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| Paolo Virzi |
In a previous post Tom Ryan spoke to novelist Stephen Amidon about the adaptation of his novel "Human Capital". In this, the second part of Tom's consideration of the 2013 Italian film Il capitale umano/Human Capital, Tom talks to the film’s director and co-writer, Paolo Virzi.
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Interview with Paolo Virzi
“Behind the story of the film is our national crisis.”
TR: What first drew you to Stephen Amidon’s novel?
Paolo Virzi: I realised that it was telling a story that had to do with the globalisation of the financial world and with the conflicts between generations and the influence of familial relationships in this huge suburb of privilege that is our part of the world. So I thought the book was amazing for the way it deals with the wellness-without-happiness that defines the Western world.
It was suggested to me by an Italian novelist, Niccolo Ammaniti. At the time, I was working on a theatrical production and his wife was in the cast. I was reading Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full [1998] and Niccolo said to me, ‘Why don’t you read Human Capital? It’s by a younger novelist with the same skill at representing the discomfort of the new upper class.’ I found it not only did this but also twisted the upper class, the middle-class and the ‘miserable’ together.
What you say points to the political edge in all of the film of yours that I’ve seen: for example, Caterina in the City. Social context always seems to be important to them. Is it your view that it’s not worth telling a story unless you do it through the eye of social politics?
Let’s say that many of us in the Italian film industry have this nasty habit of infusing our big-screen entertainments with the Big Troubles the world faces. It’s an old habit. I didn’t invent this. It’s something I love in the classical Italian movies. I believe that filmmaking should build something entertaining, but I think the emotion becomes stronger if it prompts you to think about the world you live in.
I don’t like filmmakers who shout at us, who spell out their points of view explicitly in the dialogue. I like to hide the issues inside so that the viewer can enjoy the movie. But if he likes to explore the meaning of that, there’s another gift waiting for him.
It’s not only there in the work of filmmakers like Francesco Rosi and Elio Petri, which is more obviously oriented towards political commentary, but also in the commedia all’Italiana of Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi and Pietro Germi. They always have something to say about Italian society, something you can consider social commentary.
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I have always liked to do this in my movies. We are now on the border of our downfall, so it’s a moment of anxiety, of concern for the future. So, when Human Capital fell into my hands, I had been looking for something to evoke this anxiety, this discomfort, but in an entertaining way.
I feel that it is my first duty as a filmmaker to make sure that audiences enjoy themselves. But if you give them something more and if they are adult that is good, especially if they don’t have to pay extra for the ticket.
Did you have conversations with Stephen Amidon about the book? Was he involved in your planning?
Well, we exchanged opinions by mail. We didn’t meet until the movie was done, last November, when I was directing the last edition of the Torino Film Festival and he was a jury member. I told him of my admiration for his work and he was surprised that someone wanted to make an Italian movie from his story, which is set in Connecticut. But he was very generous with us. He was enthusiastic about our script and this gave us a lot of courage. Now we have become friends and are putting together a story for a new movie.
[Spoiler alert for the next question and answer]
How did he respond to the changes you’ve made to the plotting of the story and the characters? For example, the Luca character doesn’t die at the end. Why did you change that?
The novel contains a huge amount of material, enough for a television mini-series. There are more characters, more points of view and more back-stories than we could deal with. We needed to tell our story in one hour and 50 minutes and to come up with the sharpest structure that we could.
With Luca, I liked the idea that there was only one dead character we needed to deal with and it allowed us to focus on a single issue of “human capital”, the terms of settlement with the family for his death. Luca is punished by the prison sentence he receives. The man who dies is unknown to us. We barely know his name; we just see him for a few minutes, then he is in a coma, then he is dead.
And one more thing, maybe: there’s an old rule that, if a young character, or a boy, or a kid dies in your story, you are blackmailing the audience. I also liked the idea that the last shot of the movie was an exchange of glances between two people who are part of a new generation of Italians and I’m hoping that they’re going to turn the page.
The novel ends with the two women providing us with a glimmer of hope through their relationship, some kind of hope.
Some kind, yes. Because in this story, there are no heroes. The victims are guilty. There is no innocence. If Serena and Luca had been able to hide his responsibility, they would have sent the innocent Massimiliano to jail. So, while you’re pushed to empathise with them, they’re making mistakes and doing the wrong thing too.
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| Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Fabrizio Bruni |
This is a group of characters who all make big mistakes. Even a good woman like Roberta, the psychiatrist, who is a generous person but is also implicated for her failure to understand her husband or what is happening.
This is a story in which you can’t divide the good and the evil. Of course, the two fathers especially… The social climber seems even more horrible than the hedge-fund guy, but you can see his point of view. He’s struggling for his family.
