Original subtitles

I wasn't thinking of becoming a screenwriter.

I'd wanted to be an illustrator ever since I was a kid,

and finally, at 16,

I got a job at Marc'aurelio, a semiweekly humor magazine.

In our meetings at Marc'Aurelio,

we'd spend the first hour going through newspapers

to choose the topics we'd address.

They ne ver just sprang up out of someone's imagination

or inner impulses

but from the actual state of affairs.

It came out Tuesdays and Saturdays

with a circulation of 350, 000,

so that made 700,000 readers every week...

and that became the audience that brought about the success

of com media all'italiana,

because the readership of Marc'Aurelio -

All the contributors to Marc'Aurelio

moved over to film.

Steno...

Zavattini...

Amideil, Age & Scarpelli...

Maccarri - they were all working in film.

And the readers of Marc'Aurelio began to love those films

and became the first 700,000 viewers

of commedia all'italiana.

Commedia all'italiana ls, In my opinion, a great genre

that dealt directly with humankind,

with common, everyday psychology.

It didn't dodge serious issues or problems of the day

but instead handled them with irony

and a light touch.

So the audience recognized itself in those films.

It saw its own reflection.

It saw the same activities,

the same things going on as in their own lives.

This was the great secret of commedia all'italiana.

Il sorpasso arose out of a story Risi told

about a trip he look with a production manager

who'd really struck him

due to his irresponsible and frivolous attitude

and carelessness.

So we chatted about that.

Our screenplays were always preceded by long discussions,

and so, talking about this character...

the idea was born to show one day of a trip

this character takes with a "victim, ”

someone whose personality is the opposite of his -

a pensive, serious, studious type

whom Bruno, the lead character,

draws into this race to nowhere,

which, of course, ends in oblivion.

We liked the idea and got to work.

Ruggero and I wrote it...

and Dino shot it with that light touch of his.

He never belabored a point.

Even in terms of close-ups, there are a few, but they weren't

his favorite kind of shot, because...

he was after a fuller picture.

- Did you see Lhc/isse? - Yes -

I fell asleep. Had a nice snooze.

Great director, Antonioni.

I saw him in his Flaminia Zagato once.

I couldn't stop gawking.

That was part of the character,

someone who tore everything down

and belittled everything.

I believe Pasolini speaks of this in La divine Mimesis,

where he makes up his own “Divine Comedy”

with hell and its many circles,

and one of these circles belongs to belittlers.

Pasolini said that the bourgeois belittle everything,

that this is a flaw of theirs.

They have to reduce everything

to their own stature, their own level,

so all they can do is destroy everything.

They have to say

that Picasso didn't know how to paint,

that Michelangelo wasn't all that great.

Bruno is criticism is along those same lines when he says,

"But Antonioni sure has a great car.

He passed me on the highway and really had me gawk/ng. ”

So he reduces Antonioni -

the great artist we all know -

to someone who owns a fast car.

That's how he cuts him down.

Hi, cuties!

Deutschland! Those German chicks are easy!

- You speak German? - No, I just fake it.

A "light touch” is the term I'd use

for directors like Dino Risi

who was great because of that light touch

and his subtle approach, with which he'd dig deep

into the human psyche

and people's personal dramas,

but with an underlying cheerfulness that wasn't just facile optimism.

So you can almost take ll sorpasso

as an example of that whole genre of commedia all'italiana.

It's certainly light-hearted

and entertaining and cheerful,

with this scoundrel as the lead character,

who in the end even causes his friend's death

because he's such a rogue

and so out of touch with reality.

And this proved quite popular.

There was no moralistic intent,

no condemnation of the guilty or negative character.

The Italian male tends to have these traits,

but in that period when things were easier...

that period of euphoria,

the economic boom, the easy life -

In fact, I believe Il sorpasso is called

The Easy Life in English,

which really hit the nail on the head: an easy life.

Everything's easy and for the moment. Anything goes.

Bruno was a specimen of this type of Italian male

and became a sort of model,

even when the Italian male later changed.

Watch out!

The ending wasn't popular with producers.

Cecch/ Gor/ was quite opposed to it.

He said "Why have him die?

Have them keep going, off for yet another destination.”

But Maccari and Risi and I all felt the ending was important,

because without his death it would be...

a sort of self-indulgent series of adventures

that were all quite similar.

And it wouldn't have had that sense we wanted to convey...

that, sure, everything seemed to be going great,

people's standard of living had improved

and perhaps there wash'! as much debris visible everywhere,

but there were piles of invisible debris in people's souls.

So we wanted a bitter ending,

an ending that said

that there's no boom without a crash.

Even the laws of physics say that that can't happen.

So there is no eternal bliss

when it comes to perishable consumer goods.

So we wanted there to be

the little moral in that metaphor,

and Without his death, I don't think it would be there.

I also think -

in hindsight, of course -

that the film might not have been successful

if they just went on racing around Italy.

The title of the film didn't draw people in...

and neither did the star.

Gassman was making so many films.

So I wasn't a great success.

There are still copies of some savage reviews

by certain famous critics,

who years later rewrote their reviews and praised the film.

You criminal! We found you!

- What do you want? - It was you in that sports car.

80 ifs a son' of allegory about these things,

about this euphoria that can lead

to a tragedy, to a person is death,

or at least to the death of good taste, of morality,

of modesty

and restraint.

80 it was a commentary, but not a preach y one.

It was just an observation about reality.

All this was only understood later.

In fact, the film screened here in Italy for months

in the same theaters...

after a not very favorable start.

And than, much earlier in Italy than abroad,

it became a cult hit,

and then later in France and elsewhere.

The only thing I can say for sure

was that I had an encounter in Los Angeles

with Dennis Hopper.

Dennis Hopper told me he'd watched and rewatched

ll sorpasso on a Moviola at least ten times

before making Easy Rider...

which really was an American ll sorpasso,

in another context and another culture.

But it was the same basic aims

that inspired us

and that inspired Hopper and the screenwriters of Easy Hider.

Apart from that',

which is a fact because Hopper told me s0 himself,

it undoubtedly influenced other films.

Ifs hard to find films from that period

based purely on imagination,

or 'English humor, ” as it was called back then.

They were all intimately connected

to an account of Italy of the day.

I think this was also the reason

commedia all'italiana was successful abroad.

They were successful as films

but also as sources of information about a country.

For many people, learning about Italy meant

going to see these films about Italy.

It wasn't just the lifestyle and the he we in those films,

but also how a country was developing,

its setbacks and distortions.

This lent Itself both to humorous satire

and to this need to describe what was going on.

One criticism we would direct at each other was,

“You just made that up.”

It was a bad thing to just make things up,

whereas to create something...

drawn right from the news was different.

That was an endorsement,

the fact it reflected what was going on.