Eleonora Danco
N-Capace, Eleonora Danco (2014)
Eleonora Danco is an Italian actress, screenwriter, and film director. Well-known for her work in theatre, Danco earned a David di Donatello nomination for Best New Director with her feature film debut, N-Capace, which premiered at Lincoln Center's Open Roads New Italian Cinema Series, as well as Turin, where it won Best Actor and Best Film.
In an exclusive interview with Filmatique, Eleonora Danco discusses adversity in art, generational poles, wasted talent in contemporary Italian cinema and her next project.
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FILMATIQUE: N-Capace's framing device is a young woman's return to her hometown, to survey its people and what she left behind. This premise, however, belies a much deeper inquiry— the fabric of our identities; the small details that hold meaning; our origins; death. What was the genesis of this story— when did you decide you wanted to make this film?
ELEONORA DANCO: It all began ten years ago, after my mother passed away. Immediately after her death I started filming my father and his caretaker in my childhood home. I was very interested in understanding how they could adapt to living under the same roof, and share the intimacy of quotidian life.
At the same time I was not ready to accept that my father was growing old. That home, once full of life with five siblings running around, wasn't the same anymore. The rooms were empty. So I started filming him with the same technique I then mastered in the film— giving more importance to bodies than content. The alienation of those spaces was more interesting to me. It was almost like a game, a rebellion of my own feelings.
When I started the film a few years later, things had changed but the unconscious inspiration remained the same. It was still about my mother's death. Or rather, my relationship with my mother. I shot this film like a sixteen-year-old who skips school and spends her days wandering the streets. I wanted to break the rules like a teenage girl would. I wanted the film to be light, to float.
FLMTQ: Some of the more memorable moments involve interviews with the towns locals— its elders and its teenagers. The questions produce both comical and intimate moments, and draw the viewer deeper into the film's greater preoccupation: the fragility of existence. Why did you elect to focus on these two demographics to ruminate upon this topic?
ED: I chose these two demographics because they are the extremes. Two generations that, if put together, create a sort of vacuum because they are worthless in the schemes of productivity. They are not needed by society because they don't produce value— therefore they are not subject to stress, Their minds are free to wonder.
I also picked those people because they are the real people— their faces and their vocabulary are more creative, more inventive. I've been holding seminars for the past twelve years teaching my method to young actors in schools, as well as to the elderly. With the people in the film, I didn't do any of this. I let them be actors in their own lives without them even noticing. It was like shaping clay on set— a growing performance, but never accidental.
I worked on finding that electric shock. It was very surprising for me to discover that all these people were so sure about things in life— they didn't doubt anything. This is a form of repression that comes from the way we are educated to keep us safe. It could also be the fear of death. Or a social imposition to limit peoples' explosive vitality from coming to the surface.
N-Capace, Eleonora Danco (2014)
FLMTQ: There's an interesting contrast between these interviews and the performance sequences, narrated often via voice-over and in wider compositions— the main character (you, Eleonora) suspended in an empty space, sleeping inside a bed in the middle of a sidewalk, standing on the beach, etc. There is an isolated, almost disembodied atmosphere to these sequences that does not correlate with the other interviews. Did you consciously seek to portray the artist as isolated— as separate, alienated— or do these sequences hold a different performative meaning?
ED: I interpreted the character of Anima in Pena (a soul in pain; figuratively, a tortured soul) myself as it was easier given the tremendous amount of work it would require. It's a symbolic character. The film was shot in three steps, and the role of Anima in Pena was the last one to be included, partially built on the material I already had.
This character is in limbo, between the certainties imposed by society and the fact that we can't accept them. She can't pick a side. She is neither a positive nor a negative character, but fundamental because her conflict is unique compared to the other people in the film who are so sure of things. The bed is a form of protest, and the pajamas. It's like being a kid in your bedroom with no responsibility whatsoever.
