There is a passage from the interview given by Roberto Russo, Monica Vitti’s husband, to Walter Veltroni, which is moving. It is the one in which Cristina, Monica Vitti’s historic secretary for 35 years, shows the director the last note that the actress wrote before the “great silence”. That is, before her illness, Lewy body dementia, closed her off in her world.
To Veltroni, who went to the house where the couple has lived since 1987 and who asks if Monica had had time to write something before the illness, Mrs.Cristina replies. “Roberto look here …”, she says to the man holding the computer in her hand. Roberto reads, is moved and then shows the journalist the words written by Monica: “My great love, my beautiful love, love love love, how beautiful it is to live with you, work with you, argue with you, make peace with you, build with you, be afraid and cry and laugh. Nothing is beautiful without you. ”
“Twenty years of illness, but I still love her”. Monica Vitti’s husband speaks for the first time
Words that tell once again how intense the love between Monica and Roberto was, linked for 49 years. When they met, he was 25, she 16 years older. She was the diva on the set, he hit the clapperboard. And, despite what the gossips whispered, the relationship went on until the end, until the day Monica Vitti died. “I am still in love like a madman”, Roberto says in a strangled voice, “Since February I have been missing a heartbeat every moment”.