When the real prison is “Outside”. Mario Martone pays homage to Goliarda Sapienza
The story of a woman who finds refuge, salvation in the people with whom she shared the experience of prison. Prison as a place of real relationships. As a place where she could be known for who she was, while outside – in the free world – she was an outcast. We could also tell it like this in “Fuori”, the film by Mario Martone currently in Italian theaters, after being in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. A film in which prison is a place of salvation, and where the environments of the rich bourgeoisie are the real prison for Goliarda, played by Valeria Golino. Martone, the director of “L'amore molesto”, “Il giovane favoloso” and “Capri Revolution”, explores an episode in the life of the writer Goliarda Sapienza in the film. The days in which the writer ended up in prison, for stealing some jewelry from a friend. And those in which, in the sunny and desolate Rome of 1980, she frequented her former companions in prison outside of prison, finding in them that truth, vitality, humanity that she had not found in the Roman literary salons, which barely tolerated her. We talk about it with Mario Martone, director and – together with Ippolita di Majo – screenwriter of the film.
The film is called “Fuori”. Out of prison, of course. But also out of the living rooms of Roman intellectuals of the 70s and 80s. An out as existential discomfort.
“Exactly. Goliarda Sapienza was uncomfortable, uncomfortable in life, uncomfortable because her novel, 'The Art of Joy,' had been rejected by publishers. She was a marginalized woman, she felt like she was in prison even when she was outside.” Prison is at the center of the story. Not only because some scenes were filmed in Rebibbia prison, with inmates who made themselves available as extras, but also because prison, the experience of prison, is always present in the “outside” of the three protagonists. What does Goliarda make us understand, in your opinion, about prison?
“It makes us understand that prison is not a part of society to be forgotten, to be kept 'apart', abandoned. It is a part of society. There are people like us in it. In an interview with Enzo Biagi, which we put at the end of the film, the real Goliarda says 'I never thought I would end up in prison', while anyone can end up there”.
Paradoxically, it is with her ex-prisoner friends that Goliarda finds her sense of freedom again.
“Yes: ultimately, the entire film tells of their happily drifting. If they asked me what 'Fuori' tells, I would say I don't know: the summer of these two friends, who at a certain point become three. Everything is very free, in the style, in the way of telling the story”.
In the interview of which we see a fragment at the end of the film, Enzo Biagi seems particularly little inclined to understand Goliarda Sapienza: he doesn't listen to her, he seems to have already given a judgment on her.
“That fragment shows that the years have not passed in vain. Today we have a sensitivity that makes us immediately see that scene with a certain discomfort. It is clear how, at the beginning of the 80s, the things that Goliarda Sapienza said were not listened to. To make a comparison, even Pasolini, when he went on television, a few years earlier, caused a scandal: but people listened to him, because he was a man. While the words of Goliarda Sapienza seemed like the whims of a lady, that no one took the trouble to listen to”.
Was Goliarda in prison in her life?
“She was, because no one published her book 'The Art of Joy', she was marginalized. She had married a younger man, and if having him as a lover might seem chic, a plus, having him married was considered a somewhat inappropriate gesture. It was he who, after Goliarda's death, did everything he could to get the novel published. 'The Art of Joy' was published posthumously in 1998, and only achieved great success when it was republished by Einaudi in 2008”. How do you recognize yourself in the story of Goliarda Sapienza?
“Each of my films is, in some way, also a self-portrait. I was also happy to immerse myself in a female dimension, to meet the other, in this case three female characters. I have always been attracted to telling the story of female characters: it happened in 'L'amore molesto', with the character of Anna Bonaiuto, and in 'Capri Revolution', with the character played by Marianna Fontana”.
What would you like to "take" from Goliarda's message?
"If we managed to make people understand at least a little what Goliarda thought about her relationship with prison, we did a good thing."
Luce
