ANDNrichetta Marchetti Bulogh He probably never heard: “You are the most beautiful thing in my life.” Enrichetta was, like all, daughter. But the daughter of actress, unfortunate category. Very unfortunate if the mother is A great actressa myth destined for eternity. Enrichetta is Eleonora Duse’s daughter.
At the Film Festivalin competition (and then in the room on September 18), the expected film by Pietro Marcello, who is simply titled Dusestages the Divine al end of the journey, When at that terrible time between the end of the Great War and the ascent of the fascism Eleonora Duse – who never granted an interview in his life – refused to resign yourself to the scene exit and he tried with all his strength to regain a space in the only place true and habitable for her, the stage.
Duse is Valeria Bruni TedeschiEnrichetta is Noémie Merlant, French actress and director, “big fan of the work of Pietro Marcello” and fasting of Italian grammar. «Yet Pietro wanted to choose me. And I wanted to make this movie, even if when we shot I was preparing mine ( Women on the balconyout of us last spring, ed), was complicated, but I threw myself and It was worth it “.
An Enricetta suffering woman, very religious, perhaps the author of a censorship on the correspondence between her and the Duse to eliminate any outfit hint.
Two women on the other hand, two irreconcilable choices of life. They have no way of loving each other, because they are too different, they never manage to choose because Duse chooses the theater. We worked a lot and Valeria, we kept at a distance, otherwise we would not have been able to make that complexity.
Noémie Merlant in the role of Enrichetta Marchetti Bulogh in the film Duse, directed by Pietro Marcello, now in competition in Venice and from 18 September at the cinema (Ph: Erika Kuenka).
On the mother-daughter she has had the opportunity to reflect for a long time. He has been working on a documentary for some time on his family and in particular on his mother.
My relationship with my mother is the opposite, my mother is very close to her daughters. He consecrated his life to us and my father. But I would have liked to make more for himself, that he was more selfish, because he sacrificed himself a lot, he put in the family all the love he has, but it would be nice to see a woman who does not give up everything, who does not forget her desires. Enrichetta has a completely absent mother because she chose herself. I think there is an intermediate way. There is a scene in the film of great strength. It is a monologue, a letter that I send to my mother where all my pain comes out: «You didn’t want to. I’m not afraid to lose you because I’ve never had you ». Words that weigh as lead, because Enrichetta is anger. But I said to myself that there must be a place within her full of admiration for her mother, for her courage, for her stubbornness. But at the same time he is jealous, he suffers that he is not entitled even to that proximity to which his assistant Désirée (played by Fanni Wrochna, enjoys, editor’s note ), who lives in his shadow. Duse has chosen a woman like her precisely because she understands her needs and does not need her love. It is the cliché of the diva that gives everything to its audience and that must be rewarded with many attention from a devoted entourage. For a daughter there is no space in this scheme. I find that Pietro’s choice is very interesting to stage a great middle -aged woman, and to tell not the flower of the years, but the end, the twilight. Seeing in the cinema a woman still in action at that age is very rare. Biopics more easily portray women in relation to work or men, love or children, never in the end.
Noémie Merlant in the role of Enrichetta Marchetti Bulogh in the film Duse, alongside Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in the role of Eleonora Duse (Ph: Erika Kuenka)
Did he make it reflect on the power of the artistic vocation and on its duration?
( laughs) Good question, I often ask myself. If you have the vocation in your blood, it is difficult to abandon it, almost impossible to stop. Create allows you to remain alive for a long time. Even beyond life, for the legacy that is left. Of course, the relationship with creation, and with the public, takes away energy, but over time I hope that I will find a fair space between some form of calm, made of family life or with my friends, and the work with all the requests that will do me. And above all I hope I never be in the need to do things to be visible, to get on the stage, to declare: “I am always here”. Because there is something sad in not wanting to understand that we are only grains of dust in the universe. And that in a few years nobody will remember us. I hope I will always find the way to do things for love, and to the delight of doing them. And that I will have the desire to convey to the youngest, to give advice if I have to give. I would like it very much, when I age, to be able to do it.
Noémie Merlant in the role of Enrichetta Marchetti Bulogh in the film Duse, directed by Pietro Marcello, now in competition in Venice and from 18 September at the cinema (Ph: Erika Kuenka).
Not long ago he said that cinema helped him manage anxieties. It is no different from how Duse spoke of his work: “It is my poison and my oxygen”.
If I don’t work, I turn off, my job is my engine. It makes me raise in the morning and helps me to reflect on small and large things: a role, a script, but also what happens in the world. It helps me understand how to tell, how to share, how to put myself in the right distance and this makes me good. But it also consumes, because I am a perfectionist and I’m afraid of never giving enough. A balance must be found. For this I try to do less. Because I came to the point of being in a state of infinite tiredness. Then I understood that I am not invincible, that I cannot work like a car, because the batteries of the body and mind are downloaded. And I was frightened. Because I no longer had any desire, I had nothing more to give. And I slowed down, but we are all in such a work bulimia, successful, success, which slowing down is one of the most difficult operations to do.
Fanni Wrochna and Noémie Merlant in a scene from the film Duse, from 18 September at the cinema (Ph: Erika Kuenka).
The documentary on his family was stimulated by his mother’s choice to take care of his father and sister alone, both with disabilities. Does it tell such an intimate story to make a political, militant story?
With us, in France, the willingness of the will of the will of those who choose to voluntarily assist people with disabilities are entrusted. In this way the state should not deal with it. But it happens, and not infrequently, that those who assist die before their client, for fatigue and solitude. It is a job that occupies 24 hours a day. And there is no moral or financial support. France doesn’t do much for people like my mother.
With Women on the balcony He had staged a gyge. Showing a community of women and working between women is not so obvious.
I showed it because it is a reality that I know well, it is my newspaper. Half of my time I pass it between women. It is rare to see women who leave at the adventure, who do not remain at home, who appropriate the outside world. Pietro’s film is also a film by women. Who choose to live their lives. Albeit in the midst of a thousand contradictions. Duse is not perfect, but fights for its artistic survival. And this moves me deeply.
The fate of the Duse was exceptional, and fully falls within the mythology of the being actress to whom many films have been dedicated, from Stage to Eva against Eva. She suffered her when she decided what she wanted to do in life?
There is no unique mythology: that of the Duse is not that of Marilyn Monroe, the desired woman, looked at, untouchable. The cinema has created the myth of actresses-objects. Or he painted them as Machiavellian and Fatali. Today we see the profession in another way. The Duse was extraordinary because his job took it in his hand. It has never been an object, he is a mistress of his own image, of what he wants to tell about himself.
Being reduced to the subject: Have you ever experienced it?
Of course, when I worked as a model. But even great actresses have tried it. Marilyn had a huge talent, a huge intelligence, but found himself in a mechanism he had no control. A mechanism created by men for men. It has become eternal, without human being. They reduced it to Sex Symbol, while it was much more. Today the trade has taken another direction thanks to the new roles that are written.
She will be Fantine in the new version of the Miserablewith Vincent Lindon in the role of Jean Valjean.
Vincent’s choice is brilliant! We just started shooting. And that of Fantine is a magnificent role. I want to think only of her right now. I really like the reading we are giving: it remains a fighter, despite everything that happens to her. A worthy figure.
What about director projects?
I write, I have more projects in my hands. One is taken from Sportusthe novel by Cristina Rodríguez (journalist and screenwriter of Spanish manga, ed) who takes place in Nero’s Rome.
A peplum?!
A peplum queer. I will still speak Italian. It would be better Latin. I don’t stop studying.