great interviews with great filmmakers
La seguente intervista al regista Riccardo Freda, realizzata da Luigi Cozzi, è stata originariamente pubblicata nel numero 15 della rivista Horror, nell’aprile del 1971, alle pagine 26-28.
Per ulteriori informazioni su molti dei film citati, si veda il libro Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), acquistabile con sconto del 30% inserendo il codice EVENT30.
La seguente intervista al regista Antonio Margheriti alias Anthony M. Dawson, realizzata da Luigi Cozzi, è stata originariamente pubblicata nel numero 6 della rivista Horror, nel maggio del 1970, alle pagine 25-26.
Per ulteriori informazioni su molti dei film citati, si veda il libro Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), acquistabile con sconto del 30% inserendo il codice EVENT30.
A talk with Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa about his latest film Vitalina Varela (2019), winner of the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival 2019. The interview took place in Hamburg in September 2019. The original English version, published by Débordements, can be read here.
“We share the mourning…”, says priest Ventura to Vitalina in a central scene of Vitalina Varela, “You lost your husband, I lost my faith in this darkness…”. Is the road that leads to acceptance and closure irremediably lost in the starless night? Is the hope for a new beginning a mere utopia?
The interview was conducted to update the Italian-language monograph Questi fiori malati. Il cinema di Pedro Costa, published by Bébert in 2017. The monograph can be purchased here.
A few months ago, in December 1959, I had a meal with some friends in a restaurant in Rome. On that occasion, I narrated to one of them – a brilliant writer and Goncourt-prize winner – a shocking dream that I had the night before. My friend, R. V. [Roger Vailland] (we have the same initials), is an uncompromising rationalist, and he takes a particular pleasure in giving Freudian interpretations of people’s dreams.
I told him: “I am in a theater. The seats have been pulled out from the floor and piled up in the orchestra, so that they form a gigantic, messy pyramid. The floor is covered with bits of iron that look like a strange vegetation. I am having a fistfight with a friend. I fall down on the floor and I get up. I look at my hands and I discover that my left hand is missing the little finger. I didn’t even realize that my little finger had been cut off!”.
R. V.: “A castration complex?”…
I never got to know the unsuspected developments of my friend’s interpretation of my dream: I think that, in that very moment, the waiter brought us our spaghetti alla carbonara. However, that very night I was invited to a cocktail party. I went there and I was introduced to a man whom I had never met before. But I will remember him for a long, long time: the little finger of his left hand was missing. The man told me that he lost his little finger in Japan, during the war. A premonition? Or shall we be content with R. V.’s explanation and think that it was all a coincidence?
A strange, complex, indefinable universe exists at the margins of our life, and sometimes this universe expands itself and overflows. There are people among us who have sensed, glimpsed, guessed this universe, if only for an instant. I won’t talk about the supernatural because the topic disgusts me: it could well be that this mysterious universe is nothing but an unexplored, so-far unconceivable aspect of that small area of our bodily life that we very briefly experience – that area that man has been trying to tridimensionally define while every day it breaks laws that until that moment appeared intangible, immutable. The occultists have tried to dominate this liminal universe, just like scientists have regulated the movements of the stars and codified energy sources. But the two universes – the universe of the scientists and the universe of the occultists – still are diametrically opposed. Often, though, poets have taken their inspiration from both universes at the same time.
Among all the poetic manifestations of the occult universe, the myth of the vampire is the most fascinating and awe-inspiring. It seems that the myth of the vampire was born three centuries ago in some villages of the Bohemia-Moravia, based on witch tales and peasant gossip. It certainly wasn’t don Calmet’s infamous book that gave birth to the myth of the vampire. Some people even connect the origin of vampirism to a group of Christians who discovered the mystery of the resurrection of Christ and, after being expelled from Palestine, migrated to Central Europe and became the rulers of the place by practicing blood rites that attracted the wrath of the local peasants (who were already burdened with, and exasperated by, corvées and all kinds of taxes). The people of ancient Egypt also had their own vampires, and so did the people of China and Japan, though these people called vampires by other names. To make a history of the vampire is a dubious and dangerous undertaking. It is better to concern ourselves with vampire stories. I don’t believe in vampire stories. But I believe in what inspired them.
