,
who was his commander in the Decima Mas.
We met. He was very nice.
He said: - Politics is a dirty thing.
You did right. After Decima, everyone is free to do as they like.
And after all these wonderful declarations of intent,
he accepted the presidency of the neofascist party.
At that point, I told him to fuck off.
When I did ‘Mister X, comic books had just started in Italy.
I gave myself a part in it.
I picked Gaia Germani as the female lead.
My girlfriend at the time also got a part.
When it was released in France,
they said, I think in the Figarò,
that with half of the ideas in Mister X,
you could make three Bond movies.
Right after Mister X we made Satanik.
The thing about Satanik is the story of how it got made.
Produced by Romano Mussolini,
who hired Vivarelli,
wouldn’t you know it, "Xa Mas", an old comrade.
Romano Mussolini was Benito Mussolini’s youngest son.
Since he had married Maria Scicolone,
Sofia Loren’s sister,
he was a relative of Carlo Ponti, who was Sophia’s husband.
Carlo Ponti had asked him to become a film producer.
Since I had talked to him about my passion for filmmaking,
he called me and said:
-Do you want to be a production assistant?
He was a frozen foods salesman in Bologna,
and he had a really good salary.
But he asked to come as a volunteer assistant.
I even gave him a little cameo, so he could earn something.
In august, when I was on vacation from Findus,
I came to Rome and I met Piero Vivarelli.
Pupi is still sore about the fact,
that Piero treated him like dirt.
The fun thing is that nobody gave Pupi the time of day,
so he was glued to the camera, and therefore to me,
and we struck up a friendship.
The few times that I managed to see while they were shooting,
I realized that directing was one of the easiest things in the world.
One day he said to me: -Would you play the coroner?
There was a corpse on the ground.
The actor who was supposed to play him hadn’t showed up.
So I changed, and a bit nervous,
I went to play the part.
Here is the medical report:
based on body temperature,
this man must have died two hours ago.
I will send the report.
Inspector, my regards. - Goodbye
A sudden call. It happens rarely.
I even debuted as an actor, thanks to Piero Vivarelli.
Magda Konopka was an interesting character.
Quite intriguing.
A reserved person.
She probably had an affair with Piero.
One time,
I organized a romantic evening.
I took her out to dinner to a fancy place in Geneva.
To eat blue trout, drink champagne.
Of course this is spring trout.
Lake trout is different.
And I bought Playboy.
Which was transgressive to the max.
We went to my room.
And she liked to cuddle.
But with her fingernails.
To the point that she lacerated me.
The next day, while we were shooting,
I asked the seamstress:-Can you put some cream on my back?
She pulled up my shirt:
-My god! Miss Magda really killed you.
The whole crew knew everything.
The best scene in Satanik is Magda Konopka’s strip tease.
Piero really cares of this scene.
He’s fascinated by this masked women,
who takes her clothes off in front of a mirror.
You can sense his libido,
the director’s attraction for his subject matter.
And from here going forward it begins to become clear,
what shape Piero’s career is going to take.
The most powerful picture that Piero ever made,
is il Dio Serpente [the Snake God].
It’s got a really great title,
great Vivarelli style: erotic-exotic imagery,
and at the same time,
a yearning for new territories,
adventures,
to get out of Italy.
You are Bernard Lucas’ wife?
yes,
I'm Paola. you are Stella, right? My husband told me about you.
Did he tell you I'm crazy? - No, relax.
Also, I know you well
Piero was restless.
He had a thirsty curiosity to quench and,
a big libido, constantly pushing him forward.
It’s what makes him entertaining.
Because there's never a cold calculation.
He's driven by desire.
Let's do one eye each.
The story begins with a woman and her husband,
watching a couple making love on the beach.
A black couple.
What they see stimulates their curiosity, a desire to see more.
With "Il Dio Serpente",
thanks to the music,
and thanks to Nadia Cassini,
Vivarelli comes up with something new.
The erotic-exotic genre,
becomes a component of Italian genre movies.
