"In general, Fists in the Pocket can be described as an extraordinary experience, like all debut films." "An experience devoid of all vanity, where five people dedicated all they had to the film without the encumbrance of roles." "There wasn't "the director," "the actor," "the art director."" "To talk about it you have to talk about the environment back then." "It was an undertaking - As the great Bresson said," ""Perhaps the future of cinema is in the hands of a few youngsters who'll make films with the little money in their pockets, without shackling themselves to an industrial mindset. "" "Blessed mother, pray for her..." "I'd just finished attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, where I'd received a diploma in directing." "Naturally I didn't yet know who I was or exactly what I would do." "I loved to paint." "I loved literature and poetry." "But I realized that having a diploma in directing didn't mean much." "So after graduating, I went to London to learn English and to try to broaden my provincial Roman outlook." "It was in London that I began thinking about this story, with the conscious goal - unconscious goals are more complex - of trying my hand as a director." "Of course, I wanted to give myself an advantage by trying to tell a story, though obviously changed substantially, that drew on my life story," "my rebellion against provincial life." "The film is certainly a response to an experience of family life... of bitterness, disappointment" "and pain." "Laugh." "That'll make him furious." "Are you done?" "Can't I talk to Augusto?" "That's enough." "I said that's enough!" "Come here!" "We were classmates at the Centro Sperimentale, where Marco was one year ahead of me, studying acting." "I had a funny reason for going there." "It wasn't because I wanted to go to film school but because I heard you could eat there for free." "I thought, "Imagine that: free food every day."" "My experience on Fists in the Pocket began with Marco's visit to my residence here in Rome, in which he told me about a project." "I listened to him nonstop for about six hours, from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m." "He spewed forth this torrent of magma from inside." "I said, " I don't think we can make a film of what you've told me." "Put together a series of situations and characters and we'll talk again."" "Later we dealt with the script." "As if sensing that I would never find a producer, someone who would want to produce it," "I set it in my mother's house, in the town where I spent my childhood holidays." "The problem of production in Italy affected Marco as it did everyone in the sense that the equation "You need money to make a film"" "is exactly the same as saying, "You need money to make love."" "That is, a filmmaker has to prostitute himself, in return for the money he needs." "It's the same thing." "But a prostitute doesn't make love." "She hastily lends her body while thinking of the money she'll get in return." "There's a huge chasm between that and making love." "Between a film made with money and one made with ideas, heart and passion, there's also a big difference." "I remember one day Antonioni came to our school, and Marco asked, "If I asked for your phone number to become your assistant, would you give it to me?"" "Antonioni replied, "Absolutely not."" "So Marco understood that he needed to roll up his sleeves and set about digging for gold on his own instead of looking in jewelry shops." "There's a little-known story about Fists in the Pocket in its early days." "It took place in Milan in 1964." "I still had a production company with Ermanno Olmi called "22 dicembre,"" "with which we'd made a small name for ourselves producing movies by young filmmakers." "One morning I was in my office when our very amusing Milanese production coordinator said to me," ""Two guys came to the door, but I told them you were busy." "I didn't want to bother you." "They want to make a film and asked to borrow equipment." "I said we couldn't just lend it to anyone." "The film was about someone who kills his whole family." "Those guys were crazy." "I told them thank you and good-bye."" "It was Marco Bellocchio and his producer, Enzo Doria." "This film got made by begging for money." "They went around asking for a little money here, a little there, some from a relative, an aunt, just like Rossellini used to do." "Anarchic cinema was certainly a direct influence, so Vigo is very relevant:" "Zéro de conduite, as well as L'A talante." "And the whole surrealist movement as well, because I realized... that it wasn't enough for me just to chronicle reality." "Mind you, neorealism was by then dead and buried." "Antonioni and the New Wave had already emerged." "It was a time of great renewal." "There was the problem of who to cast as the protagonist and his sister." "As for the choice of Lou Castel, naturally we wanted at first to complete the cast with someone who was already well-known." "We approached Gianni Morandi, a famous singer, very young at the time, and he was open to doing it." "But either his father or his manager wouldn't let him." "At that point we were wide open." "I met Lou Castel by chance." "He was auditing