Roger Vadim
Qualche mese fa – un giorno di dicembre del 1959 – ero a tavola con degli amici in una trattoria romana. Raccontavo a uno di loro, brillante letterato e recente premio Goncourt, un sogno che avevo fatto la notte prima e che mi aveva molto impressionato. Da razionalista intransigente, R. V. [Roger Vailland] (ha le mie stesse iniziali) si diverte a trovare nei sogni un significato freudiano.
Io: “Ero in un teatro. Le poltrone erano state divelte dal pavimento, accatastate in mezzo alla platea e formavano un’enorme piramide disordinata. Pezzi di ferro erano sparsi dappertutto sul pavimento, spuntavano dovunque dalla moquette come una strana flora. Io mi accazzottavo con un amico. Cado, mi rialzo. Mi guardo le mani e mi accorgo che alla sinistra manca il mignolo. Me lo ero tagliato di netto, e neanche me ne ero accorto!”.
R. V.: “Complesso di castrazione?”…
Quali insospettati sviluppi potesse avere quell’interpretazione applicata al sogno di un uomo come me, non lo seppi mai: credo che in quel momento abbiano portato in tavola gli spaghetti alla carbonara. Ma quella sera stessa, mi pregarono, come al solito all’ultimo momento, di intervenire a un cocktail. Ci andai e mi fu presentato, tra gli altri, un tale che di certo non avevo mai visto prima in vita mia. Ma di lui mi ricorderò per un pezzo: gli mancava il mignolo della mano sinistra. Mi disse di averlo perso in Giappone durante la guerra. Premonizione? O ci si deve accontentare della spiegazione di R. V. e pensare a una banale coincidenza?
In margine alla nostra vita, esiste uno strano universo, complesso, indefinibile, e talora si effonde, dilaga. Qualcuno tra noi esiste – e con qual diritto? – che per un attimo ha intravisto, intuito, indovinato quell’universo. Non parlerò di sovrannaturale, mi ripugna: può darsi invece benissimo che questo universo misterioso altro non sia che un aspetto inesplorato, finora neanche concepibile, di quel pur angusto settore della vita corporea del quale, per un tempo brevissimo, abbiamo conoscenza. Di quel settore che l’uomo ha cercato di definire tridimensionalmente e che ogni giorno infrange leggi e norme parse fino a quel momento immutabili, intangibili. Questo universo liminare, gli occultisti hanno tentato di dominarlo: come gli scienziati hanno regolato il moto delle stelle e codificato l’energia. Ma i due universi, quello degli occultisti e quello degli scienziati, sono ancora diametralmente opposti. Spesso, tuttavia, i poeti hanno saputo attingere ispirazione ad ambo le fonti, contemporaneamente.
Di tutte le manifestazioni poetiche del mondo occulto, il mito del vampiro è quella che contiene più fascino, quella più ricca di stupore. Pare sia un mito nato tre secoli fa in qualche borgata di buzzurri della Boemia-Moravia, su una trama di storie di streghe e di beghe paesane. Certo, non è stato il famigerato libro di don Calmet a dargli origine. C’è persino chi attribuisce i segreti di questa strana forma di sopravvivenza a un gruppo di cristiani che avrebbero scoperto il mistero della resurrezione del Cristo e che, più di un millennio dopo, cacciati dalla Palestina, emigrarono nell’Europa centrale, e lì divennero despoti e signori praticando il rito rinnovatore del sangue e facendosi guardare con sospetto dai cittadini cui corvée e balzelli fornivano già sufficienti motivi di antipatia. Neanche agli egiziani sono mancati i loro bravi vampiri; e un po’ più in là se ne ritrovano anche fra cinesi e giapponesi. Ma li chiamavano con altri nomi. Far la storia del vampiro è impresa dubbia e pericolosa. Sarà meglio invece cedere il posto alle storie di vampiri. Io alle storie di vampiri non credo. Ma credo a ciò che le ha ispirate.
Roger Vadim
La seguente intervista allo sceneggiatore e regista francese Roger Vadim, realizzata da Ornella Volta, è stata originariamente pubblicata nel numero 22 della rivista Horror, nel novembre del 1971, alle pagine 30-31. Insieme a Valerio Riva, Ornella Volta ha curato l’antologia I vampiri tra noi: 37 storie vampiriche, pubblicata dall’editore Feltrinelli nel 1960. Questa antologia si apre con una prefazione scritta da Roger Vadim, di prossima pubblicazione su queste pagine in italiano e in inglese.
