THE GRIM REAPER

In an interview, Bernardo Bertolucci declared that the artform closest to cinema is not the novel, the theatre or painting but poetry. This, if I’m correct, needs to be understood not in Croce’s sense that there is no art without poetry, but in the narrower and more particular sense of an entirely poetic, that is, entirely irrational and ineffable, approach to reality. After seeing The Grim Reaper, I think Bertolucci is right in his parallel between cinema and poetry, at least for what concerns his work. The best aspects of this movie such as the obscurity and lightness of the treatment, the mystery regarding the choice of characters, the narrative rhythm and grace, and especially the unexpressed component distinctive of poetic expression, demonstrate that his statement is correct. Bertolucci’s talent is mainly poetic, that is, aiming to capture the Leopardian ‘bitter moment’ of life –the moment in which the existential pang arises. The beginning of the film in some way brings to mind Rashomon; for a moment, one thinks that it might illustrate the impossibility of discovering the truth. Then, suddenly, one realizes that its aim instead is to show us an all-modern tranche de vie, devoid of any veristic or sociological intent – in other words, a poetic slice of life.

Despite being based on a story by Pasolini, featuring the life-teeming and scorching themes of his most famous novels, The Grim Reaper doesn’t have the desolate compassion of Accattone, or the high drama of Mamma Roma; it is a more subdued movie, whispered rather than ‘screamed’. This is not, however, because of a deficiency on the part of Bertolucci, or because he is unable to find the rhythm, the denouncing force, the colourful breadth of the human specimens that crowd Pasolini’s works. What emerges in Bertolucci, instead, is the personality, already mature and aware, of a poet, a different creative striving that carries this novice director in the direction of stylistic and visual interests that are perhaps closer to those of “free cinema”. With its pauses, long silences, and lost days, The Grim Reaper shows the desire to reveal, even in such abnormal characters as the ‘pimp’, the drifter and Canticchia, a human melancholy that brings these hustlers and street kids very close to certain themes of existential angst that are very dear to the more innovative currents of contemporary cinema. In this sense, the movie can be compared to the more committed expressions of the nouvelle vague, notwithstanding the fact that The Grim Reaper lacks the pretentiousness and excessive preoccupations with form that are the most obvious limitations of French cinema. See for example the episode with Canticchia who is able to convey the greyness of a sad, lacklustre life; or the desolate loneliness of the three small-time thieves, huddled in a waterlogged cave as the rain pours down all around them. The climax of this vibrant poetic representation comes with the long, emotional gaze with which the young soldier follows the fast-running south-bound train: in a split second, his eyes reflect all at once his joyous love for his native land, the promise of his return, and a subtle, blissful nostalgia. Very aptly, the short final sequence ends with a heart-rending retreating tracking shot, which slowly reveals a museum of human relicts, waiting for the sun.

Bertolucci was born in Parma in a wealthy bourgeois family and raised in a setting open to foreign cultural influences, steeped in nature, with which he maintained a connection, leading to a disposition for pastoral and elegiac sentiments. He made his first feature film in a sort of state of grace. In the early period of his career – which ends with the strident and vivifying Partner, shot in in the full heat of May 1968 – he exposes, and this in the fullest sense of the word, the mood with which he perceives the events. In this sense, The Grim Reaper is perhaps the only truly ‘adolescent’ film in the history of cinema. It expresses with perfect clarity an adolescent vision (technical virtuosities, provocations, extravagant originality etc.), abounding in ephemeral qualities: fervour and recklessness, which engender some natural audacities that can only bloom once.

I’ve always been a movie buff, and it was the classics of the silver screen that showed me to what extent cinema can become poetry. In making this first film I tried to confer lyrical form and expressive power to each frame, and a precise rhythm to each sequence. What takes cinema away from storytelling and moves it closer to poetry is the editing. So, as I was shooting, I already had the editing very clear in my mind, I knew each scene’s rhythm, their beginning and end. More importantly, when I sat behind the camera, my state of mind was the same as when I used to write poems. My way of looking at reality is not the same as Pasolini’s. While we share a dramatic sense of a hovering destiny, my attitude has an ironic vein to it.

