The original idea of making a film depicting the life of Pirandello could not have originated from anyone but one of the most reknowned critics of Pirandellian works: Enzo Lauretta. A great storyteller and narrator, Lauretta reached his greatest achievement with the publication, LUIGI PIRANDELLO: The history of a character "off-key" (Mursia, 1980)--decidedly his most important critical essay on the great writer from Agrigento. The work is 320 pages long, and in it, the Pirandellian work becomes the object--that is to say, it is subjected to an analysis which is profound and thorough, and extremely rare. The reading of the work is fluid and passionate, and it flows at times like that of a novel. Nothing is ignored by Lauretta, who moves from theater to television, from the novel to poetry, with disarming ease.
It is important to note that Lauretta is President of the Centro Studi Pirandelliani di Agrigento (Center for PIrandellian Studies in Agrigento) and recipient of one of the most prestigious literary awards, that is, the Premio Pirandello (the Pirandello Award). For decades, Lauretta has directed the Convegno di Studi Pirandelliani (Conference of Pirandellian Studies) which takes place in Agrigento and which calls all those who study Pirandello from around the world--a sort of Gotha of critics, academics, and writers who, every year, from all over the world, meet in Sicily in order to broaden and discuss new points of view regarding Pirandello's works.
"...when Enzo Lauretta and Stefano Milioto gave me the first draft of the script for "Luigi Pirandello, Una vita impossible", a block of over 400 pages, I definitely felt weighted down (this is the correct term, given the true weight of the script) with a responsibility, and not a small one. A responsibility rendered even more evident by Enzo's words--a man of great sentiment but of concise and essential words who threw in a "...see what you can do..." while Milioto smiled under the mustache which he did not have. That phrase, for me, from a man whom I knew for years, meant: "we've gotten this far; now it's your turn, if you want to bring it to fruition, add that special something that will make it art to be seen. This is not something we deal with..."
And in fact, at that point it was time to put in that special something that was "cinema"... A word... ! We were dealing with the life of Luigi Pirandello, not a fictional script... Certainly the two writers had made my life easier by taking in only eight years of Pirandello's life and, to be precise, from 1921 to 1929 (five years before the Nobel) in order to avoid the usual apologies typical of television biographies where the protagonist is always a hero, a superior being, a cavalier with no faults nor fear, one who in the greatest difficulties resolves the problem--the camera fixated upon him, or her, in a close up, making an expression as if he or she already knows what will happen. Pirandello was not Humphrey Bogart. He was simply a man. A man of rare genius, but a man. Full of contradictions, with a life that was truly impossible, who in the utmost difficulties brought his hand to his temples, with his head slightly bent almost as if he were observing a small theater of the world, and considering it an absurdity. But never with the look of the hero who must sacrifice himself for the greater good of humanity and the joy of sharing.
It always fascinated me, Pirandello's relationship with the Mystery and the frequency of its presence continues to make meanderings into the most secluded parts of the human soul, and this, in the text of two writers, was very present. Not by chance did Enzo publish a small book entitled "Pirandello and the Mystery. (Anthology of magic and the surreal)" for San Paolo publications in 1996...
With my colleague and childhood friend Massimo Malucelli, I worked on finding ideas, connections, openings of spatial-temporal doors on the devastating situation of Italy today, absolutely IDENTICAL to the one of those 8 years depicted in the film (perhaps even worse). We worked on the "Mystery", on the "Fantastic", and on the "Dream-like" in order to be able to tell the true Pirandello story, and to render it an homage with humility and sincerity--creating the screenplay of a great popular film, for everyone, rich with poetry and adventure, without ever losing sight of reality, the truth being depicted directly through the hands of Enzo Lauretta. It's difficult, in fact, to not recall the words with which Enzo Lauretta
"The protagonist is unable to remain quiet when the threshold of the Mystery is crossed. The character want to escape from reality at any cost, to become something else--a stone or cloud--it doesn't matter, so that he may evade the body which is death, life that is already completed, and therefore a prison. He runs to everything--love, insanity, dreams, visions; he crosses over to the dimension of earthliness and mystery surrounds him. All that seemed absurd becomes possible--the soul, the infinite, the great Beyond...
But when he tries to return to normality, he cannot. The experience of the mystery has marked him, forever..."