Per ulteriori informazioni su molti dei film citati, si veda il libro Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), acquistabile con sconto del 30% inserendo il codice EVENT30.
This is the English translation of an interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi conducted by Luigi Cozzi. The interview was originally published in Italian, in the Italian monthly magazine Horror, in April 1970. You can find more info about Italian horror movies in the monograph Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). If you are interested in buying the book, feel free to use the launch discount code EVENT30 for 30% off.
Ernesto Gastaldi: I have a real passion for science fiction. My interest in sci-fi began when I read Edmond Hamilton’s The Star Kings (1949), a novel published almost twenty years ago. Unfortunately, for filmmakers, there aren’t many chances in the sci-fi genre. However, I hope to make a sci-fi film myself very soon. It is an old idea of mine, I have been thinking about it for many years now. I want to make an omnibus film consisting of four episodes. Each episode deals with the theme of the fantastic and features a famous actor. Jean-Louis Trintignant has already accepted [to star in one of the episodes]. Tomorrow I am going to meet Giuliano Gemma to tell him about this project of mine. I wrote Giuliano’s latest western movie, so I hope that he will act in my sci-fi movie for an acceptable [small] fee.
Luigi Cozzi: You will produce and direct this sci-fi film of yours, then. It is not the first time that you are producing and directing a feature, right?
EG: No, it is not the first time, as you very well know. I have already produced and directed two films: a muder-mystery-cum-love-story [giallo-rosa] called Cin cin… cianuro (1968) and a horror called Libido (1965).
LC: You have been dealing with horror cinema for almost ten years now…
EG: I started my career by directing a 16mm film and a producer decided to trust me. After a training period, I wrote L’amante del vampiro / The Vampire and the Ballerina (1960), a terrible film that almost makes me feel ashamed. But L’amante del vampiro was a useful experience and it made good money at the box office.
LC: If I am not mistaken, you have also worked on a small, little-known adaptation of Le Fanu’s 1872 classic Carmilla, the famous short story that inspired both Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr, ou l’étrange aventure d’Allan Gray / Vampyr (1932) and Roger Vadim’s … Et mourir de plaisir / Blood and Roses (1960).
EG: Yes, Tonino Valerii and I wrote La cripta e l’incubo / Crypt of the Vampire (1964) for Camillo Mastrocinque. The story of La cripta e l’incubo is based on Le Fanu’s Carmilla, even if the short story is not mentioned in the credits.
LC: I remember La cripta e l’incubo well. Christopher Lee was the protagonist, and the film was quite morbid. I wonder why the Italian censorship didn’t hinder the film… Maybe because La cripta e l’incubo was considered a typical product for the summer season [when nobody goes to the cinema anyway]… It was the same for Antonio Margheriti’s incredible orgy Danza macabra / Castle of Blood (1963) …
EG: Ah, there was a period in which I collaborated with Nini [Antonio Margheriti] a lot. I wrote several films for him… I remember I lunghi capelli della morte / The Long Hair of Death (1964) with Barbara Steele, and a sci-fi film that we started right before the success of the James Bond saga. For Mario Bava I wrote La frusta e il corpo / The Whip and the Body (1963) and I must confess that I was quite disappointed with the finished film. I wrote a Clouzot-style psychological nightmare, but what Bava saw in the story was a baroque, decadent drama, and he exasperated the tones until he reached total implausibility. I am very sorry about it, because Bava is good at his job, he is a great magician. Even more than Margheriti, Bava is excellent at creating tricks and optic effects. Indeed, his father [Eugenio Bava] was one of the most respected special effects creators in Italian cinema. I remember a scene of La frusta e il corpo that was shot on a beach. Bava wanted a castle in the background, so he prepared a glass matte and he put it on the camera to shoot the scene. Bava is crazy about these things, and he is one of the very few who know how to do them.
LC: You have also worked as a screenwriter for Riccardo Freda, the other Italian specialist of the horror-thriller genre [brivido]…
EG: Exactly. Freda is first and foremost an art expert, he has a great figurative taste [gusto figurativo]. I wrote two films for him: Lo spettro / The Ghost (1963) and L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock / The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962).
