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Warning: The following documentary contains spoilers

'Surrealism Or Extremism'

I was working as a television announcer when I met Alberto...

He was looking for an actress for a commercial...

Commercials were great back then.

I made a commercial for Dulciora with Alberto...

And one for San Pellegrino.

We met. We liked each other...

So he split up with his girlfriend, and I left my boyfriend...

And five months later we got married.

A wonderful romance.

And then, not even nine months later, we had a child together.

And we started to make films together. I stopped working with other directors...

And I was his actress.

I was his assistant on 'Quickly' (Spari e Baci a Colazione)

The shooting title was 'The Kid Who Made Vesuvius Erupt'.

It was a musical but they were going out of fashion so he stopped working on it...

Then he utilised various scenes to make 'Quickly...'

And I was his assistant.

Then, when he went back to it, he asked me to do the photography...

And I gave up everything and started working for Alberto.

Maurizio Centini introduced me to him, many years ago.

And I got to know him because Alberto loved old things...

I also worked in this field, with antiques...

Also in the cinema. We got on very well.

What can you say...

I thought he was a splendid person.

Can you give me a light?

Want to come back to my place? I can give you something to eat.

Then we can listen to some records.

I'm not hungry.

How did Spell come about? Well...

I moved my family to a village called Caste Nuovo...

And, after five or six years of living in this place, Castel Nuovo...

Where I had seen these provincial parties, these village parties, etc...

I hadn't seen anything like it...

And I had heard that this party was the reason for everything.

It really was... It still had the function...

...of a medieval carnival.

To have the possibility to put everything on display.

Without fear, because it was permitted.

During that period he struck up a close friendship...

With a community in this small village...

With all the... As I said before, the merits...

And all the faults. You just had to scratch the surface...

Not only there. But in many places.

Yes, in fact the film was very well received by the provincial public...

Possibly because they identified with it, or recognised themselves in it.

But it wasn't well received in the cities.

Look who it is! The Conquistador!

There's a funeral scene in the film. That was a real funeral...

It wasn't a staged funeral, it was a real funeral.

When the film came out, I was terrified...

Because I knew everyone in Castel Nuovo would go and see the film.

So, the next day...

At the premiere in Rome, I kept my head down, etc...

But they all congratulated each other! they were happy with how they appeared...

Because they were all characters that really did exist.

A little exaggerated, perhaps. But a lot of them recognised themselves.

No one complained. Except for the priest...

Who was really pissed.

I like to make films that are quite explicit.

When I wanted to do a reverse shot I asked the priest to stop the funeral...

To give us time to move the camera.

He never forgave me for that.

Alberto wasn't extreme.

He was obstinate about some things...

And his beliefs. That's true.

But Alberto's extremism was centred on his challenging of the world around him.

Sometimes it's good to see what we look like inside.

Illusions disappear and you're left with the reality.

Which, believe me, is the only medicine you need to survive.

Dreaming won't get you anywhere.

I wanted to it to be very surreal, also the way it was edited.

Alberto loved to make films that challenged the status quo...

But they would be supported, or broken up, with these visions...

Of a dreamlike, imaginary, world.

You can see this in Spell.

Spell is the story of a provincial town...

With all its graces and all its defects.

Many of them.

Where this conformity sometimes comes out into the light.

And underneath that, also in the apparently more upright families...

More positive... But they aren't, really.

Being with you has made me forget how to dream...

Only nightmares. You've driven me insane.

Don't come any closer. You stink like a pig.

You're disgusting. Disgusting!

Don't move. And listen to me.

In some scenes, the relationship between the husband and wife...

He certainly drew from his own experience...

From our relationship.

I think it was perfectly normal...

To draw from something you know very well.

And then to amplify it, modify it...

There are certainly some elements of our private life in there.

I played the role of a wife who appears to be content...

But she's very unsatisfied. Unfulfilled.

And there are a couple of scenes that left an impression on me...

That I performed in.

One is an argument over dinner...

An argument with my husband.

Before the meal, I'm cleaning a chicken...

I'm cutting it, and while we're arguing...

I feel this kind of exultation. And I cut this chicken...

In what must be for the spectator, quite a cruel fashion.

As though I were cutting up my husband while I'm arguing!

Then, after a lot of talking, it all ends with plates flying everywhere...

Scenes of hysterics and so on.

But then there also love scenes, peaceful moments...

Poetic scenes.

There's always been this alternation, in all of Alberto's films...

Of tranquillity, serenity, and hardship and violence.

Just like real life.

Did you enjoy the party? I did but it's not enough...

I want to enjoy myself now as well.

Come here, let's do those dirty things I like!

I don't want to. -You like it too!

I want to fuck you.

Let go of me.

Scoundrel.

Stop treating me like an animal.

We were very good friends with Martial...

He was a very sweet person.

He took his work very seriously. A real professional.

Martial Boschero was a wonderful person, like all French people...

Like they are. They're very...

It's hard to define a French person...

Some people don't like the French, Italians hate them...

But I've had a lot of dealings with them.

They're very affable people, like us Italians...

