Almost like his stark and sharp cinematographic look, which is displayed either in his renowned “Call me by my name” (2017) that launched fame to Timothée Chalamet, the recent protagonist of his new and crude story of a cannibal love in “Hasta los huesos” (2022), or in the terrifying reissue of “Suspiria” with his “non-muse” Tilda Swinton and in the series “We are who we are” (HBO) where he addressed issues related to identity in a subversive and contemporary way; live and direct, the Italian-Algerian half Luca Guadagninoimposes a certain awe.
There is some majesty of lyrical tenor in that tall and corpulent figure, who today seems somewhat uncomfortable due to the orthopedic boot that he drags along on his trip to Buenos Aires. A forced chaining for this mobile being who debuted in the cinema more than two decades ago and moves between the continents with a camera on his back. “I consider myself lucky because I grew up in many places and that feeling of displacement helps me keep my mind open,” he once said.
But his Sicilian enthusiasm for life is what now saves him from any inconvenience. And while he seems to observe the world from the rigorously deep and almost dismissive perspective of an intellectual, a glint in his eye shows that he is attentive to every detail of his surroundings with the innocent curiosity of a child. And it is then when one feels that the distances are shortened.
Invited by DArA ID (Associated Argentine Interior Designers), on the occasion of the last International Meeting on Interior Design and Design, “360º Creativity”, Guadagnino came to Buenos Aires to talk about his other passion: interior design. Five years ago, chance and causality led him to debut in interior design, and to create his own studio in Milan, (recognized among the 100 best in the world, according to the book By Design: The World’s Best Contemporary Interior Designers), where he shares ideas together with the architect Stefano Biasi. A creative refuge where the eminent director can show his most private and loving side, far from the lights of the set.
News: First time in Argentina, what did you think?
Luca Guadagnino: I am happy with this invitation from DArA, and I hope it will be repeated. I have had a very particular first impression of the city. We visited La Boca, and we walked along the Riachuelo in a barge, Recoleta, Pizza in El Cuartito. It was great. And from what little I’ve seen, the truth is that I think it’s really great. It makes me come to mind and reminds me a lot of my life in Palermo, in Sicily. You see how this mixture coexists, this stratification of cultures, in which one replaces the other, but which in the whole becomes a new and organic thing. I would love to spend more time here working.
News: You made public your hidden passion for interior design in an interview for T Magazine, how was that discovery?
Guadagnino: I’ve always been interested in changing the space according to the position of the objects, and it’s something I’ve always had. I was a very lonely boy, even though I had two brothers, and I wasn’t very interested in social life. So, As a boy, I spent a lot of time in that solitude putting together movies in my mind or moving the furniture around the house, as I imagined different environments.. But, later I would put it back in its place, because my parents would get angry. I never studied architecture, but I still had this feeling inside me. What I said in that interview was read by the businessman Federico Marchetti, and he foolishly invited me to recycle a villa he had on Lake Como. I started looking for collaborators, architects and interior designers to work with. It has been a very instructive process. And that was how that interest as a child became a reality as an adult.
News: At Design Week in Milan, his studio presented an installation called “By the Fire”, a living room with two almost symmetrical scenes in front of stone fireplaces, inspired by the Italian architect Carlo Scarpa. Alfred Hitchcock, another director like you, also loved the symmetries in his sets…
Guadagnino: I didn’t think about it, but Hitchcock’s cinema, in my opinion, represents the maximum, the result of the application of a concept of architecture to the image and the story of the image, therefore, it is not so strange that he used it as reference.
News: You seem to offer two different sides of your personality, on the one hand, your cinema, where a raw environment is shown, taken over by a young generation that is very detached from the affective world; and on the other, its spaces, where it creates habitats with noble elements, very embracing and warm.
Guadagnino: It is the most beautiful question I have received in a long time. You managed without knowing me, and in a very specific way, to find the reasons why I do things, and that are never told afterwards. I strongly agree that this millennial generation is disaffected with a terror of contact. My movies show it. But in my studio, we seek to embrace the client. There is always a very strong relationship between the interpersonal and the space that is created. And I like to think that when we make a space, whoever lives in that space, even though they use it unconsciously, will be able to be more connected with it. It is a more candid dimension on affective relationships.
News: According to you, in the cinema you design film sets to reflect personalities that already exist, while in interior design a space is created that will become a place with a biography that does not yet exist. How do you experience these differences between the sets and the habitats you create for your clients?
Guadagnino: Cinema and architecture are two different disciplines and here they are in opposition. The objective of the practice of architecture relegated to a small environment like that of a house, is to change the person who will live there. Give that person an everyday experience that he did not have before living there. In the cinema, on the other hand, its essence has to do potentially with conflicts, with extreme pain, and the scenery has to contribute to the letter of the story and to the deep meaning that lies behind the story. Thinking about the work that I did, now that we have this beautiful conversation, unfortunately, I think that all the stories that I told are full of pain.
News: Is the interior design a sample of your cheerful side?
Guadagnino: More than joy, euphoria, because it is very beautiful to see how things are done and how a true story is changed.
News: How important is beauty?
Guadagnino: I think beauty is a very overrated concept. In particular, what is overrated is the idea that beauty arises objectively. Sometimes I’m afraid it’s the way to get into a generic aesthetic that’s just something on a shiny surface. From this perspective I am not interested at all. And I’m definitely not interested in style. I am interested in the shape of things.
News: Has interior design changed your look at the cinema or vice versa?
Guadagnino: Neither one nor the other, the practice of architecture changed me. In the interests that I have, in creating a practical spirit. The only effect is that, with interior design, I relax from the stress that making movies causes me.
News: Did it make you open up more?
Guadagnino: That had already changed with my role as director, because there I have to deal with a lot of people all the time.
News: You are used to convincing movie producers, but how do you talk to a client who wants a house?
Guadagnino: In the first case I am the one who wishes, but here, the client needs to be shown the path of his own desire, it is not so different from a psychoanalytic cure! Psychoanalysis is not about solving problems, but dealing with something you don’t want to see. In the practice of the study, the theme is to help the client so that he can understand what he wants, to give him an order.
News: At the end of the day, who is easier to deal with, an actor or a client?
Guadagnino: The client, because he has less reasons for narcissism. Actors need a lot of attention. I like to give them attention, but sometimes they demand too much!
News: He makes movies, interior design, he is a high-end cook, he takes time to edit a magazine, he gets excited about fashion, he travels, how are the times?
Guadagnino I am very dedicated, early riser and hard worker. Something obsessive compulsive, with doing everything, and well. I need to be in constant movement so as not to get bored. I am a multitasker who delegates, but who does not take his eyes off it. Not very glamorous, right?
News: He has just won the Silver Lion at the 2022 Venice International Festival, for best direction, for “Hasta los huesos”, a film about the love between two young people who practice cannibalism. How do you prevent this harshness of your cinema from being reflected in an interior design?
Guadagnino: They are two different works and I try not to confuse them. But, at the end of the day, this multitasking being is the same person, so something always catches on..
