9   Meeting the Tavianis

I met Vittorio and Paolo Taviani with Roberto Perpignani during a lunch break at Cine Citta Studios in Rome.

Roberto had told them about my project and they launched immediately into their feelings about editing. I was immediately impressed by the way each of them respected the other when speaking. They never interrupted each other, but when one had finished, the other took up the subject without repeating what the other had said or contradicting his brother. Instead they each took the discussion to a new level as if there was a secret or instinctive dialectic going on between their two minds. It was magical and immediately explained to me why they have been able for more than thirty years to share the direction of their films. From the start they have taken turns not with each scene but with each shot. Their films are wonderfully coherent, but the structure of scenes and the cutting between scenes is often scintillating in their surprising juxtapositions.

But I must let them speak for themselves.

‘It was seeing “Paisa”¹ that led us to think either cinema or nothing, and abandon cultural studies. We were interested in working with Roberto because Bertolucci said how calm he was, but then he learned karate so that he could explode and return to the calm state immediately!

The emotion during the film dictates the rhythm more than the story. Editing is an important moment because we are finally in control.

This moment is shared with the editor who is the first spectator. We are three in the cutting room.

The rhythm of the story already exists, but the scene as filmed gives the real suggestions in editing, but always respecting the inner rhythm.

The screening of rushes is a crucial moment. We are never again virgin spectators. Choices made at this moment are vital because they are instinctive in face of that first experience of the material.

After thirty-three years there is a risk of too much mutual understanding, a risk that we can assume what the other is thinking and not challenge each other and the film enough. Roberto is there to keep us on our toes. He will hide things from us that we can rediscover.

Back then “Padre Padrone”² was a provocation. It has been difficult to sustain that quality but the new film, which is extremely long feels like we have found our old fluency.

The Taviani Brothers during the shoot of ‘Kaos’ (Courtesy of Filmtre, Italy)

Roberto has a natural feeling for musicality, which allows us to connect with him because we conceive musically. It was André Delvaux³ who when admiring one of our films mentioned a feeling of Stravinsky. Since then we have called Roberto “The Stravinsky of the Moviola”.

For us music is a big father of cinema. Our new film has a quartet structure, but the editing must support the musical form.

Roberto is finally “the third way”.’

Notes

1.  Paisa – Roberto Rossellini, 1946.

2.  Padre Padrone – Taviannis, 1977.

3.  André Delvaux (1926–2002) – Superb Belgian director, for instance; ‘The man who had his hair cut short’ (1965), ‘Femme entre chien et loup’ (1979). A passionate cineaste, admired by his fellow filmmakers.