LC: Please, explain L’orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock to me. I saw the film but I didn’t understand anything. It was a series of unexplained events and it was difficult to understand the narrative thread… You wrote the screenplay, right?
EG: You see, my screenplay was very clear and precise, with all the details logically connected. But Freda decided that a horror film doesn’t need any explanation. According to Freda, the spectators of a horror film are content with witnessing a series of absurd and terrifying events: the audience doesn’t really need to know why all these things are happening. Therefore, Freda ignored all the explanations, all the logical links and all the psychological motivations that I had put in the screenplay. He simply strung together a series of scary scenes.
La seguente intervista allo sceneggiatore Ernesto Gastaldi, realizzata da Luigi Cozzi, è stata originariamente pubblicata nel numero 5 della rivista Horror, nell’aprile del 1970, a pagina 56.
Per ulteriori informazioni su molti dei film citati, si veda il libro Vampires in Italian Cinema, 1956-1975 (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), acquistabile con sconto del 30% inserendo il codice EVENT30.
This is the English translation of an interview with filmmaker Aristide Massaccesi conducted by Max Della Mora, Andrea Giorgi and Manlio Gomarasca. The interview was originally published in Italian, in the fanzine DROP OUT, in September-October 1991.
DROP OUT: Why films of yours like Buio Omega / Beyond the Darkness (1979) and Rosso sangue / Absurd (1981) were cut when they were released in Italy?
JOE: Obviously because my films were too violent, or too hardcore, for the Italian market. Generally, we shoot two versions of the movie because certain countries do not want a version that is too violent. Italy, Germany and, in general, European countries do not want too much violence. In countries like the US or Japan, on the other hand, the violent version is very welcome.
D: Your film Antropophagus (1980) is available in three different versions. The violent scenes are the same in the three versions, but the dialogues and the editing [of the other scenes] are different.
JOE: I didn’t know that. I guess that these changes were made by the distributors of the film. The distributors working in this or that country may have changed the dialogues of Antropophagus to make them more understandable to the local audience, or things like that.
D: Rosso sangue is a sequel to Antropophagus. Why didn’t you shoot Antropophagus 3?
JOE: Antropophagus was not commercially successful, and Rosso sangue made even less money than Antropophagus at the box office. So we decided not to make a third movie in the series.
D: Maybe, with a title like Antropophagus 2, Rosso sangue could have been more successful?
JOE: I have never been commercially successful in Italy. My films have always been more commercially successful abroad. So we thought that it was not a good idea to use the title Antropophagus 2 for Rosso sangue.
D: What was the story for Antropophagus 3? We heard that the cannibal was supposed to eat his own brain…
JOE: Yes, that was the idea. The story of Antropophagus 3 is about a cannibal: he seems to be dead, but then he comes back to life and becomes a zombie.
D: What can you tell us about Luigi Montefiori [who plays the cannibal in Antropophagus and Rosso sangue]?
JOE: We are friends. He has also written a lot of screenplays for my films. It has been twenty years now: he writes, I direct. It is a sort of collaboration.
D: Did you shoot some scenes of Killing Birds (1987)?
JOE: Yes, I shot some scenes of Killing Birds because director Claudio Lattanzi, who was very young at that time, didn’t feel like doing it.
D: What about Troll 2 (1990)?
JOE: Troll 2 was shot by Claudio Fragasso in Utah. It was a quite ironic horror, it was quite nice. I don’t think that it will be released in Italy. Maybe in VHS… It was released in Europe, though.
D: What do you think about films like Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox (1981), in which there are real scenes of violence, especially involving animals?
JOE: I don’t think that the scenes of violence are real in these films, I think that it is just a publicity stunt. Maybe the scenes involving animals are real… But everything can be faked [done with special effects]. For example, in my upcoming film, there is a scene set in a morgue. In the US, you can just go to a morgue and film what you want… but, when I was a cinematographer, I went to shoot in a morgue and I felt sick… I can’t do it, it is too disturbing for me. In fact, in my upcoming film, we recreated a morgue in another location. This is to say that anything can be faked. It is useless to kill real animals.
D: What about Endgame – Bronx lotta finale (1983) and Anno 2020 – I gladiatori del futuro (1983)?