Nadia Cassini was a young starlet,
of spectacular beauty,
but she is really enhanced by Vivarelli’s mise-en-scene,
with a lot less vulgarity and misogyny,
than other Italian directors of that time or later.
I respect all religions. - But you only believe in your own.
Instead god doesn’t just speak Latin.
God has always existed,
and he exists everywhere.
It’s quite a refined movie, in what it narrates:
the sexual liberation of a women,
but it goes beyond sexuality into total freedom.
There is also a discourse leftist,
not reactionary, or conservative, on the issue of colonialism.
The beauty of the film,
is that one doesn’t just feel like a total voyeur,
watching something unhealthy, in terms of the ideas behind it.
The film is remarkable,
for what is said and the ideas it sets forth.
I think this film can easily qualify,
among the best erotic films of all times.
It’s also ahead of its time, because in 1970 or around then,
there was an ambition to take erotic cinema out of the ghetto.
Here there is really the ambition to release eroticism from the ghetto,
and give it the cinematographic means for it to evolve.
The film reflects the spirit of 1970,
the year in which it was made.
At the same time it benefits,
from the feminism then in the air,
and an interest in third world cultures,
the issue of colonialism and of sexual liberation.
I wound up with Piero in 1972,
on the set of ‘The Black Decameron’.
We traveled to Africa. It was produced by Alfredo Bini,
on the wave of Pasolini’s ‘Decameron’.
My darling husband I'm waiting for you, come.
Did you cook something for me?
Anything with the adjective ‘black’ really piqued people’s interest.
These films were r-rated: ‘Black Criminal’
‘Black Decameron’, ‘Black Eve’.
Audiences flocked to.
For a cheap ticket,
you were guaranteed thrills that you would never get from TV,
with two channels, black-and-white.
Piero really felt for this film.
The African atmosphere, the exoticism,
and the eroticism.
He was ahead of his day. He forged something new.
These films spawned,
all the Black Emmanuelle by Joe D’amato and the others,
made in the second half of the 70’s.
They are all derivations of the Black Decameron.
I did another movie that Piero co-wrote with Maria Pia Fusco,
Emanuelle In America.
Yes
a good choice,
good old Joe,
later I'll get to know you better.
Edmondo Amati,
asked me to write a treatment, centered around Black Emanuelle,
a woman who traveled the world,
and had high-tension erotic adventures.
You are afraid of women.
Women who talk back, terrify you.
They could destroy you.
Poor Erik Van Darren
The inspiration, undoubtedly,
the only Italian journalist who traveled the world,
delving into dictatorships, wars,
and terrible crime scenes,
was Oriana Fallaci.
Piero Vivarelli was Fallaci's friend.
He gave me the right tips,
to make the story work.
The President of Senegal at the time was Leopold Senghor,
who was also a poet.
He sent all several theater actors,
that Piero used in this film.
Piero had worked with Djibril Diop Mambéty,
who was also an actor and had been in Italy for a few years,
great director of African cinema.
We often wrote about him in our reports from Ouagadougou,
and Tunis, where we attended African film festivals.
The legendary director,
of Touki Bouki.
Go ahead speak,
why is it a shame?
It’s a shame that yours is upside down.
Upside down?
At the time there was a conflict,
between former Portuguese colonies:
Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique.
There was this guerrilla group,
headed by Cabral, Amilcar Cabral.
While working, we met Luis Cabral, his brother.
One evening, protected by the Senegalese army,
we traveled to the jungle, to meet Cabral.
It was an exciting experience.
We traveled on a military jeep.
It was an exciting meeting.
I don’t think I'll ever find a man,
who is worthy of being my king.
Dad was not a dad.
He was a character.
A group of paparazzi on City Hall,
greets a bride who is making the news:
Jamaican actress Beryl Cunningham,
star of the Black Decameron and other recent blockbusters.
She’s being wedded with Piero Vivarelli,
film director after being a journalist and songwriter.
Her ebony face against her bright white clothing,
made us run the risk we see just her profile.
But the close up shot,
allowed us to admire her exotic beauty.
The exchange of rings and a little speech,
where the highlights of the brief ceremony.
I called Beryl mom. I thought she was my mom.
