Home Ā» Marx can wait, an author and his family – Goffredo Fofi

Marx can wait, an author and his family – Goffredo Fofi

by admin

02 September 2021 13:41

Italian cinema is going through an unexpectedly happy moment, and the Venice Film Festival, which closes on 11 September, proves it with five films in competition and others out. Among the latter what, if not the best, risks being the most profound and necessary of all, Ariaferma by Leonardo Di Costanzo. We’ll talk again. It was said to be an unexpectedly happy moment, because the institutions of cinema are what they are – certainly no better than others that are much more necessary – and the cultural and anthropological context of the nation is certainly not favorable to movements with a strong clarity of choices, solidity. of inspirations and vocations. Literature and theater, for example, fare much worse, and so are other arts and other sciences.

And if literature is suffocated by an insipid market (it is published to circulate money, according to the dictates of the banks, and to sell does not matter; but everyone writes and everything is published, and if the Witch has undoubtedly awarded the best of books in competition, do you have any idea what all or most of the other dozen were not?), from the terrible schools of writing and the disease of narcissism and electronic chatter; the theater is suffocated by an absence of vision, by the fear of delving into the epochal disaster until it feels really bad (and really hurt) and by the little study, but consoled by the “I think that” and “I am me” “I “Never so fragile and uncertain, and yet convinced of their originality need authenticity. It is therefore worthwhile to follow what our cinema offers, and to obtain some indications on the ā€œstate of thingsā€ and on the, hitherto vague and very distant, possibilities of changing them.

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While waiting to talk about Venetian films, two significant and important films should be mentioned. The first, which has already been in cinemas for some time, is the work of one of our best and most successful directors, together with Bertolucci the youngest of the great pre and post ’68 season. The second, on the other hand, is the debut of a talented “second generation”. We postpone the considerations on the Legionary by Gleb Papou, a young Italian director of Belarusian origin, former student of the Experimental Center (which obviously still serves something and could obviously serve much more). Awarded for directing in Locarno, it is, at least for the subject, the newest and most ā€œnecessaryā€ of recent films.

Testimonials needed
So let’s start with the “old”. Marco Bellocchio with the documentary Marx can wait he returns to a central theme in his work, namely that of inter-family relationships, but finally free from the confused ideological mortgages of his guru and analyst of yesterday. In particular, Bellocchio returns to reflect on one of the central events in his human experience, that of the suicide of his twin brother Camillo, of which I must say for clarity that I too was a friend and whose unexpected and “incomprehensible” choice to give himself I too suffered in some way death.

With another Bellocchio, Piergiorgio, and with the unforgettable Grazia Cherchi – who, I can testify, suffered from the death of Camillo almost as much as her family – we made in those years (“1968”) a battle magazine, Quaderni Piacentini and for this I was very often in Piacenza. It is therefore not easy for me to speak with serene objectivity about a film that has greatly shaken and moved me. Everyone has said that it is a great film and I can only confirm it, while seeking the necessary critical distance. Family and friend testimonies all prove to be somehow necessary in returning to the distressing central question: ā€œwhy?ā€, ā€œWhy do we kill ourselves?ā€, Moreover at that age and without apparent justifications. All necessary except perhaps those of the two gurus interviewed, a Jesuit absolve-all (religious vision) and a very present psychiatrist (secular vision) who, starting from their professions, say things that are truly obvious.

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It is understandable, however, the director’s concern to seek their comfort, in the face of the panic that arises from the suicide of a very close and very dear person. On this, however, the family members help the spectator the most, some with a maximum of sincerity, like the sisters, and others subjecting themselves to a bit of rhetoric, also due to the distance from that time. And the family picture that emerges is both warm and affective but which, due to the domination of a very bulky maternal figure, can still justify the old “families, I hate you!” of the young Gide, which was valid then and still applies, especially for many middle-class families, but not only.

Finally, there is no answer to the question “why?”, And there is always something that goes further and that perhaps can never have a truly convincing answer. With an intertwining of freedom and modesty, Bellocchio, who has long since returned to being something more than an excellent director, as he always wanted to be and as it should be, has conceived and made a film that goes beyond the current narrative conventions and it also goes beyond those of the documentary, a film again and really necessary, for our need for consolation and for our need for understanding, and ultimately for our need for family and social role models.

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