Margherita Hack, a life without filters: “Rebuilt the scientist’s dialogue with her experience”
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The hardest thing, but in the end also the most beautiful, the stylistic signature of this very successful film was “visualizing the voice” of Margherita Hack. Samuele Rossi, the director, wanted to do it so much that in order to keep this obsession of his he devoted a year and a half of enormous effort to the goal: “We had an unedited audio recording, the most important added value of the film, one of the last that there are of her on tape – says Rossi, a Florentine documentary maker specializing in biographies – It was given to us by Federico Taddia who had collected dozens of hours of conversation to write the biography of Margherita Hack. We unwrapped it with painstaking patience, cutting and sewing with the aim of creating a unique and new emotional line. It was very hard but at the same time extremely rewarding to work on the tapes and put them back together to reconstruct the dialogue between Margherita and her experience of hers. And make them become the narrator of the entire film ».
Margherita pizza. The voice of the stars will be presented at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence in national preview, in the year of the centenary of his birth, on 12 November at the Cinema La Compagnia. And it will be broadcast on Rai Tre at 3.35 pm on the 18th. Produced by Rai Documentari and Minerva Pictures, and enriched by many testimonies such as those of Taddia and Serena Dandini. It is a biopic in perfect classic style: interviews, historical reconstruction, live footage in the places of the character’s life. Deep and thorough. The key junctions in Hack’s life are well known: childhood in Florence, athletics and fascism, love with Aldo, the discovery of science passing through letters, the first professional elbowing in Arcetri, the battles to establish herself as a scientist, the discovery of popularization, fame.
Samuele Rossi puts them together with wisdom and rigor, but adds this personal point of view born from those months of painstaking pre-production work: the camera that sneaks like a snake between the scientist’s desk and laboratories, her books and personal objects, photographs, memorabilia, all reconstructed ad hoc by the set designer, to accompany the voice of Hack that gushes free and warm from those tapes and that with this trick it is as if it took life and body again.
Rossi has become an expert in this kind of film: in 2014 he made his debut with the 7 biographies of partisans La memoria degli last, which he himself defines as “a great little biography of the Resistance”. Then the qualitative leap with Indro the man who wrote on water, the last biopic made on Montanelli, «between lights and shadows». Then, again, the Sacred Fire format dedicated to 4 great writers of the twentieth century united by a sacred fire: Alda Merini, Luciano Bianciardi, Elsa Morante and Cesare Pavese. And now he is editing a new documentary on Carmelo Bene. The one with Margherita Hack was for him «an unwanted encounter – he continues – I knew her, she is a character who has always intrigued and attracted me. But I had never had the desire to tell it: Rai proposed it to me as I deal with biographical documentaries, because I love to immerse myself in the life of others and capture its meaning. And when I started researching the Hack I realized that there was much more than the public profile of the scientist we all know. I understood that I was dealing with a very “real” person with a great ability to open up and be known. With a very direct character, which she has always sown well. With the good faith and intellectual honesty of those who defend their point of view with conviction ».
Here, in fact, that need to “capture the meaning” of a life led him to understand that in Margherita Hack there were different senses. «The fact of being transparent towards the world and people, adhering directly, immediately, without filter, to things. An underlying truth that gives you a major boost of passion in everyday life. And then the naturalness and the courage to be yourself, despite the edges, qualities that today are particularly rare and precious. And finally that magnificent smile that he had, and that he transmits to you. Leave the room and – at least I hope – these feelings remain in your pocket: his smile, his courage and naturalness ».
The challenge was precisely to take his voice and make him a living and present character, not just something simply “narrating”. But it wasn’t the only one. You also had to work a lot on the repertoire: 40 years of raids between conferences, television programs, books, meetings with his beloved students of all ages. “There are so many beautiful things left out. We started working on it in December 2020 “ he says a little regretful for the sacrifices that have occurred. “Traveling both in Florence and in Trieste it was like retracing his journey. Not only in memory, but also in physical places. And for this I can only thank you ».
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November 8, 2022 | 12:22
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