“Tickets are now on sale,” he says. Juan José Campanella with a mischievous tone as he welcomes us to his theater, the Politeama. It just opened there “Starts with D, seven letters”the work headed by Eduardo Blanco and Fernanda Metilli which he wrote with his wife, Cecilia Monti. He also has the Mafalda series for Netflix ahead of him and his return to the movies with “Parque Lezama”, a film version of Herb Gardner’s work that he adapted and directed, starring Luis Brandoni and Eduardo Blanco, without him it can’t be done. Campanella is into a thousand things, but he doesn’t give formulaic promotional notes, his thing is the talk.
At this point, telling who Juan José Campanella is would almost be disrespectful. Oscar winner, 10 letters. This interview is not for sale, it is enjoyed.
News: This work proves that you can meet someone anywhere because, is there anything less erotic than the dentist’s waiting room?
Juan José Campanella: (Laughs) That’s how it is. Cecilia Monti started writing the work; in that first sketch the characters were quite similar, but the circumstances were different. Originally they were in a place of being alone, which gave them a need to search and the work took other paths such as romance throughout the decades. With Ceci we discussed a lot about the characters, we defended their different positions and the generational differences regarding love, until one day we decided to write it together, it happened very naturally and then everything began to go the other way. Thus we ended up at the dentist’s, a place less conducive to romance, impossible!
News: “Starts with D, seven letters” takes up one of the classic romantic comedy tropes, opposites attract. Is it an infallible formula?
Campanella: Let’s hope so. They are two people with very different circumstances, he had a lifelong relationship and was recently widowed, but the death of his wife is what makes her still present. On the other hand, the character of Fernanda Metilli, who I already told you is going to surprise you in the dramatic moments, was with someone with whom she dreamed of a lifelong relationship, it did not happen and they have just separated. It all has to do with romance, but themes such as life, death, second chances, and at what point you decide to lower the curtain or not come up. They are complex situations that are treated with a lot of humor and tenderness as I like.
News: Scorsese first had De Niro and then Di Caprio. You have Eduardo Blanco. What came first? The actor or the friend?
Campanella: We are the same with Scorsese! Now it is Eduardo, at another time it was Ricardo Darín (we laugh). Our story goes back a long time, with Fernando Castets at 21 years old we made a film in Super 8, we went out to look for actors in different theater groups, in one we met Eduardo who was the same age as us and was the protagonist. Later, in ’82 we premiered our first play called “Off Corrientes” and it was a success on the independent circuit, my love for theater was born there. This is how our friendship was built. Fernando, Eduardo and I go to dinner every Friday, we have our own chat group, we are brothers in life now.
News: And what is the name of the chat?
Campanella: “The uncles”, because it arose from a question that Eduardo’s son was asking us, so Fernando Castets and I felt like the uncles who got together to answer. Returning to “Off Corrientes”, Fernando recently found the program of the play in a box, what we had written was funny, we made copies to have it. Before, the handheld program was thought with ingenuity and dedication. The inspiration for that was Les Luthiers who had very original programs and people saved them.
News: Regarding what cinema and theater meant, I thought that before one also kept tickets to the plays and movies one had seen. Was that magic lost? I heard him say that there are no stars left.
Campanella: The last big star is Di Caprio and he is already over 50 years old. Today actors are pawns and the film system feeds on stars. The other time I watched “Hell in the Tower” with my son again, today there is no Steve McQueen or Paul Newman. There are interesting, serious actors, but without that star power, before you went to see the movie and said: “Give me one for Paul Newman’s”, now there is no longer even a ticket booth on the networks. All of this is a loss for cinema and television as well because the proposals are niche and do not capture the entire audience at the same time. To be a star you need that movie that people watch five times or that 30-point show that everyone talks about the next day. But no one goes to the cinema to see the same movie twice anymore, nor do we all sit down to watch the same thing on TV. That’s going to be detrimental.
News: The series burn faster and faster, with some exceptions, they are only a topic of conversation on premiere weekend.
Campanella: Yes, of course, because people watch all the episodes one after the other until they finish it. I admit that they already got me used to it badly and I hope they upload it in full, sometimes that happens weeks after the premiere and I missed everyone’s talks, it was already dead when I arrived (laughs). That communal thing disappeared, not even the newscast achieves that because we wait for the clipping that goes viral on the networks.
News: Is the simplest humor on the networks a product of the fact that we have been lowering the price of words?
Campanella: The value of words is a little lost. I think about the musicality of the phrases, I work a lot with the actors, because if it is a gag for me it is from a score. It doesn’t matter how the words are said, because if you change the music you lose the joke and if you lose the joke what the guy is saying seems stupid (laughs). If an irony doesn’t make you laugh, it’s cruelty. It is important to preserve the value of the words, their melody, the place where the accents go.
News: We know that you are working on the Mafalda series, that you listened to more than 800 voices and that you have chosen almost all of them. I have to make a request, take care of me, Manolito…
Campanella: (Series). Hundreds of actors passed by, but when you find what you are looking for, after two words you realize that that is the voice of the character. As I am a big fan of Mafalda, I knew that living or dying depended on the voices, the irony and sarcasm that the actors can handle. Manolito is a genius and he is a very difficult character, besides there are no more Galician grocers, there we have to make a suspension of the credible. We have a chapter where the drama of Manolito is the super Chinese that they put him on the other block, he despairs, he does everything possible to melt him, then Mafalda mediates peace between the two. You have to be very careful, because in this first season they are all original characters from the strip, but in the future we would like to invent a new character who is the Chinese guy, the son of the supermarket owner.
News: A few days ago he excitedly tweeted Chris Martin’s tribute to Dick Van Dyke. When you go to the movies, are you still a good spectator?
Campanella: Dick Van Dyke and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang are my childhood, the guy overcame his alcoholism, lived a thousand lives and is still standing. At the movies I cry from emotion, never from sadness. I don’t like sad movies and I avoid them like crazy. An experience that I will never have again in my life is watching “Sofia’s Decision” again, for sessions of voluntary torture with only once enough (laughs). The movies I like the most are those where dignity, more than life, is in danger. I am a big fan of “Rocky,” for example.
News: And this year at the Oscars will we cry because the competition is weak or has a candidate?
Campanella: We’re more for the “Premio Consuelo” (laughs), but do you know which one I saw recently and it’s really good? “Conclave”, for me Edward Berger is currently the best living director. We saw “All Quiet Up Front” with my son and we couldn’t believe it, it’s a masterpiece. After the film won the Oscar for “Argentina, 1985,” I called Ricardo Darín and told him: “Don’t get upset because losing to this is fine.” When we won with “The Secret in Their Eyes” we were luckier, we didn’t get something like that.
News: In closing let me tell you that we talk about everything without asking those damn questions like “Are you dating?” or “what would I say to little Campanellita?”
Campanella: Maybe for that last one I have an answer, I would tell the little Campanella to stop screwing around (laughs).