JOE: These two films were made to exploit the success of Mad Max (1979). In Italy, Endgame – Bronx lotta finale and Anno 2020 – I gladiatori del futuro were never released, but they were quite successful abroad.
D: What about Bruno Mattei?
JOE: He is a serious professional, he has always been involved in filmmaking. He started his career as a film editor.
D: You worked with him for Emanuelle e Françoise (Le sorelline) / Emanuelle and Françoise (1975), which is available in two versions in Italy. One version has more sex, the other has more violence…
JOE: Really? It could be. It is always the same story with the distributors. There was a film of mine, I think they called it Blue Holocaust or something like that… Anyway, this film was released in a hardcore version: they cut some scenes and inserted pornographic footage instead… Sometimes I am unaware of what distributors do to my films… It is such a commercial environment, you know… If I made auteur cinema… If I made one film every two years, maybe I could keep an eye on all my films… But I make six films in one year: if I keep an eye on all my films, I go crazy…
D: A French version of Emanuelle e Françoise (Le sorelline) has hardcore inserts starring Brigitte Lahaie…
JOE: That must be an initiative of the French distributor. He made his own film…
D: What about Michele Soavi?
JOE: Since everybody in Italy keeps saying that nobody is giving young directors a chance, I have tried to work with young people like Michele Soavi. I produced films by Claude Milliken (real name: Claudio Lattanzi), Clyde Anderson (real name: Claudio Fragasso), Martin Newline (real name: Fabrizio Laurenzi) and Michele Soavi. Michele Soavi is the young director who has been doing better.
D: Are you still working with Michele Soavi?
JOE: Yes, we are making a film based on a story of his, a thriller on the road, something similar to Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher (1986).
D: Let’s talk about Laura Gemser.
JOE: She is a dear friend. She is not an actress anymore, she works with me.
D: She is a costume designer.
JOE: Who told you?
D: We saw the credits of La casa 5 / Beyond Darkness (1990) and Troll 2. Is her real name Moira Chen?
JOE: No, her real name is Laura Gemser. We invented the name Moira Chen because her real name, Laura Gemser, had already been used a lot, she made hundreds of movies as an actress. So we changed her name, but it was useless. Everybody recognized her.
D: You appear as an actor in a film by Massimo Dallamano [Cosa avete fatto a Solange? / What Have You Done to Solange? (1972)], in the small role of a policeman.
JOE: I was working as a camera operator when Massimo was working as a cinematographer. Then Massimo became a film director and I became a cinematographer. In Cosa avete fatto a Solange? I played the small role of the policeman because the film was shot between Rome and London and we wanted to save money. It would have been expensive to have an actor move from Rome to London and vice versa, so I played the role. It was also amusing for me.
D: Tell us about Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali / Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977).
JOE: It was a way of revisiting the Emmanuelle series. I made the whole black Emanuelle series [with Laura Gemser] and the films did really well at the box office. When the black Emanuelle character started becoming less popular we tried to revamp her a bit with the cannibals, and in fact Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali was very successful.
D: Was it very gory?
JOE: Some scenes were very strong.
D: What about Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi / Erotic Nights of the Living Dead (1980)?
JOE: The film was distributed in two versions. I was told that there is a version of Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi with hardcore scenes, which I never shot. […] The film I shot was a softcore film. […]
D: What about Al Cliver?
JOE: He looks like an American guy. His face is amazing, but his real name is Pierluigi Conti. He is a carpenter, he is really good at that. He is not a great actor but he has the right face, the face of a suffering, tormented man. And he is super-nice, he is adorable.
D: How many pseudonyms do you have?
JOE: I have a lot of pseudonyms. Joe D’Amato is the one I use for erotic movies, because it has become a sort of trademark now.
D: Compared to your first softcore movies like L’alcova (1985) and Il piacere (1985), the films you are making now have less sex scenes. For example, your film Dirty Love (1988) is basically a drama.
JOE: This is because we had some problems: in Japan, for example, if you want to sell your film you can’t show “the bush” [il pelo] and therefore you have to shoot a “bushless” version, which is difficult… Then, for the German market and for the American market, you have to shoot something that could be aired on TV… As a result, you inevitably end up making all these bullshit films…
D: Would you go back to shooting hardcore movies?