Although I was a bit baffled that,
she was black and I was white.
Do you remember ‘Le Salamandre’?
One of the two actresses is now an Italian citizen.
Beryl Cunningham, Jamaican actress, model married with director Vivarelli.
I was a married man, but I had lots of girlfriends,
black ones of course.
Piero for me was like a father,
a lover,
I can’t say a husband.
She was my girlfriend,
and her name was Veronique.
The funny thing is he called me, he said: Vania, Vania,
she’s pregnant!
I'm going to have a black child. I'm thrilled.
I was irresponsible, I wasn’t taking the pill.
And with Piero, I don’t know if I can say this,
we would fuck all day long.
Piero was one of those.
I told him,
-I'm expecting a baby.
After a few months, he called me up and said:
-He’s born, he’s born!
I said: -Are you happy?
-No -Why?
-He’s white.
We all burst out laughing. He was desperate.
He wanted a black son. But the boy was born almost white.
When I was born I wasn't welcome.
They called me ‘that one’.
My eldest daughter Nathalie, was born from an arranged wedding.
At the time there was no divorce.
Oliviero, officially, was anonymous mother' son,
otherwise I risked losing,
custody of Nathalie.
I remember that for a time,
I was in an institution run by nuns.
Before being officially adopted by Piero,
after Beryl's wedding,
I had a fake last name: Rossetti.
At 27 I was invited,
to a lunch.
There was this person who was a bit drunk,
I was talking about Beryl, -Beryl, my mother...
He said: -Your mother is not Beryl.
I said: -My mother is Beryl.
-Your mother’s name is Veronique.
I rushed to Piero’s house.
At the door, I asked: -Who's Veronique?
Piero's face turned pale.
He said: -Sit down.
I said: -No, tell me who's Veronique.
He said:-Veronique is your mother.
I was 27.
And who was Veronique?
The go-go dancer of the Piper Club.
Piero created the Piper.
Without him the Piper would never have existed.
When Piero Vivarelli walked into the Piper,
when it was at its peak,
there were all these young women,
he was like the prince making his entrance.
Musically, the ‘Piper-girl’ was Patty Pravo,
but I was the real "Piper -girl", dressed in white.
Always dancing on that cube.
He would sit down and check me out.
He probably got excited, looking at me.
He wanted to taste a bit of everything.
He was an extremist. It was always a game.
Chicco always played with life.
He always considered it a big adventure.
Provoking, undoing, fixing, starting over.
I had had the opportunity
of organizing Aretha Franklin's Italian tour.
I went to see the impresario Radelli.
Piero was his music consultant.
Piero would say: -Can we get this artist?
He'd shoot big.
He asked: -Can we get Led Zeppelin?
I said: -Sure.
I didn't even know who they were.
I went to London.
I met the manager.
He was huge, must have weighed 200 kilos.
I said:
-We'd like Led Zeppelin to come to Italy.
His answer was: -No way.
-Why?
-You don't have the money.
I opened my briefcase with the money,
that Radaelli gave me. He had told me:
-The only way to sway the Brits is show them the money.
I had 20 thousand pounds in the briefcase.
I said: -This is the money.
He said:-How much is it?
-15.000 pounds
He said: -I want 20.000.
-Ok, here's 20.000.
He said: -Ok, we'll do the concert.
LED ZEPPELIN IN WARFARE
MOLOTOV COCKTAILS AT CANTAGIRO
Rock music and concerts,
big music events,
have been the only place where there's no discrimination.
Black, white and Chinese people, all sit together,
they all sing together,
they dance,
no distinctions,
nobody cares who's rich, who's poor.
It's a great way to bring people together.
This is what, in the 80s,
scared the Italian political power.
Piero was one of those saying:
-We're making a revolution,
-We're making a revolution.
Maybe if he had been more of a dad,
I don’t know,
how can I say this?
I would not have appreciated him when I was 30.
After the Black Decameron,
Piero had a bad car accident.
This accident hindered him for a long time.
It also had a big impact on his life.
Look at him, he’s a basket case.
Did you call the ambulance? - Yes, I called it.
