Country: Italy
Year: 1994
Duration: 15'


First of all, some questions. Why does everybody - really just everybody have to write and publish books? And why do all the people who write and publish books have to talk about them on Tv? And why do all the people who write and publish books and talk about them on Tv finally feel the need to do Tv programs on books, where they talk buddy buddy with Bartleby the scrivener and Holden Caulfield? Except to say that they are ashamed that they went that "one time" on the Maurizio Costanzo Show to talk about their books. Except to say that they are not like Romano Battaglia or Alberto Bevilacqua, that their literary salon is not like Alberto Castagna's. Because look out Tv book explanations can be harmful to your health, and you won't be healthy like Grazia Cherchi and Goffredo Fofi. This is it. I think that Angelo Guglielmi was right when he said he didn't want book programs on Tv. Because its impossible to check the vanity people who write and talk about books. Not to speak of the big and little games of the publishers and little literary salons. It's already pathetic when you open a newspaper and find the book reviews written by writers about books by their writer friends or when you find debates like you'd find in "Novella 2000" between critics (who, after all, are writers) and writers (who, after all, are critics). But here, in any case, the damage is contained, because there are only a few people who read the newspapers and there are even fewer who read criticism of other people's books. And everyone knows, anyway, that the game is fixed. But in television, all this, and above all vanity multiplies a hundred times and reaches outdoor market pushcart levels, like little trendy explosions - however much the program is begging for an audience. We've reached the point where any jerk-off whose face is shown in the little glowing box will sell his book more or come off like Joe Cool. Even the two Addams family members from Rai2's Altra Edicola Giuseppe Scaraffia and Silvia Ronchey (excellent for Blob) have found people who value their culture. This is not to mention those old men of the West, Fruttero and Lucentini, great character actors something like George "Gabby" Hayes and Turi Pandolfini. On Rai1 they seem like two cultural titans second only to Laurel and Hardy... And really, Alessandro Baricco should not be punished because he gesticulates too much, because he acts like a dramatic actor in the Vittorio Gassmanvintage1959 style, or because he comes on like Ghezzi after soap and water or the Mario LuckytobeBornWithHis-ShirtOn Carotenuto of the year 2000. His sins are the sins of any young writer put there to talk about books in front of a Tv camera. Maybe he does it better than the others. He is cuter. Women like him. He is in short the Fiorello of Venerdì di Repubblica. But the example and the coincidence of arriving at the point when they're talking too much about books on Tv are deadly. Find me one writer (young or old) who would not want to take Baricco's place (alas and alak) standing there with a pencil in the hand to talk about "culture". Really, Baricco does it for everybody, and we are thankful to him for this, for saving us maybe from hordes of monsters. But were sure that Italy is full of potential Bariccos. On top of this there is the weight of the culturalbookish clogging all the networks' plumbing. There is Gabriele La Porta with his eyeglasses on DSE with his Parlato (is the anagram with "La Porta" clear?) Semplice. There is Corrado Augias (that is, Pivot) on Montecarlo with his Tappeto volante (and by now this "Flying carpet" has flown off to a better life). There is that AbbotandCostello, postAvanzi duo Beniamino Placido and Indro Montanelli - who have never been so old. There are the abovementioned Laurel and Hardy - Fruttero and Lucentini. And the list goes down and down until it reaches that incredible couple worthy of the best of New Zealand splatter Scaraffia and Ronchey who can never stop laughing about Giovanni Marlotti's little stories. (But couldn't we hear them at home?) Sure we could. Now that I have talked about all this wonderful bag of samples even though I have left out all the times that Battaglia, Bevilacqua, Mughini, De Crescenzo, Cardella, Giobbe Covatta, and Gnocchi hold forth in the salons of Costanzo and associates it turns out that Baricco comes off smelling like a rose. And you can understand why the ladies love him so (yes, he is more of a hunk than Scaraffia). But this does not take away my fear of seeing a Tv populated by little Bariccos (and little Scaraffias) pontificating about everything, waving their arms, snapping their fingers, and rolling their eyes to explain Kleist to you. After all, you fall for these tricks once. The second time you sleep. The third time you turn off the TV The fourth time you get pissed off. The fifth time you enjoy it because you are finally laughing at it. But at least this is a positive fact. Certainly, between the writers, the critics, and the little new Tv stars, there is really nobody at home anymore who reads. (Marco Giusti, Bariccopolis and its greater metropolitan area, notes towards a Bariccoblob, Taken from the July, 1994, COMIX).

Biography

film director

Marco Giusti (I)

Marco Giusti (Grosseto, 1953) is a critic, film scholar, and television director whose work includes Blob, Blobcartoon, La situazione comica, Scirocco, Orgoglio coatto, Fenomeni, and Stracult. His books and essays have treated Carosello, Italian film of the 1970s and 1980s, Roberto Benigni, Massimo Troisi, Carlo Verdone and Totò. He has contributed to "Il Manifesto" and "L'Espresso" for more than twenty years.

FILMOGRAFIA

Pascali (tv, 1995), Almanacco delle profezie (tv, 1997/1998), Coatto come Mario Brega (tv, 1999, con Paolo Luciani), Il caso Piotta (tv, 2000), Il mambo del Giubileo (video, 2000), Totò 2001 (cm, video, 2000), Il maresciallo Spacca (cm, video, 2000, co-regia Manetti Bros), Stracult - In difesa del cinema italiano che spacca (tv, 2001), Antonelli Ennio? Campa… (tv, 2001), Bella ciao - Genoa Social Forum - Un altro mondo è possibile (tv, 2001, con Sal Mineo, Roberto Torelli), Garrincha (tv, 2001, con Paulo Cesar Saraceni, Roberto Torelli).

Cast

& Credits

Director and editor: Marco Giusti.
Production company: Blob RaiTre
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