Innovators, Events, Honors
Backlot
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER 97 OCTOBER 16, 2019
UP:
EV
ERETT^COLLECTION.^ WERTMÜ
LLER:^ S
AMIR^ HUSSEIN
/WIREI
MA
GE.
DA
VIS
:^ TASOSKA
TOPOD
IS/GETTY^ IMAGES.^ STUDI:^ JEFF^ KRAVITZ
/FILMMAGI
C.^Was coming to America your hard-
est moment?
Obviously, it hasn’t always
been easy and there have been
some projects that didn’t come
through. But my strength was
that I never let it get to me. If one
project closed down, I wouldn’t
look behind, I would look forward.You’re still directing theater. Have
you stopped directing film?
I still do theater but I haven’t
stopped making films. I have a
lot of ideas and projects in the
drawer and if a production com-
pany comes through, I would love
to do one.I believe your full name is
Arcangela Felice Assunta
Wertmüller von Elgg Spañol von
Braueich. Is that true?
It ’s t r ue! T hat ’s my rea l na me.
And from Arcangela came Lina.Interview edited for length
and clarity.From Avant-Garde
Puppets to Auteur
Lina Wertmüller has always
looked forward By Stephen Galloway
I
t’s hard to believe that Lina
Wertmüller is 91 years old,
the last member of a sto-
ried group of Italian filmmakers
— from Rossellini to Visconti
to Fellini, her mentor — whose
impact has been felt around the
world. If Wertmüller, the first
woman ever nominated for a
directing Oscar, leaned more in
the direction of the absurd than
they did in her greatest films
(1972’s The Seduction of Mimi,
1974’s Swept Away and 1975’s
Seven Beauties), she nonetheless
acknowledges a debt to them —
particularly Fellini, for whom she
worked as an assistant
director on 1963’s 8½.
Prior to accepting an hon-
orary Oscar on Oct. 27, the
feisty filmmaker — the
black sheep of an aristo-
cratic family, who ran away from
school 15 times before finding a
career in the arts and still tilts at
the establishment — spoke with
THR (via translator) about him
and her career.You started out working with an
avant-garde puppet group. How did
that lead to film?It happened by chance. I had
just finished drama school and
this lady had a puppet company.
I started working with her and
then became an assistant to sev-
eral directors in theater.You were Fellini’s assistant, too.
Tell me about working on 8½.
Fellini asked me to find the
“faces” — faces of people to be
extras. But he didn’t want them
to come from casting places; he
wanted to find them in the street.
He once saw a face he liked get into
a taxi and told me, “Follow that
face!” So I jumped in a taxi to find
her. Did I find her? Yes.What did Fellini change in
your thinking about film?
He had a very profound
impact on me because he
was a creator of situations. More
than anything else, he gave me a
sense of freedom in my method of
work — creating a situation on a
set, in the moment, as opposed to
[something fixed] in a studio. That
artistic freedom I learned from
him. He also gave me a special
suggestion: He told me, “Tell the
story as if you were in a bar tellingit to friends. And if you have a
talent to tell stories, you will be
able to tell them well. Don’t worry
about the technical aspects.”When you began, was it extra dif-
ficult being a woman?
No. If you have strength of charac-
ter, there is no problem.Do you think of yourself as
a feminist?
No. It’s not part of my principles.
The choice between man and
woman has no importance.
What’s important are the charac-
ter and the qualities each one has.There was one brief moment when
you came to Hollywood to make
films. Why didn’t it last?
Hollywood is very structured,
just like America. In Italy, we have
great freedom and I can feel that
in my work. Here in Italy, we can
change a scene on the day of the
shoot, but in America you can’t do
that, and I felt it.A TRIO OF LEGENDS ON THE GOVERNORS AWARDS STAGE
The Academy’s leadership tapped an actress-activist, an eccentric auteur and a prolific actor for honors Oct. 27Governors
Awards
Oct. 27
Ray Dolby
BallroomGEENA DAVIS
The 63-year-old actress who
is known for The Accidental
Tourist (for which she won an
Oscar), Beetlejuice, Thelma
& Louise and A League of
Their Own now splits her time
between acting and advocating
for gender equality in media.DAVID LYNCH
One of American cinema’s most
original and eccentric voices,
Lynch, 73, helmed Eraserhead,
The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet
and Mulholland Drive. The
four-time Oscar nominee most
recently revived his Twin Peaks
series on Showtime in 2017.WES STUDI
The Cherokee actor, 71, has
appeared in more than 30 films,
including Dances With Wolves,
The Last of the Mohicans,
Geronimo: An American Legend
and The New World. He’ll become
the second Native American to
receive an Oscar.Lina Wertmüller with actor Nino Bignamini on the set of
All Screwed Up in 1973. Right: Wertmüller at the 2019
Cannes Film Festival.