KIM ROSSI STUART
''I MIGHT JUST DIRECT''
20/7/2001
[di Giovanni Bogani]
Kim Rossi Stuart is clearly a man who thinks before speaking. With his blue eyes and aesthete’s beard, he looks a lot like Jesus, a role he played in Alessandro D’Alatri’s The Gardens of Eden , or perhaps a Franciscan monk. Rossi Stuart is the guest of the Giffoni Film Festival. We talk to him about cinema, theatre and television. And also Taricone. Not his subject of choice, but he answers our questions very graciously all the same.
What do you think of the advent of instinctive characters like Pietro Taricone - (A personality who came to the fore in a recent edition of Big Brother - Editor’s Note) - into the Italian star system.
Cinema covers all aspects of life. Taricone could do something fantastically good just as something terrible. I don’t want to judge “actors" like him . I have chosen to go a different route.
You played the hopeless character in Senza pelle, the anxiety-ridden petty criminal in Cuore Cattivo, a prophet in Gardens of Eden. But after The Dance of the Window Washers in 1998, you stopped making films. Why?
I returned to the theatre. There are characters like Hamlet and Macbeth who can’t leave you alone. They coincide with a parallel acquisition of interior knowledge. I discovered Macbeth to be a complex character whose real drama lies in the fact that he never feels he is sufficient. It is not just a question of ambition. He is never sufficiently one thing or another. He is never able to live life to the full and that is something that applies to all of us, isn’t it?
Hamlet is something else again. It is more than just doubt. It is the tragedy of a man who always tries to tell the truth especially to himself.
Both these characters gave me the opportunity to look deep within myself in a new way. That is one reason I am so grateful to the theatre and to these characters. Success? If it happens, it’s a pleasure but it is not the most important thing in the world.
You are blessed with good looks and more charisma than many of your peers...
I am well aware that physical appearance is important in this business. But if I were to limit myself to staring in the mirror and thinking about success, I’d soon be washed up.
Tell us about your experience of television?
In Uno Bianca, a two-part television drama, I played a policeman with a personal agenda. I am against industrially mass-produced television but this experiment with Michele Soavi was something completely different. It was television but the quality of the production was so high that it came close to the poetic freedom of film.
What will you do next?
I miss films and the work you do on the set. Two projects are close to my heart, one of which is my own. I wrote it and am pulling together the production and I might just be tempted to direct too. That’s all I can say for the moment. The second project is a film with Enzo Monteleone but that too needs development.





"As truthful as possible"
An interview with the actor-turned-director who uses simple realism to explore childhood and human complexity

by Fabien Lemercier

At 36, Italian actor Kim Rossi Stuart – who recently starred in Gianni Amelio’s The Keys to the House and in Michele Placido’s Crime Novel – took on a dual role to make his directorial debut, Along the Ridge.

We met with the new director – in October in Paris, where he was supervising the dubbing of his film – who shows an instantaneous charisma as an actor, hiding an intensity that has found a new outlet in directing.

Cineuropa: When did you decide to become a director?
Kim Rossi Stuart: Between [the ages of] 17 and 20, I wrote a script, but I wasn’t able to make the film. I was very interested in the acting profession and that allowed me to study how directors worked. Now, being known in Italy probably helped me make Along the Ridge, but at the beginning I didn’t want to act in the film. I had to step in after an actor dropped out. Two weeks before shooting, the production crew said to me: either you act in it or we don’t make the film. So that was it … it is a wonderful role, but I would really have preferred a pure directing role.

Why did you choose childhood as the theme?
At that age, events happen that mark you for life. It’s probably the most important time in life. From this perspective, the subject seemed to have universal appeal. I thought up of the story about three years before making the film and I insisted on working a lot with my co-writers because I often saw too many films arrive at the directing stage with poorly developed scripts. When writing, we tried to describe complex personalities, that were real therefore contradictory, no “good guys” or “bad guys”, even if adults are very selfish. I wanted to tell a story of unhappiness, of a young boy who does not enjoy a carefree childhood, but rather one of loneliness and suffering. However, I wanted to avoid a unilateral treatment and tried to make the first half of the film more of a comedy.

