Country: Italy
Year: 1963
Duration: 88'


It is the portrait of a young roman boy from the underclass, Luciano Morelli. The director makes him relive real events in front of a camera, with a “cinema-verité” technique where documentary and fiction work together. As soon as he leaves prison, the boy spends his first night as a free person wandering around the city, trying to find a reason to live. He is haunted by the thought of his mother, a prostitute, who he would like to bring back to the family and pulled her out of the life she leads in a filthy hut with her pimp. During his empty wandering he meets a woman who invites him back to her place, but she can’t keep him. By dawn’s light he gets at the village. Her mother ends up into a police raid.
Traduzione in inglese Francesca Sala - English translation Francesca Sala

Biography

film director

Gian Vittorio Baldi

FILMOGRAFIA

1961: La prova d'amore (episodio di Le italiane e l'amore). 1963: Luciano, una vita bruciata oppure Madre ignota (uscita sugli schermi 1967). 1968: Fuoco! 1972: La notte dei fiori. 1975: L'ultimo giorno di scuola prima delle vacanze di Natale. 1977: Anni duri (per la TV).

Declaration

film director

Of course a long preparation is necessary to assure the collaboration of the characters, but in my opinion, every documentary needs a long period of finalisation, even up to one year. I mean that if I am interested in an idea, when some event attracts my attention (that could be an environment, like in Casa delle vedove; a character like in Luciano; something from the news, like in Pianto delle zitelle) I make an effort to know it deeply. For this reason I lead an investigation, like a student who’s working on his dissertation. I don’t need the report for the documentary, but I need it for myself, so I don’t follow the charm of something picturesque (that is what hits at first). (...)
The events that I used to tell in my short movies were never fictional. The old women of Casa delle vedove were free to move in front of the camera while I was interviewing them; in Luciano as well, all the facts both of the short and the feature film really happened to him, and also in the same places where I shot them. The restructured parts were those more vivid for Luciano, so he could really relive them. So I had to make a choice. I wasn’t trying to explain the character from the Roman underclass, but to show him as he was, with his contradictions. Luciano, like the old ladies, has a basic psychology, the ladies because they were kids once again, Luciano because he was in the middle between being a child and an animal. So their reactions were easy to guess... I started to know them very well, so it was easier for me to lead them to the reactions I needed, by broaching the right subjects... Just like with trained mice in a cage, which touch a lever to have their cheese. The example is cruel, but I think that unfortunately, our job requires a little cruelty.

I believe that my films marked a turning point into Italian cinema: many claim that I am a pioneer of the cinema-verité, but that is not true, apart from my use of “direct shooting” in my films (Via dei cessati spiriti, La casa delle vedove etc.) and for the friendship between the masters of this genre (Rouch, Leacock) and me.
Some contact points are often merely accidental, Luciano, from my point of view, despite its violent appearance and its exasperated realism is a fictional kind of film.
I especially tried an experiment, here, I searched a language and I think I partially found it. It was about the non respect of the standard process of the emotions. The audience had to be cold, to watch the story like they were reading a book, they didn’t have to be subjected to it. They actually never saw the film, but those who did were surprised by this specific feature.
Between Luciano and Fuoco there were ten years. Luciano has never been a success, it has never been distributed and had serious troubles with censorship. This caused also quite a few personal issues. As a director, it caused negative reactions in me and that is why I decided to focus on production, waiting to find back the courage and the will of shooting. Yet the critics were not only good but even excellent. But that’s not enough for an author, he also needs the support of the production that could help him, sustain him and give him the opportunity to make more films. (...)
As a producer I believe I did everything in my power to preserve this idea of independence, compared to the main sales channels, to a tyrannical production, to the major distributors and also compared to a certain kind of audience.

Traduzione in inglese Francesca Sala - English translation Francesca Sala

Cast

& Credits

Director and plot: Gian Vittorio Baldi.
Screenplay: Gian Vittorio Baldi, Ottavio Jemma.
Director of photography: Ennio Guarnieri.
Scenografia e costumi: Lorenzo Vespignani.
Editor: Domenico Gorgolini.
Music: Luciano Chailly.
Cast and characters: Luciano Morelli (Luciano), Anna Bragaglia (Anna), Paolo Carlini (Paolo), Ileana Ghione, Lina De Robilant, Valentina Piacente, Franco Giuffi, Giacomo Venditelli, Gigi Ballista.
Production company: Mario Lanfranchi per la Corona Cinematografica.
Italian distribution: regionale.
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