classes as a director at the Centro Sperimentale, and we auditioned him." "We were very lucky with Castel." "He was a nonprofessional actor - though he later acted a lot - but I always found him to be a wonderful amateur." "This was his glory but also his misfortune." "He got, as they say, completely into the role." "He was the son, I think, of a Swede and a Columbian, which was unusual." "But he came to Bobbio and fit right away into our family and became a great force on the film." "His face is truly emblematic of the film:" "desperate and laughing hysterically, serious and outwardly very calm." "It was more than just his contribution to the film." "I think it was a choice " "It was a fortunate stroke of chance, because even though it was one of those chance things, he helped give the film the great impact and international success it enjoyed." "I met Paola Pitagora, a very beautiful and charming woman." "She didn't need to audition because she already had some experience." "She was already fairly well-known." "She wrote to me, and later told me, that she'd been quite troubled by the script and was uncertain whether to do it or not." "It was her boyfriend, a well-known painter, who convinced her." "One scene troubled me very much, one he didn't end up shooting." "It's when the brother, Lou Castel, pushes his mother into the ravine." "I remember the line:" ""He pushes her into the ravine with a tremendous thrust of his finger, after which he sucks on his finger. "" "I read that and talked about it with my boyfriend at the time." "I said, " This is horrible." "He can't do this." "It's too much. "" "My boyfriend then was Renato Mambor, the artist." "He read it and said, "It's not a horror movie." "There's something else to it." "If I were you, I'd do it."" "So I said yes, and the adventure began." "The essence of Bellocchio's work with actors is one of paring down." "He asks for the utmost in depth and truthfulness from his actors." "He doesn't want frills." "It was my first leading role in a film." "I'd only had a little experience in theater." "I was something of a comédienne, but he pares things down heavily." "He spoke very little, so all of us were timid, because the director sets the tone." "If the director's timid, the whole crew is." "But everything he said on the set was essential, and another type of energy was immediately set loose." "The gesture that Lou Castel often makes, bringing his hand up to his forehead, in some way represents his partly realized wish for order, his wish to organize his family, to bring a concreteness, an order, to this mess of a family." "This desire is summed up by this gesture he repeats before he kills his brother, or when he's at home." "Don't forget that his two murders... are carried out with a minimum of effort." "There's nothing horrific or bloody about them." "He simply pushes his mother into the ravine with his finger, almost as if he'd like - though he's unable - to push her into the abyss by the sheer strength of his mind." "The same thing happens when he kills his brother." "He pushes him into the water with his index finger." "These minimal gestures... among others, were invented on the spot." "It didn't happen all the time, but occasionally while I was writing," "I'd find they were right for the character." "And this is also the greatness of Lou Castel." "He remained himself yet also became the character at a very deep level, developing him enormously." "I feel a draft." "Is the window open?" "There's always something innovative in Marco's films... always something that renews the language of film." "In Rome," "I became Marco's double in the sense that Marco would film, while I was the Bellocchio who edited, because it's illogical and makes no sense to edit someone else's film." "I didn't edit Fists in the Pocket as I would have one of my own films." "I edited it as Bellocchio would have if he'd been up to contending with the material." "I didn't even want to attach my name to the film, because to say I was the editor is like saying a surgeon is a slicer or a hacker." "Marco never came near the cutting room." "He couldn't, mainly because I don't want the filmmaker there when I'm editing someone else's film." "Also because he was doing the filming." "His role was to produce the images." "Mine was to give them coherence." "But I will say that the editing of Fists in the Pocket was a primer in innovative editing, because you never get the feeling that one image is more important than another." "I'm convinced that, just as every human being is a masterpiece, each image in a film must be the entire film." "So I applied that concept here, and it works, as seen by the fact that the film has remained fresh." "Regarding the ending, it was the musical education and training I'd had." "I'm not sure if it was in the script, but it was decided upon at the last minute in Bobbio" "as a way to bring the film to a close." "Obviously this hadn't been part of Castel's training, and he didn't know how to do it, so we had to improvise." "In fact, Agosti tried to edit him in time to the music, but it wasn't perfect." "It works great, and it's an exciting scene, but Lou Castel didn't know anything about