They think like we do, if you meet a French person...

And Martial Boschero really was a wonderful person...

And very intelligent.

He was very close to his sister, they had a great relationship...

That's Dominique Boschero.

He would be very concerned when people talked about him...

Because they all referred to him as Dominique Boschero's brother.

But he had his own very well defined personality.

He was also an excellent dubbing artist...

He had dubbed films in France, dubbing them in Italian and vice-versa.

At the end of his career he'd set up a dubbing school...

Alberto and Martial collaborated artistically and remained good friends.

One of the female cast members who I enjoyed working with...

Even if we didn't get the chance to talk very often...

Was Macha Magall.

Of the other women, no. Because Monika Zanchi...

...was always doing her own thing.

And because we were filming in a village she had many admirers.

Some chic, and some not so chic.

Josiane Tanzilli was quite a lively character...

So it was very easy to communicate with her.

She also had quite a lively boyfriend.

She was a nice person. A little eccentric...

However...

Yes, I think Spell was the first film I worked on with Alberto.

Yes, that's the one. He let me act in it.

I had this small role. I was a police inspector...

Who's an accomplice to a murder in a pool hall...

There's a dead woman there... (This scene was eventually cut)

The scene I think everyone remembers most in Spell...

Is the scene in the pool hall with Monika Zanchi.

She's lying on a pool table...

And there's this imaginative scene with this very beautiful girl.

The spectators watching this scene in this bar...

Obviously, they were all a bit surprised.

But it was a great scene.

I didn't watch them film the final scene with Paola Montenero...

But I was quite shocked when I saw that scene in the film.

It wasn't easy to do it.

He convinced everyone. Slowly, you'd listen to him...

Convinced. That's what he wanted.

He was very convincing.

Like always, whatever Alberto did, even if you didn't agree...

You'd end up agreeing with him. He'd always find a way to persuade you.

He was very good at getting you to do what he wanted.

I remember Montenero didn't want to do this scene at first.

However in the end she did it.

I must force myself to do it to stop myself going crazy.

To not become an animal. A thing.

I didn't want to do that scene in bed...

This is always around that scene when I'm reading the newspaper.

Because I had been asked to do a scene more daring than I was used to.

So I didn't want to do it.

But in the end he convinced me, and I did it.

But that scene got me into a lot of trouble.

With my education at the time.

Perhaps now, after many years, I wouldn't be so shocked now.

But at the time I felt very uncomfortable doing that scene.

I felt so uncomfortable doing it at Alberto's request...

And it was a scene with a friend. That was Martial, obviously.

It upset me so much that I didn't make any more films...

And I concentrated on painting, writing and sculpture.

I found a silver bracelet, it was near my side of the bed...

Perhaps you know about it? But it doesn't matter...

He got his bracelet, and you cheated on me..

You're wrong! -You slept with him.

I betrayed you, but I did it alone.

Our relationship on the set was very pleasant...

Even if, on some occasions...

I didn't feel a hundred percent free to say no or to challenge anything.

Yes, you could but you couldn't tell him in front of someone else...

It was always in private.

But it's right. It seems normal to me, he's the author.

Another person can't tell him to do it differently, it's ridiculous.

He didn't accept any criticism.

It was either yes or no.

Sometimes I did. But I was always afraid...

...of putting Alberto in a bad light with the rest of the crew.

Because, if I wasn't his wife, I would've behaved differently...

A scene I didn't like, or I could see differently...

I would've been quite blunt with him, without any hesitation.

But in this case I felt conditioned by the fact that I was his wife...

So I could tell him things and he would accept them.

I mean he would've accepted them.

But that could have made him uncomfortable with the other actors...

...or the crew.

In fact, it was more the other actors who would challenge him...

About things they didn't agree with, with Alberto, than me.

And between Alberto and me there was also this understanding...

That in any case, knowing me very well...

I would've said, yes, I agree.

Even if I didn't agree.

Whoever sells more tickets gets more holy cards...

And whoever has more holy cards wins a marvellous prize.

I think Alberto had a hard life. He was unlucky, very unlucky.

I'd say a part of it was his own doing.

Because his breakthrough came with this film I've been told about...

...'Le Salamandre'. An explosive film...

That made Alberto's name as a director.

They asked him to make the same film...

Knowing it would attract more interest...

But he didn't want to make the same film again.

I think it was one of Alberto's biggest mistakes...

All he had to do was make the same film again with more famous actors...

And that would've made him. Like all the famous directors.

Alberto had all the qualities to become a famous director.

I don't know, perhaps coming from his ex-wife this might seem exaggerated...

And I don't know if I'd call him a genius...

But he was a very prepared person, and very good at his job...

Absolutely at the avant-garde of the times, that's for sure.

Someone who challenged everything he didn't think was right for the country.

He would never have accepted any distribution deals...

If he had to cut any scenes for political reasons...

Or to cut, I don't know... To take out a Christ or to put one in.

Because he wouldn't compromise about certain things...

Absolutely.

And, in any case, he was a great director.

Subtitled by Clarence Bodicker www.cultfilmsubs.com