THE CYNEPHILE

Why seek extraordinary adventures when we are presented daily with artless people who are filled with real distress?

Why did I make that film? Well, after Sciuscià (Shoeshine), I read some thirty of forty scripts, each more “beautiful” than the one before, full of facts and interesting situations. But I was looking for actions which would be less apparently “extraordinary”, which could happen to anyone (above all to the poor), action which no newspaper wants to talk about.

Anyway, everything happened as follows: one evening Zavattini called me to tell me he had read a beautiful book, Ladri di biciclette, by Luigi Bartolini, and that the book had inspired him to write a story for me. The next day I read the first draft of the story. The story differs from the books fairly radically; the latter is really rather cheerful, colorful, and picaresque. It suffices to note that the protagonist of the film is not Bartolini’s but a bill poster who wanders through Rome in a desperate search for his means of transport. From that point, there is another atmosphere, other interests, more adapted to my own means and scope. Why did we then acquire the title and the rights to a book for which we planned a free adaptation? To acknowledge a remarkable writer who, with his vivid style, has given me inspirational motivation for my new film.

My scope is to trace the “dramatic” in everyday situations, the wonderful in small events, what many consider to be artificially embellished trivia. What is the importance, after all, of stealing a bicycle, one which is far from bright and new? In Rome many are stolen every day and nobody cares, since it is of no importance to the rest of the city. Yet, to lose a bicycle is a grave event, a tragic circumstance, for those who have nothing else, who use it to go to work, who cherish it in the turmoil of city life…

I actually grew up almost alone without parents.

I really grew up like a little flower.

I’ve been seeing films since I was five, first, covered-wagon Westerns, and then, from the age of seven, I saw everything. I actually went to the movies every day, and later, two or three times a day, if possible.

Band of Angels, White Heat…the relationship between James Cagney and his mother, is I think like that between all my heroes and their mothers. Then Huston’s Asphalt Jungle was very important, and Howard Hawks, the gay stories…

What Sternberg does with light. The ability to tell stories in a roundabout way. It’s this extreme artificiality which is still, in my opinion, something very much alive.

Any film that is narrated conventionally all the way through would turn out like Chabrol and without the crime plot and simply using alienation technique, it might have turned out like a Godard film.

I don’t know, to me all stories are crime stories. To me the everyday oppression people experience is criminal. I could almost go as far as to say that you can’t really make anything but crime films. Everything should be declared criminal.

[Film stills from World on a Wire, opening this Friday at the IFC Center. Quotations from The Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, and Notes by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.]

What's cookin' good lookin'?

This is the secret recipe that Giulietta Masina said was the “love potion” she fed her husband of 50 years, filmmaker Federico Fellini. He told Charlotte Chandler for her ghost autobiography, I, Fellini (1995), it was the one secret Giulietta never shared with him.

On the side, in a small pan, melt:

1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil

Chop:

2 to 3 onions
2 cloves garlic
4 cups peeled tomatoes

Add the chopped onions and garlic to the oil when the oil is not boiling. It’s best to use extra virgin olive oil.
Use fresh tomatoes, if possible, or peeled canned tomatoes. Do not use tomato purée. Plunge fresh tomatoes into boiling water until the skins loosen, then peel, drain, chop, and crush.

Prepare the spaghetti pasta (for 4) by plunging it into boiling water until it’s al dente.

Pour the chopped garlic and onions into a larger pan, and add the chopped and crushed tomatoes.

With the tomato, the secret is to add:
1 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 a lemon’s juice

Sugar is the essential ingredient, and the lemon adds a subtle sweet and sour effect. According to Giulietta, it brings out the flavor of the tomatoes.

Add:
A dash of paprika
Fresh, aged Parmesan cheese

Giulietta always put on an apron because the sauce can “jump up” on your blouse. She was so happy to be cooking spaghetti after having been in hotel rooms. She said he (Fellini) could never leave her because he could never leave her spaghetti.

This movie, while short on decent story and plot, is a real treat for jazz fans.

The Swedish poster (designed by Eric Rohman) is a snappy photo-collage of all the great jazz musicians of the day. While they are all supreme jazz ambassadors representing the Big Easy, it doesn’t get much better than Billie Holiday backed by Louis Armstrong in this smooth number: