Original subtitles

How did Antonioni choose me? I really don't remember.

Because we're speaking about 1952, not now.

In 1952, since I'd already made other films like "The City Stands Trial",

Antonioni chose me as the young actor of the moment,

I was the most requested youngster, let's say.

I don't remember ever doing a screen test, or going to see anyone,

he chose me straight away for the part in the film.

Just a moment, there is a reason.

Turi Vasile and Diego Fabbri's production company ‘Film Costellazione',

was the one that had produced "The City Stands Trial",

and then "The Vanquished". So it's likely that Vasile e Fabbri

had suggested my name to Antonioni.

Because then, at the end of the year, I also made with them

"The World Condemns Them", directed by Franciolini,

where I played a really good part with Alida Valli.

She was beautiful, I fell in love with her.

I knew a bit about the vicissitudes of this story,

which at first was the story of a fascist who committed suicide,

making it seem like it had been the communists,

and then it was changed, and changed again.

But Antonioni didn't speak to me much about it, he spoke to the script writers.

He only told me what I should do as an actor.

He was very good at guiding the actors and creating the right atmosphere,

he never told me his political ideas

but he said: "Here you're like this..., here you fall and hurt yourself...

...then you get home, and die..."

He told me and specified things but we didn't really discuss the theme

or the fact that this story could be followed up politically.

He treated me as you would treat an actor

and an actor is an instrument in the hands of the director.

And what a director! Antonioni was to say the least extraordinary.

Extraordinary in delivering the cues, in telling me how to walk,

where I should go, what sort of face I should have,

he told me everything, he was extraordinary.

He shot enough, if the scene wasn't perfect, he carried on shooting.

It's not like today on television sets where they say: "The first one's good".

Now in television they make 866 shots a minute

and they're always good: "Well done, you were really good". But it's not true.

Sure, Antonioni took his time,

but Fellini took more time with "Spivs". He was very pleasant,

sometimes we'd take a whole afternoon to shoot a scene.

But Antonioni was also very precise,

if he wasn't satisfied, he wouldn't stop shooting.

What do I remember of the scene that you've shown me with Gastone Renzelli,

the star of "Bellissima"?

Well, I remember shooting it, but I remembered it a bit differently.

I remember that I stayed in a corridor, waiting for him.

Whereas we meet outside:

"Well, what do you want?", "Well, I need to speak to you",

"Speak", "No, wait..."

Yes, I didn't remember the scene well, but I remembered shooting with him,

spending the whole day with him, eating a lunch basket together.

Renzelli was nice.

So, I find the scene beautiful anyway.

The film wasn't shot as a live recording, that's clear,

but... when we dubbed it,

we changed the lines of the scene with Anna Maria Ferrero in the garage.

That was very difficult, because, in the first version, I was a dynamiter,

then instead I was a smuggler who kills a policeman by mistake

on the gangway of the Marconi Bridge, the bridge they were building.

We filmed there for a number of nights.

So there were some problems doing the dubbing

but Antonioni told me what I had to say.

And I said it, because it was like dubbing a foreigner.

With my mouth I said one thing but I had to dub another.

That is, I had to be agitated in an exaggerated way

for a story which was okay before,

I'd even blown up a factory,

whereas there, escaping, I'd shot and killed a policeman.

The dubbing was done immediately afterwards, not much time had gone by.

Ceratinly, after the showing at Venice, we did the dubbing again

so that the film would be shown at the cinemas with this new dubbing.

In the scene that we shot later, which I don't remember shooting later,

the cameraman was Enzo Serafin,

and I think he was also in the scene which we re-shot on Marconi Bridge.

The cameraman was never changed.

I can tell you about the relationship with Antonioni, who was really nice.

We talked about women, he always said that the most beautiful women in Italy

were Lucia Bosé with whom he had made "Chronicle of a Love",

Silvana Mangano, Antonella Lualdi, and I agreed with him.

I met Antonella Lualdi the following year.

I said: "Yes-yes, Antonella Lualdi is pretty as well."

Antonella Lualdi, Silvana Mangano, Lucia Bosé

they were Antonioni's women, the actresses which he liked the most.

We were under this Marconi Bridge which was under construction

and we exchanged our ideas about Italian actresses.

Besides, Antonioni was... For one thing he was an ex tennis player,

and, in spite of his tics, he was second category.

So he was a strong tennis player.

And when we shot the scene in the car

with Anna Maria Ferrero on the Cristoforo Colombo Avenue,

an idiot stopped with his car and didn't want to let us film.

Antonioni got down and started punching him.

Antonioni had some sides to his personality a bit...

I'd never seen so much violence, he punched someone bigger than him

because he didn't want to let him film.

Then when I became a tennis lover,

I always thought that he was a real tennis player,

he'd been a very strong second category.

So he was a first class intellectual but also a great sportsman.

I hope he lives for a long time yet.

I already knew Anna Maria Ferrero because...

we'd met at Fregene where we went on holiday.

I was engaged to a girl, Patrizia Mori,

whose sister then married Orson Welles.

I can't remember her name, then she died in an accident in Los Angeles.

I was engaged and everyday I went to Fregene and I took Anna Maria Ferrero.

So there was a lovely relationship with Anna Maria Ferrero.

With her I made "The Big Night", "Half a Century of Songs",

where we also sang together.

There was a great feeling between us, we made about 4-5 films as a couple.

She had a long affair with Vittorio Gassman

and now she's happily married to the French actor Jean Sorel.

I also saw her in Paris when I used to go and see Mastroianni,

I met her at a bar at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

She lives in Paris with Jean Sorel.

Leopoldo Trieste... he's been my brother, my father, my cousin,

my uncle, he was everything. I met him on the set of "I vitelloni",

he'd already played the lead in "The White Sheik".

He was the 'black soul' of Fellini. When Fellini had to make a film,

he took him all around Rome by car and he told him things...

Leopoldo is a great character, when he talked to me he said:

"You know, Franco, when I speak, I let the words fall

but before they fall to the ground, I pierce them."

In "Farewell to Arms", we were always together,

we went in search of young girls in all Friuli Venezia-Giulia.

He was a terrible lady-killer,

he always had small cakes, but they were of no use at that time.

Leopoldo was an extraordinary character.

Everyone remembers him as an actor, and of course he was very good.

But he was a great playwright, a great writer...

he's an exceptional man.

I never thought of him as being older than me...

because at 20 or at 30 one is always the same.

When you have that spirit, that juvenile way of doing things, you stay that way.

Leopoldo was young at heart, he always has been right to the end.