Ambulance? He's dead already!
Dead my ass.
Beryl,
how is my Beryl?
I went to see him in the hospital.
He was in really bad shape.
It constrained the rest of his life.
Can't handle it, huh?
That was 1972, then in 1978,
we shoot ‘Nella Misura In Cui’ in Colombia.
An autobiographical movie. It was his story.
Call Beryl and tell her I spoke with Oliviero’s teacher.
- Ok. - Ok my ass.
Besides his private life,
he put his political ideas in it.
When I was a kid I joined the Fascists.
And now you act like a communist.
It’s not an act. I am a communist.
In life, one can change, for the better.
Dad.
What's up?
I got a flat tire.
Dad is the one who, in a heartbeat,
stole Alessandro’s girlfriend.
Alessandro took her home to introduce her to him.
He went to the bathroom.
When he came back,
he found them snogging on the couch.
Alex, who met her the night before, said:
- Ok, cool, bye.
He left, and they were together for two or three years.
You see how much fun he’s having?
Don't let him get bored,
or he gets depressed and acts like a child.
He’s in your hands.
He really loved Alessandro. A very beautiful boy.
Unfortunately he died too young.
He loved him, but he did so his own way.
Piero adored him.
Even though he wasn’t around much.
But we were always,
running around.
We stayed out late at night.
Chicco wasn't a traditional father.
What does traditional father mean anyway?
I'm not sure.
Piero on set was like,
when you go out for dinner.
Of course, the strain,
is not the same,
but he was always very pleasant,
always a very chilled person.
It seemed like he was having a good time,
instead of working.
Any regrets?
No way.
I’m good the way things are,
although surviving gets tougher every day.
Really no regrets?
Nope.
None at all.
I just made some bad choices.
Marrying Alex’s mother was a mistake.
Beryl was a mistake.
At least you have the guts to admit it.
Yes, but guts are all I've got left.
Colombia, ganja, the joints,
there was this naif atmosphere,
a bit counterculture, against the rules.
I have this image of Piero dressed like a guru,
walking along the walls of Bocachica,
like a sort of hermit.
It was in his spirit.
Some people, many of whom are in the film business,
who walk on the edge of a precipice.
Piero had a big heart,
and a boundless imagination.
He was a man of his time. Of the 60s and 70s.
Alessandro carried this legacy during a time that got harsher,
tougher, the 80s and 90s.
Unfortunately Alessandro lost his way,
when Italian youngs were in a dangerous spot.
I knew him.
He was very handsome.
He had pretty strong character.
He executive produced a movie that won an Oscar, ‘Mediterraneo’.
Being producer Minervini’s stepson, he had a future in the business.
Gianni [Minervini] waited 11 years.
Because Piero wouldn't give me Alessandro.
I wasn't leaving Piero without Alessandro.
You can be director of your own life
There isn't a script.
But you can act in it.
Piero and Alessandro were, literally, actors.
Alessandro appeared in two of my movies.
What’s going on?
Where?
In Italy, in Europe.
Dunno.
What do you mean dunno?
Mussolini, Hitler, Germany?
Dunno.
Who is dunno?
Where are you from?
Kash, Antalya, Fethiye. No war.
Alessandro had a serious drug problem.
Addiction is no joke.
Dad, not being a dad,
had no idea how to handle it.
Alessandro was supposed to be constantly kept in check,
with the excuse of the dog, he would meet his dealer.
Once, the cops came to take him away for an interrogation,
I was in his apartment asleep.
They broke in.
Talk about the fact that,
it’s true,
I really think that real life,
isn’t an art movie, It’s really a b-movie.
Piero was hit very hard by Alessandro’s death.
Partly because he felt, I think, responsible.
He hadn’t provided him with an example,
of a regular, normal, tranquil life.
All of this hadn’t helped Alessandro to come out,
of his downwards spiral.
It struck me deeply,
when I called him, and he broke out crying:
-They killed him, these drug dealers. And so on.
Minervini the same thing.
He was also crying: -They ruined him. And so on.
This is a sensitive thing, but it’s interesting,
and all due respect for all the people involved.
