INTERVIEW WITH GABRIELE MUCCINO:
How big a deal was it to get Monica Bellucci to play one of the smaller roles in the film?
It was very easy. She wanted to work with me after having seen my movie, “One Last Kiss.” So we met each other three years ago at a film festival and she told me how much she loved “Last Kiss” and how much she wanted to work with me. I tell her, “Okay, let me think about that.” So when I started work on the script of “Remember Me,” I just pictured Monica for Alessia’s character and when I proposed the role, she was enthusiastic. She was matching with the character. What I did and what I always do before filming is we did many, many rehearsals. We did a month of rehearsing with all the actors – no one excluded. I think the strength of the cast comes from the job we did directly before [shooting].
What’s the advantage of doing that many rehearsals?
I think we have many, many advantages. I think the main is that all the actors know deeply each other. They have already the balance, the tone, the pace. They know where they come from. They know what I want from them. They have time for finding the right chemistry. Basically, when we finally go on the set, everybody is very relaxed. Everybody knows what I want and I know what they can give me, so we just have to put the camera on and film it. The work becomes faster and easier, and much more productive.
If you have weak points in the script, they come out. If you have fake dialogue, they [come out]. Reading it over and over makes you understand if you did a good job or not on the script. They are there, they are acting, and if something sounds fake, it is because of the script. Sometimes the dialogue is written for personalities that are not always the same as the actors who are in front of you. You have to change something, you have to adjust the personality of a character.
Was part of the story autobiographical?
I wouldn’t say it was autobiographical. I would say it’s very, very, very much connected to my own life, my sensibilities, my background, my view on the world. That’s very much in the movie. It’s very much my movie. I never could have found anyone else able to write this movie like I did it. It belongs to my life very much. It is autobiographical without being autobiographical because nothing really happened in real life. It’s different, but it’s still very, very close to my own life.
What attracts you to writing about compromises that have to be made in long term relationships and family commitments?
The characters – the inability and a capability to accept their own lives and to walk through their own path. They want always to jump somewhere else. They want to be somebody else. They are frustrated, unhappy, insecure, incomplete and unresolved. I’m very attracted by all this, this atmosphere.
If you are happy, then you make happy your children, your wife, the happiness is contagious. But the sadness is even more contagious. And if your parents spend all their life fighting each other, you won’t ever be – I believe – a complete and a resolved human being. You’ll try to find somebody to provoke. It’s very human unfortunately, and your children will suffer the same pain you suffered when you were a child. The humanity comes from the humanity that preceded it. We are what our parents transmitted to us.
The movie deals with universal issues. Do you think European audiences are more accepting than American audiences?
I can’t make a comparison. The film hasn’t really been released here. I don’t know what will be the reactions of families. I’ve seen [a few] reactions to the movie, which is very, very similar to the reactions in France or in Italy. At The Egyptian Theater, I even noticed they were catching little details that were not caught in Italy. Being a distance from that culture let’s you see even more things, I think. Sometimes people were laughing at things that were very subtle, not very visible, but they noticed that. And so that makes me understand that as the director, I’m very universal. The story is, but also the way it’s been told. It reaches different audiences.
Did you write the part specifically for your brother Silvio?
Yes, I did because I really, I didn’t invent so much for his character. When I was writing this movie, I was inventing many things for the others, and then I wanted to have [this character] very, very near to his personality. So I just imported him into the story and it was very easy to write his character.