Highly realistic, does Along the Ridge conceal significant psychological violence? How did you work in this area?
It was only afterwards that I realised how much psychological violence exists in adult-child relationships, although I was partially aware of this when writing. This sense of truth is a code that I used from the scriptwriting stage, first as a personal preference, but also because I wanted to make a film with children and if we wanted to make it sincere and not artificial, we had to try and make it as truthful as possible. Tommy’s life is not sad, but difficult, because of the feelings of his family and this is why I chose Barbora Bobulova to play the mother. This character needed to have a certain purity, an ability to express complex problems: running away from herself, the fear of not accepting her current life and wanting another one perhaps, and escaping her neurosis.

Along the Ridge uses very few camera movements.
I wanted the camera to move only with the inner movements of the characters, their souls. And I wanted to stay as close as possible to the audience’s point of view, by putting them in the position of spying on reality. As for the sound, the technicians were a little taken aback because we shot it directly, with noises from the street. That could have posed a problem, but I liked that in the mixing, to hear people moving, life going on outside while our characters are experiencing such serious events. So, I preferred not to filter out these sounds. There is also very little music.

What were your major influences?
I am not a big film lover and I don’t want to condition myself through seeing too many films because my goal is to create something unique that cannot be called beautiful or ugly – but personal. Nevertheless, I do have my favourites: Paul Thomas Anderson, Pasolini, Cassavetes, Bergman, Truffaut, De Sicca, Kieslowski, Téchiné... It’s more difficult to like American films, but when I do, it’s extraordinary. On the whole, I prefer European cinema, in particular French films, because they are more introspective.

Cineuropa




Kim Rossi Stuart is one of the most enduring and renown actors in Italy. He began acting in his early teens and has quite the eclectic career working with Antonioni, Wenders and Woody Allen, to name a few. He was in New York to support Romanzo Criminale (Crime Novel)--a film that still has no U.S. distributor--and to promote his new film Anche Libero Va Bene (Along the Ridge) which he wrote, directed and co-starred in. Both films were being shown as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s fantastic Open Roads festival which showcases new Italian cinema.

(Note: I did not see the magical Anche Libero Va Bene until AFTER the interview. And since the film was obviously highly autobiographical, I would have definitely had a slew more questions for the charismatic Kim)


Frank J. Avella: Anche Libero Va Bene represents your directorial debut. What was that experience like?

Kim Rossi Stuart: It was a very interesting experience, very complex, of course but very creative, very fulfilling. It was like giving birth. I think If you want to be a director you have to relish in the complicated, the difficult... experience. And I did.

Frank J. Avella: I know you were in Cannes for the Director’s Fortnight. How was the reception?

Kim Rossi Stuart: It was a very good, very touching experience.., the best that we could expect. Quite momentous.

Frank J. Avella: Why is the film called Along the Ridge in the US since that is not the literal translation?

Kim Rossi Stuart: The title is very difficult to translate in English because it refers to a soccer term and soccer, for Americans, isn’t the most known sport. Our translator was British. We were a bit afraid that in America, Along the Ridge would be misconstrued as a western since one thinks: ‘atop the mountain’...but in England it means ‘atop the roof’, which is very appropriate since the boy in the film takes frequent walks along the edge of a roof.

Frank J. Avella: Keys to the House (Le Chiavi di Casa) was a wonderful film. How did you prepare for that role and what was working with director Gianni Amelio?

Kim Rossi Stuart: When you work with Gianni Amelio you have to give up being an actor and allow yourself to be manipulated, but I have complete trust in Gianni, so I did. Since the film dealt with a father’s close relationship to Andrea, this boy with a severe handicap, we did a lot of improvisation. He shot with four cameras and each day Amelio would change the script based on our improv work.

Frank J. Avella: One of your first major films was Beyond the Clouds, directed by the iconic Michelangelo Antonioni and Wim Wenders. What was it like to be working with a master like Antonioni?

Kim Rossi Stuart: It was a very difficult experience. Antonioni was this
extraordinary force but he could no longer speak because of his illness.
So it became a tireless endeavor to understand what we had to do and what he wanted. He was very hard on the male actors as opposed to the female actors who he tried to make feel comfortable.

Frank J. Avella: I noticed in the Romanzo filmography it says you worked with Woody Allen? Which film?

