«Is there anything that excites me more than football, than Napoli? No, there is not”. Paolo Sorrentino he has his priorities very clear, after all his passion for football is an ancient and well-known thing. He reiterates it at Taobuk, the Taormina book festival, in one long conversation with Federico Pontiggia«Beautiful, large and everywhere».
Sorrentino is a shy artist, but this time he talks about himself and also allows himself to comment on the present time: «I struggle with extremism, you can find a reason in the middle, I’m central. Politic? No no… maybe over the years yes. But I don’t want to chase current events, the world today spends half its time offending and half apologizing, elementary, emotional reactions, and this is of no use compared to cinema.”
Imaginary autobiography
«Parthenope», his latest film, which was presented in competition at Cannes, will be released in Italian cinemas on 24 October distributed by Piperfilm; the hypothesis is to precede it with a program of special midnight screenings from 19 September. «Films are almost always autobiographical, at least for me, sometimes you disguise yourself well in the characters, sometimes less so. The same thing happens in Parthenope. There is not only what you have experienced but even more what you wish had happened to you. In practice afictional autobiographyperhaps even more powerful.”
The tutelary deities: Tarantino, Jarmush, Lynch
His tutelary gods? «The American cinema of the Nineties influenced me greatly, Tarantino, Jarmush, Lynch the whole generation that profoundly formed me, Scorsese although larger, and also Jane Campion». And the very Italian Neorealism? «I have some serious shortcomings, and it’s not the type of approach I have to cinematic storytelling. I felt the influence of Fellini, Scorsese, Lynch in me. While I wasn’t influenced by De Sica, even though he was objectively good».
«Sex? I’ve never done sex scenes, maybe one or two, I’ve never been interested in sex in the cinema but I’m interested in everything that surrounds it. As well as I have always been fascinated by the power that has to do with seduction and eroticismnot the act itself.”