Alessandro suffered a lot,
due to his relationship with his father,
with his fathers.
He would say to me: -I don’t know if I’m Piero’s son,
but Gianni Minervini is telling me:
I'm your father, the one who raised you.
This really had an impact on him.
The fact that his father stole his girlfriend,
something that doesn’t just happen in the movies,
there we are the level of Greek tragedy.
This is another reason why I loved him.
Alessandro was a fragile person.
Unfortunately, drugs,
heroin in particular,
became the refuge for a lot of people,
who had a sensitivity, an intelligence,
that didn’t allow them to align with what we call being normal.
And it was also a way to join a club.
I can't be like my father, like that famous director or lawyer,
and so I just call myself out.
Alessandro’s problem was really:
who am I?
I found a letter I had written to my wife from Cuba,
while shooting ‘La Rumbera’.
After Alessandro’s death, he's moving towards another amazing conversion.
During location' scouting,
I was struck that he crossed himself,
inside a church, chosen as a location.
During our evening chats,
I came to realize that his ‘maturity’,
and ‘pain’,
have brought him towards God.
My sweet Madonna, let me go back to Cuba.
I can’t take this anymore.
Piero was getting on with the years.
He didn’t care that much about this story per se.
What he was interested in was the soul of Cuba.
To try and explore that through a film.
Piero was fascinated,
by a revolution,
in a Caribbean island,
theoretically super poor,
which had managed to develop,
a project for a Utopian society,
where everyone had a home with a toilet.
All children could attend public schools until 4 p.m.
Have a chance to go to college.
The lowest infant mortality rate in the continent, including U.S.
The highest average life expectancy,
on the continent.
What’s the only place in the world,
that Piero could identify with?
Cuba.
He was the only Italian member of the Cuban Communist Party.
On Cuba he had an interpreter, a driver.
In any restaurant people would clap at him.
He was a star, a total icon.
I gave him great pleasure,
because I was able to witness it. He was saying: - come to Cuba.
I would think: - These are the stories Piero tells.
I was wrong. He was friends with Fidel Castro.
He was consulted by the culture minister.
He was an amazing character.
Piero’s militancy for Cuba,
was so fervent,
because he was a rebel who found his cause.
He focused his will on this place that he could collaborate with,
and give everything so that it was to Cuba that,
he consecrated great part of his life.
At the end of the day, what is Cuba?
A type of vitality still untainted.
More ass than soul.
It’s as it good as it gets, for one with Vivarelli’s aesthetic.
Vivarelli could not have been a Leninist,
or a Trotskyist,
and even less so a Maoist.
In these countries they would have shot him in a hot minute.
I'm also a member of the Cuban Army Paratroopers.
They didn't give a shit that I was in the Decima Mas.
They were happy to welcome me.
We met thanks to the same passion for skydiving.
He had written me to introduce himself.
The first thing he told me was: - I am an old navy seals skydiver.
He had told me his whole story.
The history of skydiving in Italy.
No hesitation in these valorous men who jump down,
on enemy territory with the utmost courage.
Piero wanted me to debut as an actress.
There was a lot of talk about this movie.
The protagonist was this gorgeous girl from Nettuno.
He fell in love with her. As always with him.
He would come to watch me land,
barefoot next to him. He adored that.
He would ask me funny things:
- Do you think one can make love up in the air?
Up there in the sky, totally free. He liked this freedom thing.
When he asked me: - I want to jump.
It was for his birthday. It was his 85th.
I would tell him: -Piero, with your heart condition.
What are doing? Jumping out of a plane?
I would have jumped with him.
We could hold hands until the parachute opened.
It’s beautiful to have this passion inside you.
Even if you don’t fulfill it, because he could not do it.
To keep dreaming: - I'm going to jump, I’m going to do it,
my last jump. The last jump of my life.
You don’t want to die in bed, from some disease.
You just pass away.
Flying.
Now you will be alone amongst yourselves.
My time is over.
The wheel has turned.
I go back to the origins. The gods are calling.
Hey, you.
Excuse me ma'am,
I must be mistaken.
Terribly mistaken.
Right.