La Rabbia 1, La Rabbia 2, La Rabbia 3… L’arabia
Int.: Fabio Carapezza Guttuso, Carlo Di Carlo, Massimo D’alema, Ugo Gregoretti, Alberto Guareschi, Claudio Quarantotto; Prod.: Livingstone / Raro Video; Beta Sp. D: 69′.
Film Notes
In his documentary Tatti Sanguineti probes, reconstructs and mixes up several unfathomable mysteries of the nearly one century-old story of a quite unique film. At the same time, a pinch of movie movie, a touch of world movie, a bit of home movie. Poem and collage. Essay and vignette. Guttuso’s and Bassani’s voices pitched against Fernandel’s and Jerry Lewis.
La rabbia 1 sees Pasolini who, keen to experiment, unwarily accepts the idea of the producer of Red-baiting newsreels to narrate the end of WWII, the danger of WWIII starting up, the demise of colonialism, the crisis of Socialist realism, Marylin’s death, Titov’s flight.
(The feature was edited, turned down, cut in half during voice recording, but at least its script remains.)
La rabbia 2 is the retrieval of half of the first cut, with the addition of a fictional ring, a sort of “Ideological Debate”, as could never be done on TV, where PPP is goaded into quarreling with a man light-years away from him. A rancorous monarchist polemist, weak-hearted and almost broken, a wild bear turned even more dan- gerous for his being discarded and left alone by everyone: Giovannino Guareschi. (The film, which, deprived of its colour, circulated for just a few days, was hated by the left and disappeared for reasons which are still unknown and indecipherable today and will remain so for ever.)
La rabbia 3 – after PPP’s escape and GG’s rage – sees Ugo Gregoretti’s vain attempt to revamp the cine-match, by making the two men meet face to face, as before they had merely brushed each others in the corridor leading to the two editing rooms.
(The idea miscarried, and only two typewrit- ten sheets of paper remain, with the producer’s proposal, and a few letters to Guareschi who was expecting to be paid.) L’Arabia is the misleading title found on the reel boxes which explains why the negative of La rabbia was lost for forty odd years, with today’s discovery of Renato Guttuso’s red, which nobody had ever seen before.
Tatti Sanguineti complicates matters further by probing into more or less sympathetic archives, putting hypotheses forward and perhaps unveiling sensational truths.
Tatti Sanguineti