Many people, especially young people, have written to me saying they recognized themselves in Anima in Pena: the one beating herself up on the beach. I interpret two characters in the film. On one side I'm the invisible director who asks questions, provokes and listens; on the other side I'm the artist living the crisis— Anima in Pena, sidetracking and creating trouble in the shadows, unseen by most.
FLMTQ: At a certain point the subjects of your interview become integrated in the performance sequences. Do you believe that art, and performance, is transformative in nature? If so, how?
ED: Art to me doesn't have meaning in terms of value, but in terms of possibilities. Nothing makes me feel so in contact with reality as when I stand in front of and connect with a piece of art. This idea of art is a guide in my work, a sort of agony that leads me towards what I truly desire. Things that are very much mine, but that I hope can touch people the same way they touch me.
You should never get attached to what you create. Never. Art should not have psychological impact, but rather strive to impact people physically and emotionally.
It's fundamental for me when I write or I act, or a shoot a film, to have visual references, and for this film it was the great Giorgio de Chirico. I wanted to take out everything that was current, present, contemporary— it's very hard when you shoot on the street because the stores and their signs are already fake. That's why I dressed some kids from the Roman suburbs like ancient Greeks. Or had people break eggs, eat bread, or whistle like I did with the farmers from Terracina. That's why I dressed my father and his caretaker like astronauts. It wasn't to surprise or to shock people, but rather because that's what I felt from their subconscious once I felt connected with them.
We had a lot of material, about 35 hours! It was very hard to find a film in there especially since we didn't have much in the way of a script. Marco Tecce's help was vital in this process. He is my closest collaborator— coming from video art, he knows my journey and it was him who built our editing structure. Thanks to Marco, N-Capace found its own legs which are taking it many places.
And Markus Acher from The Notwist who composed such potent music by glancing at small sequences I'd send him from time to time. Markus has put out a vinyl version of the soundtrack with my dad and the caretaker dressed like astronauts.
N-Capace, Eleonora Danco (2014)
FLMTQ: Your interviews with your father are by far the most hilarious, and heartbreaking, sequences of the film. Your assiduous transparency stands in stark contrast to his hermeticism, his clear desire not to engage in these probing questions. To what would you attribute these different spiritual reactions to a shared trauma— generation, gender, or simply individual goals? Do you believe in the idea that certain generations share a character, or is it the individual that matters?
ED: I was very tough on my father, very impulsive. I needed the tension. I wanted his words to feel like lava. I was technically taking him to a place where he had no boundaries, and it took me while to be able to unlock him. I knew at the end he would explode.
Picasso by Gertrude Stein was my source of inspiration. Gertrude asks the question of how much people change from one generation to another. I, like her, believe this change to be very small. Our rules of conduct are everywhere— at the supermarket, on TV, on the internet (which is perhaps where we are most free). It all looks so fast, but it's homogenizing. For us, it's over. I say this with no distress.
FLMTQ: While very established in theatre, this is your first feature film. What challenges did you encounter while producing this work— how did you find the disciplines to be different?
ED: I consider myself as a meticulous and rebellious performer— I risk too much and don't care about failing. Sometimes I want to disappear. These are all fights I have within myself. But eventually what I do is what saves me from going crazy.
Writing is also very tough, but it's thanks to my devotion to writing for theater that I felt so strong on the set of N-Capace. I wasn't afraid of anything. Being on set for me was like going onstage. It felt fabulous.
In terms of production, I think that theater in Italy isn't in quite as bad of shape as cinema. You can still make theater with very little money.
For the film, I knocked on many doors before I met Cecilia Valmarana, who back then was a producer for Rai Cinema. She saw me onstage and understood my work immediately. Also the producer Angelo Barbagallo, who saw me in theater, believed in the project. And now Lucky Red, who distributed the film via DVD.
I believe in adversity. An artist wouldn't exist without adversity. If you are talented, sooner or later you'll come out— it's up to you whether you fight for it or give up. Van Gogh and Nietzsche are great examples: nobody would listen to them. Art can be very violent. It's a constant conflict.
N-Capace, Eleonora Danco (2014)