JOE: No, hardcore movies don’t give me any satisfaction anymore. When the hardcore market was liberalized [in the late 1970s and early 1980s], these films were well distributed, but now the market is saturated. Moreover, I was a guy who tried to make hardcore movies with a plot, which was useless because in red light cinemas they used to cut the story bits to make a non-stop-fucking film. So there was no point in making hardcore films my way anymore.
D: Did you work with Giuliana Gamba as well?
JOE: Yes, I produced her first film because I thought that having a woman direct a pornographic film could create a certain curiosity in the audience.
D: What was the title of this film?
JOE: I don’t remember. It was a hardcore movie. Perhaps it was called Le porno investigatrici, or something like that. Alexander Borsky made other hardcore films, his real name is Claudio Bernabei, he was a collaborator of mine.
D: As for Caligola… la storia mai raccontata / Caligula… The Untold Story (1982), the VHS version is heavily censored, while the Dutch version is hardcore and very gory…
JOE: Caligola… la storia mai raccontata was cut when it came out in the theaters as well. Tinto Brass’s Caligola / Caligula (1979) was very risqué, so we had to shoot two versions of Caligola… la storia mai raccontata, for the usual censorship problems in Italy.
D: You have always had problems with Italian censorship…
JOE: In Italy censorship is a big problem because we have seven commissions and you never know which commission will end up rating your film. A commission doesn’t mind violence (for example, Antropophagus had no problems at all), while another commission strongly disapproves of violence but doesn’t mind sex… […]
D: Do you have other horror projects in the making?
JOE: I am starting a new project called Ritorno dalla morte. It is the story of a woman who has paranormal powers. She is in a coma because of a violent aggression that she suffered, and she uses her paranormal powers to control a dead man and take revenge [on her assailants]. The zombie and the woman are connected by a computer. The boyfriend of the woman understands the situation and disconnects the computer, thereby killing the woman and the zombie.
D: Will it be a gory film?
JOE: Yes, but in Italy the film won’t have big chances. We recently made La casa 3 / Ghosthouse (1988), La casa 4 / Witchery (1988) and La casa 5, and only La casa 4 was successful – very successful actually – because it starred Linda Blair. The other two films didn’t go well, like all horror movies in Italy, except for big productions.
D: What are the reasons behind the decadence of the horror genre?
JOE: There was no renewal among directors. Mario Bava died [in 1980] and, apart from Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, and completely forgotten directors like Enzo Castellari and Alberto De Martino, there were no new guys. Then there was the huge crisis of cinema and the film comedies with Renato Pozzetto and Paolo Villaggio were making all the money, so nobody was interested in making other kinds of films anymore. Italian horror cinema could be good, quality-wise: our horror films can be compared to the American ones. There is just one difference: the American films are very ironic (e.g., Sam Raimi), while we keep on making horror films seriously, as if they were terror films, and perhaps the audience has had enough of that.
D: La casa 5 was supposed to star Linda Blair, like La casa 4.
JOE: We tried to contact Linda Blair for La casa 5, but she had just made Repossessed (1990) and she was convinced that Repossessed was a masterpiece, so she refused our proposal for fear of ruining her career [sputtanarsi]. She was super-famous at the age of fourteen, when she made The Exorcist (1973), then she grew up and nobody cared about her anymore… So now she is very careful and prejudiced in choosing her acting roles.
D: What is your relationship with horror cinema?
JOE: I make horror films because I have a lot of fun making them. I make movies of all genres, but I make horror movies with particular pleasure. Above all, I am a technician, so for Buio Omega the journalists wrote that I had shot a real autopsy. Actually, I simply used some giblets that I bought at the butcher shop. For Antropophagus, too, the journalists wrote that I used a real human fetus. Actually, I simply used a blood-soaked, skinned rabbit. This is to say that I have a lot of fun when I make horror films. I also think that I did a very good job while shooting those scenes, if somebody thought that they were real. […]
D: You are often compared to Jess Franco…
JOE: Yes, it is because we both produce and direct our own films. I have also been compared to Roger Corman. It is for the same reason, I think: we do everything ourselves.
Un’intervista con l’avvocato Benedetto Graziosi, che nella seconda metà degli anni Settanta fu assunto dalla Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume per ottenere presso il TAR del Lazio l’annullamento del nullaosta di circolazione del film Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (1975) di Pier Paolo Pasolini. L’intervista che segue è stata realizzata nel febbraio 2014 a Bologna, nello studio dell’avvocato Benedetto Graziosi.