Kim Rossi Stuart: Everyone Says I Love You. I worked with him two days for a cameo and it was not in the finished movie.

Frank J. Avella: Now, about Pinocchio. I thought you were the only good thing in that film. What it was like working with Roberto Benigni?

Kim Rossi Stuart: I think this was a very transitional film for Roberto. It wasn’t the most organized of films and was very difficult and very slow. Sometimes we filmed two shots --not two scenes--but two SHOTS per day. And I get the impression he was not feeling very comfortable. That said, Benigni is a very nice person. He has a lot of respect for actors...And I enjoyed playing Lucinulo--this lively child. It was very different from other roles I have played.

Frank J. Avella: Romanzo Criminale (Crime Novel) is one of the best films I have seen in a while. It’s extraordinary and so is your performance. How did you come to the project?

Kim Rossi Stuart: Michele Placido (the director) offered me the part. And when I read the script, what I found most interesting was the political and social aspects of the film that are not very common in Italian cinema. It’s a film rich with anger over recent Italian history...of the period of the 70’s, 80’s, and observes the complexities of the time. It’s a very strange, important historical period. It’s about a world...A Roman war I could relate to and that attracted me. It evokes Pasolini, and he is one of my favorite auteurs. This film has is based on a marvelous novel, so profoundly written, that delves brilliantly into the psychology of its characters. I really loved the book. It’s about a world very familiar to me. When I was a teenager I was always more intrigued by the ‘bad guys’ than the ‘good guys’.

Frank J. Avella: You managed to give the character of Freddo (Ice) enough heart that I felt for him. I liked him.

Kim Rossi Stuart: I like him, too. There’s a polemic in Italy about this. You see the film and love this gangster...these bad guys. I think if you decide to do a film about someone...as an actor you cannot judge him. You have to love him, understand him. to create him. What is interesting about this band of gangsters is they have an honor, a bond and a very strong sense of friendship.

Frank J. Avella: There are snippets of Freddo’s father and brother but no mother. Did you do prep work about his back story for yourself?

Kim Rossi Stuart: Not so much. It wasn’t necessary to do that much because the film is based on the novel and there are so many indications of character in the novel. Normally, if you only have a script, you need to create the back story, but not as much here.

Frank J. Avella: In the theatre as well. You haven’t done theatre since 2001. Is the stage something you’re interested in returning to?

Kim Rossi Stuart: Theatre’s an important part of my life. It has been since I was a teen. When I am not doing theatre I really miss it. I need to do theatre.

Frank J. Avella: What do you have up next?

Kim Rossi Stuart: A biography of an Italian jazz singer who committed suicide in the 1990’s. The director will be Ricardo Milani.

Frank J. Avella: Is acting something you always wanted to do?

Kim Rossi Stuart: Ah, I started doing it when I wasn’t yet thirteen. I can’t say I wanted to be an actor. I grew up being one. It’s a part of me.

Frank J. Avella: Was it something your family pushed you into or did you choose it?

Kim Rossi Stuart: After grade school, I met a director, hitchhiking, who gave me a lift and asked if I wanted to make a screen test. And I did. And they gave me the part. And some of my family were fine with it and some were uncomfortable with it. For me, it was my career, so it was my choice.

Frank J. Avella: Would you like to work in American films?

Kim Rossi Stuart: Yes, but I like to tell stories that are very urgent for me. And it’s easier for me to do that in an ambiance (and language) familiar to me. Of course if something that resonates with me, I would.

Frank J. Avella: What are your thoughts on Italian film today?

Kim Rossi Stuart: In the last seven to eight years, we’ve had quite a few good films. But you have to realize we do not have a very large industry. Last year we only made about sixteen films.

Frank J. Avella: What filmmakers do you admire most?

Kim Rossi Stuart: I fell in love with the films of Ingmar Bergman when I was sixteen, seventeen--which was very odd. Why would a teenager, who is not very cultured, fall in love with Bergman? But I did. I visited all his cinema, from his early work to the later ones form Wild Strawberries to Fanny and Alexander. There are so many incredible directors: DeSica, Truffault, Welles, Paul Thomas Anderson. He’s a genius director. I would love to work with him. What is he doing right now


by Frank J. Avella
New York Cool