I like to see the way all of the characters have their reasons, which was helped by the way the story was broken up into chapters, each enabling us to see what’s happening through the experiences of different characters.
The book has the death in Chapter 10; you move it to the start. Why?
I think it’s an old technique. You start with a noir atmosphere, with a dark atmosphere; you present a critical event; and then you examine how each character’s destiny is connected to that moment.
In that context, it’s also haunting to watch this character reappear in each of the stories, walking around as a waiter at the presentation ceremony, and then being carried in on a stretcher as Dino and his wife leave the hospital late at night.
Yes. You’re following different stories but there is an alarm underneath. Did you enjoy that.
Yes. I think it worked very well.
Did you read the book after watching the film?
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| Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Human Capital |
Yes, after. And then I looked at the movie again.
I don’t think we betrayed the spirit of the book. The deep issues that the book contains is what I fell in love with. That is why my friend Stephen is happy. He also confessed to me that, if he had read the script before he published the novel, he would have made some of the changes that we did. This is a slow-burning thriller.
I was interested in the way you make the adult characters, especially the male ones, much harder-edged and less sympathetic than they are in the novel. Even Luca’s uncle becomes sympathetic in the novel.
It’s true. The uncle became a very small character in our movie although he was very important in the novel. For us, he’s just a two-scenes character. And in the novel, Carla [Carrie] is less pathetic and her situation is more dramatic. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi gives the character a range of faces including the ridiculous sides of this upper-class woman. And Dino [Drew] is more désagréable…
Disagreeable.
Yes. That was me speaking French. I imagine that in Australia you speak every language because you are such a melting-pot of the rest of the world.
We eat a lot of food from around the world, especially Italian, but we don’t speak languages as well as we should. We’re a long way away.
[Laughs]
The Dino character in Australia, and in America too, would be described as a “doofus”. Is that a word you know?
No. Can you write it down for me, because I’m going to be pitching the story in the USA. It means he’s a social climber?
It does, but it refers more to how pathetic he is. He’s a loser. Much more of a hopeless case than the character in the novel, who’s more of an Everyman. I’m not a doofus… at least, I don’t think I am … but I could have been the character in the novel. [mutual laughter]
Why did you choose Brianza as the setting?
Well, it’s the richest area of our country and near the big-business centre of Milan, where we have our stock market. Milano is our New York, our Wall Street. Brianza has a special social and political meaning for us. Because of Berlusconi’s connections with the area, it also suggests something about our recent controversies.
The novel is set in 2000 and the stock market fall that takes place at the end happens immediately after September 11. We moved the chronology to 2010 where in Italy something very specific occurred: in June, our president Berlusconi was saying a crisis doesn’t exist and the restaurants were full. In November and December, it happened that our national debt was attacked by the hedge-fund raiders, we were on the brink of economic collapse, the Prime Minister was forced to resign, and the European banks took control of our country.
So behind the story of the film is our national crisis. When Carla says – it’s a line that isn’t in the book – “You bet on the downfall of our country and you won,” and her husband answers, “We won,” it refers to what was happening to our country at that moment of history.
During the development of the screenplay, I wanted to know more about the issues that the story raises, so I called on the help of friends who know much more about these things than I do. We are still on the border of a downfall, but some things have changed and we have a new government. But we don’t know yet what will happen.
It is indeed a savage irony at the end that these characters’ financial survival happens because of the downfall of the national economy.
For certain groups of investors, it was like this. They don’t bet on the quality of a product or a brand. They “play short”. It’s a term they use: to bet on a downfall. It’s what happened with Greece.
Apparently, some politicians were angry and outspoken at the film’s depiction of the region. Were they serious, or did you have to pay them to give you the free publicity?
[Laughs] I would have preferred to speak to them about the story, but I was obliged to respond to these miserable wretches who were just looking for a stage to perform on. Of course, the movie is not against the people of the North. That would be weird: I couldn’t make a movie against a population.
The right-wing political and media attack against the movie happened before anybody had seen it. We are a weird country; we’re always divided and always have been. I’m considered as a left-wing filmmaker who provokes knee-jerk reactions. It is very funny, really, but I wasn’t happy because I’m interested in dealing with serious matters and not stupid things like this.
I understand that the film is to be remade in the US? And perhaps as a miniseries in the UK? And in Korea and India?
Nothing is set yet. I can’t say much at this stage. There is interest in a remake from a famous New York production company…
Which you will be involved in?
Only as a supporter. I will not direct that. They have a very good name in mind as a director. And there is interest from Fox International for a South Korean remake, which is very, very weird to me.
It demonstrates what you discovered, that it’s a universal story.
Yes, yes. The story could be set around London, or Paris, or Brussels, or maybe even Melbourne.