opera." "He went off on his own." "He'd occasionally be in time, but with no understanding of the music or that moment in La traviata." "He'd throw himself into that same repetitive gesture, which Agosti edited in beautifully, and then he ends in a self-destructive fit" "that could be read as suggesting his death." "I had the protagonist die during editing." "Marco didn't think he should die." "I said, " Marco, if he doesn't die, the film doesn't make any sense."" "Because the sister, who saw him kill the brother and mother, etc., cannot, as his only punishment, refuse to help him in his epileptic fit." "She must realize she has to give this monster the greatest gift, which is to kill him." "In the western world, the monster who has to die is the way society is structured today." "I was done editing, and the film had been dubbed." "There was a certain rush to have it screened at the Venice Film Festival." "So Marco took a copy to Milan and showed it to the festival selectors, including three of the most important Italian film critics." "Since the film didn't yet have a musical score or sound effects, they told him, "This film is a disaster." "You have to toss it out, Marco." "You'll give your brother a bad name, and he's an intelligent man." "Throw it away." "We won't choose it for Venice, and we advise you not to even finish it."" "Obviously, Marco came back fairly depressed, but I explained to him in few words that if there's anyone who doesn't understand films, it's precisely the film critic." "He got the message, and I said, "Let's take it to Locarno."" "Finally we took it to Beretta, director of the Locarno Film Festival, still without sound, just the visuals, and he was enthusiastic about it, so we showed it at Locarno." "That's where it took off." "I've always said that the first time it was shown to the public - in a theater that no longer exists " "I noticed that the audience reacted in a completely unexpected way." "A certain respected journalist was laughing like a madman." "He caught the grotesque, mocking aspect of the tragedy - because it really is a family tragedy." "It was initially to be called The Family Gene." "Later it was changed to Fists in the Pocket." "This man laughed his head off." "We didn't know whether to be happy or upset." "They laughed and reacted a bit uncontrollably and hysterically." "I never expected that." "I thought it was a very tragic film." "But, either from surprise or astonishment, many of the situations in the film made the audience laugh." "Later I found out that Buñuel saw the film and was critical of it." "He said, " I don't agree with this type of profanation." "Not only the matricide, but also the mockery... when the protagonist does his exercises over the mother's corpse. "" "But I think the tone... is not so much one of mockery as abstraction." "It's not so much an insult as a liberation in the face of death and funeral ceremonies." "The film then ricocheted back to Venice and was shown in an unimpressive lineup." "It was screened at a parish theater." "Just imagine." "Fists in the Pocket was first shown at a parish movie theater in Venice." "A huge crowd showed up, and the film was more successful than any in the festival lineup." "Luigi Chiarini, the director of the festival, capable but sort of " "He realized his committee had made a mistake, and he got very angry." "I think he even wrote to the patriarch of Venice requesting that films not be allowed to be shown in other venues during the Venice Film Festival." "But the public immediately appreciated what the experts hadn't, that Italian cinema was shifting gears." "It's 1965." "1968 is just three years away." "Something is brewing in western society." "This is one of those films that's like the rumbling before an earthquake, announcing that something very important is about to happen." "The signs are there, and the public " "I remember the screening in Venice very well." "From the very first images " "It is, after all, a morbid story about private lives, with no political message, but there was a buzz in the air as if you were at a pep rally, either opposing or supporting some unnamed cause." "It was a very interesting phenomenon." "This extremely private film of Bellocchio's became a metaphor for the state of youth." "Seeing it many years later, it seemed to me filled with poetry." "The whole atmosphere goes beyond the story, because the story in itself is very tragic." "But the film is addressing something else." "It's a desperate nostalgia for youth, the need for change that existed in those years, and not just in the Italian provinces." "This was the eve of 1968." "So there's a desire for freedom that goes beyond the criminal actions." "Many years later, in Argentina or Spain, people would tell me," ""When I saw that film..."" "A lot of people still remember and identify me as the man who made Fists in the Pocket." "I remember when we had to say good-bye, we were outside the pensione with Marco, with hills in the background and fireworks exploding for the feast of San Giovanni, a custom in the countryside." "And Marino Masè said to me," ""You'll never do anything this wonderful again. "" "And I replied, "Neither will you.""