We went to the Venice Film Festival expecting an award for his directorial debut, but Bernardo didn’t get it. What he did get was a lot of heckling, because any time Pasolini’s name came up people were always booing and screaming. The people who were jeering him then are the same ones you’ll hear today saying that they’ve always been his friends and always loved his work. Once the decision was made to have Bernardo direct the film, Pier Paolo stayed out of it, coming just a couple of times on the set. Bernardo did it all on his own. He was a cinéphile, influenced by the Japanese, and so the movie he made was something very different from a movie like Accattone. Bernardo was deeply devoted to Pier Paolo, as were inevitably all those who knew him well. Pasolini had a truly great mind, and it was almost impossible not to be fascinated by him both on an intellectual and a human level, because like the rare people who are extremely intelligent, he was also the embodiment of modesty.

When I participated in the Miss Italia competition, the organizer Mirigliani suggested that I withdraw because of my young age (I was a minor), and the news was reported by the press. So Pier Paolo Pasolini saw photos of me on the papers and asked me to come to Rome (I was living in Leghorn at the time) to audition for a role in Mamma Roma, alongside Anna Magnani. He had a good impression of me, and while he didn’t think I was right for that role, he introduced me to his assistant Bernardo Bertolucci, who at the time was making his directorial debut with The Grim Reaper, a film based on a story by Pasolini.

The one condition set by PPP was that I had to reside in Rome, because the crucial meeting was going to be in the next few days. From his look I understood that I would be right for The Grim Reaper, so I blatantly lied, telling him that I lived in the city. The truth was that I had nowhere to stay, and had only 30,000 Liras and the return ticket to Leghorn in my pocket. So I looked at the ads and immediately found a place as lady companion for a baroness in the Parioli neighbourhood. Two days later I received the call from Bertolucci and the producer Tonino Cervi. I signed a contract then and there, for 250,000 Liras, a sum that seemed to exceed all my expectations! That was the beginning of my movie career. Since it was a neorealist movie, several actors were taken directly from the streets. I must say that I wasn’t always comfortable: I was a small-town girl, and I had never been exposed to such a crude reality. The opportunity provided by PPP and BB gave me a lot of recognition, and this paved the way for my later work with equally famous directors: first Monicelli, then the Taviani brothers, Maselli, Lizzani, Montaldo, and even Fellini and the French director Lelouch. The fate was sealed by the acronyms PPP, BB, GG. A wonderful coincidence.

After my promising debut in auteur cinema with Boccaccio ’70, the producers introduced me to Pier Paolo Pasolini and to the young director Bernardo Bertolucci. Both were involved in the making of The Grim Reaper and they readily agreed to cast me in their film. My great love for Bertolucci started then, and grew slowly, deeply and secretly. I found this extraordinary young man, so intelligent and always kind, immensely reassuring, and under his guidance I could act with great lightness and spontaneity. Next to him, everything seemed wondrously ordinary. And yet I was terribly jealous of his kindness and warmth towards others, because I wanted it all for myself. I loved him.

Acting in Bernardo’s first feature film, The Grim Reaper, is still my most cherished experience as an actor. He was so helpful and kind to me. It was like being part of a marvellous family. It’s always a pleasure to see this film again, as it bring me back to a very important period of my life in the Eternal City.

Thank you, Bernardo.

With love, Allen

As I jokingly said before about The Grim Reaper, I believe that while my aesthetic idea is of a world that’s full-frontal, solid, Romanesque, chiaroscuro, statuesque, in full relief, Bertolucci’s idea is more elegant and modern, it’s an impressionistic idea, since he draws his visual inspiration from the French impressionists, and also from French cinema.

It was one of the first days of shooting, or maybe even the very first day, in a wooded area near the EUR. Bernardo still exuded this rich-boy aura, and pretended to have the wheeled cart go through a very narrow tunnel he’s seen in the tufaceous rock. Immediately the chief electrician told him it was impossible, that there just wasn’t enough space and that he had to find another solution. I can still see it in my mind’s eye now, how Bernardo asked for a hammer and started hammering away at this darn hole himself, to make it large enough. A few minutes later, all the camera crew were chipping away at the tufa as well, and in less than an hour the tracks were ready for a magnificent shot. Ever since that moment, the troupe knew that the dottore’s ideas, even the most bizarre, had to be taken seriously. He was a natural-born director.