Antonio Maria Magro from "Diary of Board number 4"
The most crucial years of Pirandello's life (from his debut in "Six characters in search of an author" in 1921, to his cinematographic hopes during his voluntary exile to Berlin, and finally to his being accepted into the "Accademico d'Italia" in 1929), are told through a secondary story which, while taking place in another time and place, intertwines itself with the biography of this great artist.
It is the story written by a group of young adults in their last year of high school in Cagliari who wish to put one of the greatest masterpieces of Sicilian dramaturgy on stage: "The giants of the mountain". Their journey toward bringing this play to fruition becomes a path which carries them ever deeper into a territory of dense mystery and suggestion, and to which they are facing with enthusiasm, enchantment, emotion, and vitality of their nineteen years of being.
With the play, the "il mistero Pirandello" enters into his life. During the period in question, he realizes that he is growing ever closer to the private trials and tribulations of the famous writer, and that his research is becoming almost an investigative effort, conducted at such a level that the entire event narrated in the film assumes the outlines of a true and proper mystery, with all of the connotations typical of this genre.
And here it is, the key which renders the film completely accessible to anyone and everyone--passionate, intriguing, e rich with twists and turns in the plot--contrary to what many may have imagined such a film would be.
It is not a dusty, stagnant biography in documentary form--it is, in fact, the exact opposite: it makes one smile, thinking of how many times one must run around after screenwriters of soap-operas in order to gain notice, while here we have all of the ingredients for a true "telenovela"... The difference being that nothing is invented and that we are telling the story of one of the greatest geniuses in literature of all time. To entertain and educate are two concepts that are not easily melded together. It is something quite rare. Here, in this, is the strength of this screenplay.
To render the events more passionate and more accessible, a sort of guide who accompanies the young adults on their journey, has been added. And so an ironic professor who, in his presence and his character, becomes continuously more similar to the very person whom the teens are seeking (mustache and goatee included) and a very old Sicilian janitor who, in his strange slang, insists that his grandfather "had met him!.."
In the meantime, the relationships within the group become those typical of a group of teenagers living in a big city today: love, friendship, and the confrontations that follow. And yet all seems to be projected onto a background much more vast, that of one drawn by a character who becomes a sort of escape for the teenagers, away from their day to day, "normal" lives.
The search for sensuality, the initiation of love, the advancement toward "great theater of the world" are all experienced by Marco and his riotous and jolly ways, through the reconstruction of the "mistero Pirandello", which assumes the symbolic value of the teens' carefree high school life.
During the period of Pirandello's life taken into consideration in the film, a great part of his sojourn takes place in Germany, during which the artist lives an important part of his love for Marta Abba, and where he attempts the "cinematographic dream".
Germany for Pirandello--where he had lived many years previously as a young student--is the mythical land of possibility, where one could liberate him or herself from the provinciality of "little, overly protective Italy" who would never allow anyone such as Pirandello to have true world stature and the ability to find a place for himself. Truly "an impossible life", Pirandello's.
Who knows how many people will be surprised to discover just how much everything in Luigi Pirandello's life was difficult, agonizing, at times extraordinary and one could even say: teetering on the limits of humankind.
A final consideration.
Anyone can write a screenplay on the life of Pirandello... but how many are actually reliable sources? Enzo Lauretta is the President of the World Pirandellian Studies Center (Centro Studi Pirandelliani nel Mondo), in Agrigento. He is the most dedicated academic and critic of Pirandello's works today, known all over the world. He has written numerous essays translated in over twenty languages.
It has been almost 40 years that the Pirandello Awards Ceremony and the International Pirandello Convention are held every year in Agrigento. Lauretta has met many of the important people in Pirandello's life, with Marta Abba being the most prominent of these protagonists.
Many of the narrated episodes are UNPUBLISHED.
This last bit of trivia renders any ulterior consideration one held in vain.
