2011年4月14日星期四

Hope abroad: sprout in Italian film studio's decay

The usual.

At the reception of the Cinecittà, the legendary film Studio, flickered clips of "Death in Venice" and "La Dolce Vita" on a video monitor over the heads of the reception staff. Coltish free young people in Nike and Marcello Mastroianni sunglasses decanted from a school bus outside loose for a tour through the Studio back, where the Italian version of "Big Brother" is stuck.

This country has become recently an own reality show, as Italians often complain about. The situation is to come to the point where no one find it particularly odd seems the Prime Minister, as an Italian version of Miriam from forest hills or Dave from Harlem to call in the WFAN, regular phones to chat TV shows or complain about how the host is some Government representation to measure.

Not long ago, Mr Berlusconi, Giovanni Floris, hosts of "Ballarò" so far as to refuse the went call. Already he's turn had Silvio of the Chigi Palace, declared Mr Floris, and if the head of the Italian Government had to say something more, he was on the show in person come and say that it is welcome.

This passes now gallows comedy in the country of Plautus and Boccaccio, where pay Mr Berlusconi's administration, national arts budget and the Fund for Opera, music, theatre, film, to the endless away standard with lip-service to the culture of the country's pride and joy and economic engine.? The second anniversary of the earthquake, which devastated L'Aquila came and went in this month, and, shame, the formerly bustling and historical centre of the city is almost empty. A concert hall designed by Shigeru ban, the Japanese architect, open it on the anniversary, was again and again by the usual money and organizational afflictions delayed.

The conductor Riccardo Muti made news last month as during the premiere of "Nabucco" here in Rome, he led the audience in a spontaneous Encore "Va, Pensiero." ("O, my own country, so beautiful and lost" is the relevant documents.) The occasion was a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italian unity, and the addition was the amount of protest against arts cuts and the country's General State of turmoil, Mr muti said then, to match the event "some of the Visconti film" Senso, "confirms that for Italian life has come, to imitate fiction."

Luchino the list goes on Visconti and his ilk, including Federico Fellini, Vittorio de SICA, Bernardo Bertolucci, William Wyler, Joseph L. mankiewicz, Martin Scorsese - and more - in the decades Cinecittà that storied was most film production centre in Europe, but until some weeks ago have an Italian landmark in the crisis, or so it was said. Without an incentive program of the friendly facilities abroad have to entice foreign filmmakers, said the Studio itself, if only to public sympathy for the sale of a Fellini's priceless props, to raise fast cash call.

The Government recently came through with a three year postponement, promised in the Act breaks tax to 25 percent of the money, to spend the foreign manufacturers on production here. This brings the Studio closer to that in Berlin, Prague, Budapest and London.

Still, a delay, such as in a film ends finally. Italy seems today not in the position, far in the future, whether backup for posterity his famous film center or preserve his crumbling architectural and archaeological heritage or consolidation of this increasingly vast, varied and unstoppable capital plan.

In other words, if I in stopped to see Maurizio Sperandini, Deputy general manager of Cinecittà, he fazed apparently not. Director of the production facilities and a 22-year veteran of the complex, he has been through many ups and deep, and he told me that he and his bosses with the three year contract were satisfied. He boasted annual income of $ 57 million doubled as Studio went private mid of 1990s, when it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Founded by Mussolini to promote Italian cinema and fascist propaganda films, Cinecittà sitting on 99 acres of public land, joint-stock company used buildings and public tax credits depends on, but it is a private, profit-oriented company with a list of glittery investors. You are now 115 million consider an expansion $ to free parts of the property, a new includes complex of sorting soundstage, offices, a hotel, a gym and a restaurant, which Mr Sperandini said the Cinecittà competitors offer.

The 1930s Meanwhile rejects campus of ochre buildings of Gino Peressutti, an important work of the Italian modernist design, properly in a landscape of cypress trees, Palm trees and fiberglass trailer. Streets in the Forum there were from the Group of the "Rome," the defunct HBO series, the decrepit waterfront of 19 lower Manhattan from "Gangs of New York." On a soundstage where Fellini "Satyricon" shot and Wes Anderson shot "the life aquatic with Steve Zissou" dangling a spaghetti involvement of air-conditioning channels of silent catwalks. The other morning stylists were models for a fashion shoot from a fake old Colonnade, primping, where someone had parked a Renault.

"I would like to take you to the u-boot" proposed Mr. Sperandini Wizard, Francesca Rotondo, to not find contested Renault owners; and like a supernatural characters in "the adjustment Bureau", she opened a door on the set of a 14 Florentine Palazzo on weedy lot where meeting participants were collected, and the u boat of "U-571," that 2000 geschlummert in a film long on a German u boat,, white condom-shaped tent. Nearby, the young people from the school bus flirted, written and tried not to get bored look while waiting for on their applies which go in.

"We sell a mixture of past and future," is, as Mr Sperandini took the complaint as a filmmaker working in this place, where the glamour and Surrealism of Fellini have not yet evaporated, and the General State of madness - a charmed - magical witches, many of which - a microcosm of the Italy and a metaphor seems worn and rather somnolent for how, despite itself, thrive Italian anyway.

Some variations of Cinecittà's public private business model for the good or the bad, may ultimately prove to be a relief for other ailing cultural institutions. This is clearly the hope, Mr Berlusconi, the billionaire, who owns newspapers and television stations, including those which he sometimes when calling. Of course he has for more private control, perhaps as a way, his inexcusable cuts in the culture budget and the incompetence of his Government Management excuse them plea was.

But the story of Italy, as always, now is also one of the unlikely power and resourcefulness. Again and again, the country survived his self-inflicted disaster. It is a part of the lovable, incomparable beauty and attractiveness of the place. If I were made of the u-Bahn in the city, Mr Berlusconi have been hundreds of protesters posters mocking for his relationship with Karima el-Mahroug, the underage girl in question, which is the heart stealer of the Nom d ' art Ruby. She protested in the Piazza at the Pantheon and mixed with helpless Japanese and Chinese tourists.

It was the usual scene of chaos, joy, and complaints. A band anstimmte in the vicinity of the well. The Sun sank, casting shadows over the place.

This was Rome. And everyone was very happy.


View the original article here

没有评论:

发表评论