Stefan Pape He’s one of the great Italian filmmakers, and when in London promoting the release of his new film The Traitor – one of his best for years – we took the opportunity to grill, sorry, request answers from the established auteur Marco Bellocchio about his very favourite films of all time, and those which best shaped him as a storyteller – and below are all the results.
What’s the first film you fell in love with? I can’t remember exactly what the first film was, but I was born during the Second World War so what happened is that Mussolini blocked all foreign film imports, so you couldn’t see any. So what I remember vividly but I can’t swear was the first one, is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Then Cinderella. So they were Walt Disney cartoons and lo and behold, they were in colour.
What’s the one film you never get tired of watching? Citizen Kane because the structure of the narrative is a work of genius. It was one of those imports, but maybe I saw it for the first time when I was at film school, but certainly it is one of the films that I have watched the most times.
What’s your favourite soundtrack? I know you want just one, but there are so many different ones, and it depends on the different context. There was one composer of a few Antonioni films called Giovanni Fusco who gave such atmosphere, like Prokofiev to Eisenstein’s movies.
What’s the one scene that always makes you cry? Do you remember the film Hiroshima, Mon Amour? When the female protagonist says to the Japanese man, ‘he was my first love’, that always gets me when talking about the German. That extreme close up… it’s an extraordinary scene.
What is your favourite of your own movies? Not sure of a film, but I love the final scene of Fists in the Pocket when listening to the music of La Traviata.
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