Interview transcripts (7): Tifosi (Canu, Di Nocera, Proietti, Tamburini)
In this seventh and last edited transcript from the interviews conducted by Luca Peretti and myself on the cinepanettone I excerpt the words of four fans of the filone.
Lorenzo Proietti
Lorenzo Proietti is an avid filmgoer and also a cinepanettone regular – a combination demonstrated by all these interviewees and one that challenges the stereotype of the typical cinepanettone consumer who goes to the cinema just once a year. I spoke to Lorenzo in December 2010 in his office in the building in Rome where he works as a concierge. He showed me the tin box kept there which contained the ticket stubs for every movie he’d seen at the cinema since the turn of the century: a substantial batch.
Pietro Di Nocera
I have discussed here my interview with Pietro Di Nocera (in a posh Roman hotel bar in April 2011), one of the organizers of the Vacanze di Natale (1983) fan club and website. He is passionate about the original but scornful of the other films – especially those of Neri Parenti – though he admits to seeing them and to laughing.
Enrico Tamburini and Massimiliano Canu of cinepanettoni.it
I spoke by Skype videocall in February 2011 to the two organizers of a cinepanettone fan website based in Udine (I discuss the interview here). Massimiliano Canu and Enrico Tamburini were highly engaged with the filone and the kind of comedy they felt it represented. They were much less interested in the directors than the actors, and, interestingly, seemed to be embarrassed by the vulgarity held to be characteristic of the films and their exploitative representation of women.
Interview transcripts (5): parlano gli attori (Boldi, De Sica, Ghini, Tabita)
Boldi and De Sica: even great love stories must end
Continuing from four previous posts (here, here, here, and here), more edited transcripts of the interviews myself and Luca Peretti have done about the cinepanettone, this time with the actors Massimo Boldi, Christian De Sica, Massimo Ghini and Barbara Tabita.
Natale in Sud Africa:Ghini, gurning, and Belen, verso
These were the most difficult interviews to do, and have generated the least interesting results - perhaps. Actors are very practiced at interviews and will often repeat material they know has entertained in the past. This was certainly the case with De Sica, who repeated stuff almost verbatim I had read elsewhere (the context itself was unfortunate: his mother had died the previous night after a long illness, but De Sica graciously preferred to go ahead with his appointments). Ghini’s was less an interview than a monologue that Luca and myself interrupted at irregular intervals. But at least those two interviews were face to face, which meant one could probe and respond politely. I’ve discussed the problems of my skypephone interview (audio only) with Boldi here, and I only recently managed to get an interview with a woman involved in the cinepanettoni, having failed to convince both Nancy Brilli and Sabrina Ferilli that I was anything but a sinister stalker geek. A colleague happened to know the Sicilian actor Barbara Tabita, who stared in Natale in Sud Africa, and the latter was kind enough to reply by email (from her iPhone) to my questions. Inevitably, I think, her responses were a little anecdotal and I would have liked to have been able to ask supplementary questions about a theme she was most interesting on, that of the body of female actor in a masculinist cinema culture.
The interview with Boldi took place in just before Christmas 2010, with De Sica and Ghini in January 2011, and Barbara Tabita sent me her answers by email in February 2012. My questions are signaled with an ‘A’. The interviews have been transcribed by Luca and Damiano Garofalo - sincere thanks to both of them.
Natale in Sud Africa: De Sica and Tabita on the menu