Michael Guarneri: Nel 1976-1977 lei si è occupato di un processo amministrativo davanti al TAR del Lazio per l’annullamento del nullaosta concesso dal Ministero per il Turismo e lo Spettacolo al film Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma di Pier Paolo Pasolini. Prima di parlare del processo in sé, vorrei saperne di più sulla sua carriera antecedente al 1976.
Avv. Benedetto Graziosi: All’epoca del processo amministrativo per l’annullamento del nullaosta a Salò ero molto giovane. Sono nato a Bologna nel 1942 e mi sono laureato in Giurisprudenza all’Università degli Studi di Bologna nel 1966. Dopo la laurea ho percorso tutte le tappe del cursus honorum accademico: a partire dalla fine degli anni Sessanta sono stato prima Assistente Ordinario in Diritto Amministrativo presso l’Università di Bologna e poi Professore Incaricato presso l’Università degli Studi di Urbino. Parallelamente alla mia carriera di insegnante di materie giuridiche, ho iniziato a esercitare la professione di avvocato presso il Foro di Bologna.
MG: Come mai l’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume scelse un giovane come lei per far revocare il nullaosta a Salò? Data l’importanza (anche mediatica) del caso, si sarebbe forse tentati di assumere un avvocato esperto, con più anzianità…
Avv.: Direi che all’epoca era più facile per un giovane fare carriera rispetto a oggi, se si dimostrava di avere competenza e capacità. Ovviamente Salò non era il mio primo caso in assoluto, avevo già fatto diverse esperienze negli anni precedenti. Deve poi tenere presente che il processo amministrativo riguardante Salò si svolse davanti al TAR del Lazio. All’epoca il TAR – Tribunale Amministrativo Regionale – era da poco entrato in funzione, grazie a una legge dell’inizio degli anni Settanta. Io avevo seguito con attenzione le vicende che portarono alla nascita del TAR, me ne ero occupato anche in ambito accademico, quindi, in linea generale, ero qualificato ad affrontare procedimenti amministrativi presso questo “nuovo” organo.
Venni coinvolto nel processo amministrativo per l’annullamento del nullaosta ministeriale rilasciato al film Salò da un mio parente. Mio zio era un cattolico militante, un uomo diciamo “all’antica”, padre di otto figli. Mi propose di lavorare al caso per conto dell’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume. L’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume chiedeva che il nullaosta fosse revocato affinché il film Salò non potesse circolare sul territorio nazionale.
Ora vorrei fare una precisazione. Io non avevo né ho nulla contro Pier Paolo Pasolini come persona e come artista. Sono stato e sono tutt’ora un ammiratore dei suoi film, la maggior parte dei quali ho visto in sala all’epoca di uscita. Amo in particolar modo Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (1964), che rivedo sempre con piacere ed emozione. Da avvocato, però, una volta accettato il caso, il mio compito consiste nel garantire al cliente la migliore assistenza legale possibile. Da un punto di vista deontologico, perciò, è necessario abbandonare la propria posizione ideologica/morale riguardo all’oggetto della discussione, altrimenti si rischia di danneggiare il proprio cliente. Pensi – per citare un caso estremo ma vero – a quegli avvocati di colore che negli Stati Uniti difendono stupratori bianchi di donne di colore. Dunque, mi venne proposto di lavorare al caso riguardante il nullaosta del film Salò, e io accettai non per ragioni di militanza ideologica né per antipatie personali verso Pasolini, ma perché ritenevo il caso interessante da un punto di vista legale. Da studioso della dottrina, mi interessava in particolar modo il problema giuridico che la richiesta di annullamento del nullaosta ministeriale da parte dell’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume poneva: può un’associazione di privati cittadini impugnare un provvedimento emanato da un ente amministrativo dello Stato?