THE DIRECTOR Antonio Maria Magro
Antonio Maria Magro is one of the most important and accredited voices in Italian radiophonic prose today. In 1980, at the age of twenty, he entered the historical nucleus, "Compagnia di prosa di Firenze della RAI," in which he brings into fruition--first as a consultant, later as protagonist--over 300 screenplays and nearly 50 comedies, one-act plays, and original plays. In 1982, Magro met director Umberto Benedetto. Benedetto disappeared at the age of 80 in March, 2003. He directed and often invented over 6,500 plays with some of the most important Italian actors of his time--from Emma Gramatica to Gino Cervi, from Salvo Randone to Albertazzi and so on. Benedetto defined Magro the best prose actor in Italy (at the age of 26), and from that moment on Benedetto wanted Magro as protagonist in everything he did (over 40 works). The last collaboration of theirs was the comedy "The Ribadier System" by Feydeau in which Magro was the protagonist together with Giorgio Albertazzi and Paola Quattrini, for the "Compagnia di prosa della RadioTelevisione Svizzera" in Lugano. During this time, Magro became extremely interested in cinema, directing and voice-doubling over 35 films, and the direction of various documentaries and commercials--the likes of which he also edited. In 1990, he was commissioned by the University of Ferrara in collaboration with RAI Television to make a film for television (50 minutes) that celebrated the 600 years of the Fondazione dell'Ateneo Ferrarese--thus, "L'ulivo e l'alloro" was born, with Dalila Di Lazzaro and Walter Maestosi. Magro wrote the script, the screenplay, and directed. The film won the Garda Festival, a special award at the film festival in Salerno, l'Airone d'Oro at the international festival of Montecatini, and was chosen to represent Italy (along with "Toscana" by Zeffirelli) at the film festival of Vienna--considered by many to be the "European Oscar" of the medium-length film, where it won the Special Prize of the Jury. In 1992, he founded "Europe's Lamp" in Bologna, a cinematographic production company with which he produced two films one shortly after the other in order to attempt to move the "Italian cinematographic panorama's waters", as far as films written and directed by the same filmmaker go: "Dov'era lei a quell'ora ("Where was she at that hour?") and "Storie di Seduzione" ("Stories of Seduction")--this last film being dedicated to the world of radio, now practically inexistent. The music in this film was composed by Roby Facchinetti of the band "Pooh". Magro continued his collaboration with the Compagnia di prosa della Radio Televisione Svizzera in Locarno as the principal actor in over 50 films for television and nearly 30 comedies. His last works held him as protagonist in the character of Tommaso Camapanella in seven episodes of the series "Fra' Tommaso Campanella, il cane del Signore" as well as playing Giordano Bruno in "Giordano Bruno, la verità figlia del tempo", filmed in the studios of Locarno for RTSI. As for television, on channel RAI DUE for Rai Notte, he can be found in "I viaggi dell'anima", a program in 53 episodes that has him playing the triple-role of actor, writer, and director.
He is also the protagonist of "I Salmoni del San Lorenzo", a film with an Italian-Hungarian co-production, with the collaboration of RAI CINEMA in Italy, directed by one of the most prestigious directors of Eastern Europe, Andras Ferenc. The film, whose shots were taken in Budapest and Agrigento, is based on the book of the same title written by Enzo Lauretta, a Sicilian philosopher and writer. Magro was also protagonist for Swiss Radiotelevision in "I giorni della vacanza" and "L'ospite in attesa". His next projects include "L'accompagnatore" for cinema, "Tu balli per me" and "1911"--a Viscontian fresco, for television, on the Belle Époque and the trials and tribulations that she lived despite her vacuous appearance. He is now waiting to begin working on a television movie "Tu balli per me", written and directed by Magro himself for MEDIASET. It should also be highlighted that the two films which have yet to be shown in theaters--"Dov'era lei a quell'ora" and "Storie di Seduzione" were considered "among the best Italian films in the last 10 years" by critics present at the private screenings in Cinecittà (quoted from CORRIERE DELLA SERA). Specifically, the newspaper Corriere della sera and channel GR2 RAI defined "Dov'era lei a quell'ora" the best cinematographic preview of the year. Instead, regarding the radio show version of "Storie di Seduzione", no less than three graduate theses--one in Bologna and two in Rome--were inspired by the film. The film "Luigi, una vita impossibile" is now getting ready to be shot; a film dedicated to the life of Pirandello in which Magro directs and co-writes. Currently, he teaches diction, phonetics, the use of voice with microphone for prose and voice-doubling, at the Hamlet International School directed by Fabio Galli.
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