MG: Le interessava cioè il problema se un’associazione di privati cittadini potesse svolgere una funzione pubblica e occuparsi di problemi della collettività…
Avv.: Esattamente. Detto in parole semplici era proprio questa questione che mi premeva analizzare e portare in giudizio. Vede, oggi ci sono comitati di cittadini che si occupano dei molti e vari problemi della nostra società: comitato per i diritti degli omosessuali, per la protezione dell’ambiente, associazione dei consumatori, associazioni di categoria, di quartiere, eccetera… Nei primi anni Settanta il fatto che associazioni di privati cittadini potessero occuparsi di problemi che per legge spettavano allo Stato non era una cosa scontata come oggi. Non a caso, uno dei punti su cui si è più insistito durante il processo fu il diritto dell’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume a chiedere al Ministero per il Turismo e lo Spettacolo di annullare il nullaosta: secondo i miei avversari a un’organizzazione di privati cittadini non poteva spettare il compito di svolgere funzioni censorie, che per legge sono demandate a un organo alle dirette dipendenze del Ministero e quindi dello Stato. Io ho cercato di dimostrare il contrario facendo appello, come può vedere dai documenti processuali, alla sentenza del Consiglio di Stato riguardante l’Associazione Italia Nostra per la difesa delle bellezze naturali del territorio italiano. Si trattò di una sentenza epocale, che riconosceva il diritto dell’Associazione Italia Nostra (un’associazione di privati cittadini) a occuparsi di faccende inerenti il bene pubblico “ambiente”. Ecco, basandomi su questa sentenza io ho cercato di legittimare la richiesta di annullamento del nullaosta fatta dai miei clienti: l’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume, associazione di privati ma dotata di persona giuridica, può occuparsi di beni pubblici come il “buon costume” e il “senso del pudore”.
MG: In effetti durante il processo il dibattito su questo punto fu piuttosto acceso, da quanto ho potuto leggere nei documenti sopravvissuti. I suoi avversari, i rappresentanti della P.E.A. di Alberto Grimaldi, affermarono che la sentenza da lei citata non fosse ancora definitiva come invece lei sosteneva…
Avv.: Sì, sostennero qualcosa del genere: un’affermazione non vera, come credo di aver detto durante una delle udienze. E a proposito degli avvocati della P.E.A., ora le racconto un aneddoto. Sono passati tanti anni, ma non mi è mai capitata una cosa come quella che capitò durante questo processo a Salò – e io ho discusso migliaia di casi da allora. Come forse sa, la P.E.A. non si costituì in tempo al processo davanti al TAR: l’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume fece ricorso contro il Ministero del Turismo e dello Spettacolo e, come co-interessata, contro la P.E.A., società produttrice del film Salò. Entro una certa data dalla mia istanza di ricorso per l’annullamento del nullaosta, la P.E.A. doveva costituirsi per poter prendere parte al processo e far valere le proprie ragioni, cosa che non fece, tant’è che io discussi il caso unicamente con il rappresentante legale del Ministero come controparte. Poi, un giorno, improvvisamente, apparve un timbro che testimoniava come la P.E.A. si fosse in realtà costituita in tempo al processo, sebbene nel registro generale non vi fosse traccia della costituzione della P.E.A.. Ripeto, in tutta la mia carriera non mi è mai capitato di vedere una cosa del genere.
MG: Tornando all’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume che lei rappresentava, essa fu fondata nel 1946 e aveva sede a Roma nello studio dell’avvocato Enrico Benigni, che ne era anche presidente. Ebbe mai modo di incontrare l’avvocato Benigni?
Avv.: No, mai.
MG: Mi può dire qualcosa sull’avvocato Massimo De Grossi del Foro di Roma, suo collega durante il processo amministrativo riguardante Salò?
Avv.: Lo incontrai un paio di volte in tutto. So che era un cattolico militante, membro dell’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume. L’avvocato De Grossi firmava le istanze e i documenti processuali, ma in pratica ero solo io a occuparmi del processo amministrativo riguardante Salò. L’avvocato De Grossi non se ne occupò mai in prima persona.
MG: Lei faceva parte dell’Associazione Nazionale per il Buon Costume?
Avv.: No. Come le dicevo, accettai il caso perché lo ritenevo interessante dal punto di vista giuridico e perché pensavo che la sentenza riguardante l’Associazione Italia Nostra potesse aiutare i miei clienti a ottenere l’annullamento del nullaosta. Personalmente non vidi il film Salò in sala all’epoca. Vidi alcuni spezzoni durante il suo passaggio televisivo, credo negli anni Novanta, ma non ho mai visto il film per intero.
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