torino #4

the 2nd screening more than half full at 12:30 on a tuesdat afternoon, alot of applause, and I was approached by a guy, massimo after the screening, he is interested in showing it in roma, he spoke to me in italian, i heard you speak, rumoour travels fast in torino.
it's a little bit too swiss here for my tastes, not the chaos of napolio or palermo, a northern intellectual energy, that can be very oppresive. note from last night
The filmmakers can be very isolated here, it's not personal, everyone else is.
I saw the egyptian museum here today it was the shit, old school just stuff in miles of cases like the louvre used to be, incredible collection.
last screening this afternoon, began at 2:15, I was packing and arranging with the lovely elizabetta being picked by a driver tomorrow morning. The others were there but nobody said hi, or bye, i guess. well, that's really swiss. i mean interesting. so i hit the screening just towards the end two thirds full, and i said to the gal who was in the charge of the house that i was buying beers at the pizza place downstairs, and that i would like to invite all in the room to join me, i got 22 people, almost all of em kids, and it was wide, free range conversation in italian and english on everything cultural, it cost me 40 euros and we did for an hour smoking and drinking in front of the pizza parlor, they had a window and just passed out the beers, one of the guys had a joint and lit it up, it was great, it's like the energy we put into that film was transfered out into the street in front of this pizza stand as the sun was going down.

much love

bone blog

torino #3

bone blogers
domenica
I had to run off yesterday, before i could finish the opening night of celluloid - The audience was energized at the end of the film, this always happens with those who make it through, the q n a was raucous, several languages running around, and my interperter marina working the whole night. I did get compared to Abel ferarra, dangerous games by manuella martina the chief programmer for the festival - after i was out for a smoke and a beer, and the realization that this was the high water mark so far.

after there was a party at on the banks of the river po- there was live music - the first band was young and very good, and i even got comped free drink tickets. I talked to a ton of people including the director of the festival nanni moretti - whose getting hammered in the italian press over his directorship - my ten minutes of italian is really working, but i really had to take a piss, so i slipped away and inbetween two parked cars, i pissed into the river po, it does not get any better.

lunedi
the film maker lunch sponsored by the italian film, lasciate perdere johnny was held in the largest 15th century private palace in torino - it was smoking - but of course no smoking allowed. but there were several young women who looked like they stepped out of a sixteenth century northern italian painting - the food was piemontese carne, carne, meat.I was hurting from the night before, but i was not alone in that way, the italians could barely open their eyes.. Fabio my brother in law from rome, came in at 4, right away off to the movies, la primma, delitto della strada, crime in the street, the first film john casavettes made as an actor, helmed by the always terse, don siegel. i had never seen it, but it was fantastic, a really young sal mineo. the print was from the british film institute, casavettes plays an emotionally stunted 18 yr old juvenile delinquen in brooklyn. he lives in a slum apartment with his single mom and baby brother. This film has one of the greatest kisses in screen history. a woman, sal mineos sister, reminds him that they had kissed when they were both kids, he does not remember and she proceeds to tell him how much that kiss meant to her, and that only he could saved if he went back to that kiss, he refuses but she keeps coming, it is a great fucking movie.
dinner search - w fabio, a cab driver told him about the restaurant 3 gallini three little roosters - we found it after an hours search, it was almost secretive. we entered no one was inside, we ordered, meat, meat and more meat. about 8 thirty people started coming in, we finished and off to the movies again. Lo statto delle cose, the state of things, wender angry response to five years in hollywood, probably the greatest film he ever made. it has sam fuller playing the dp, shot on the coast in portugal, lisbon, and el lay, all in black and white. i havenàt seen it since it was released, great film.
more tomorrow

the bone blog.

torino #2

it is the aftternoon and i have no idea what is going on. at the theater - no one knows anything - on the street a woman comes up to me - it is paola - i am in good hands - i take a breath.

i do not want to say we sold out, WE SOLD OUT. Before the film they introduced me, my interpeter marina translated the intro, then it was my turn to speak, first words, holy shit, and then in italian, i said my film is very sensitive, my film is very profound, my film is very sympatheticm NOT. i then went to define my film as the oppisite, marina translated and the audience laughed and never stopped. i do not want to say the projection was great, it was phenomenal, the sound was
right at the edge where i like it. i watched til the end of the piper laurie sequence, they got it. of course we had the requisite numbers of walk outs in the first scene, but their seats were quickly refilled. i hit the streets for a smoke and a woman approached me, you are steve, yes- i chose your film, i thought it was very funny. i am going to be asking questions in the q n a. - i then met everybody and everybody is smoking like fiends. i popped into the film at the last scene, izzy kissing julie was almost romantic.they loved everything acting, music, and camera, and the q n a was phenomenl, i have to run
though to the film makers lunch



wuv and kisses



bone blog

torino

La primma notte in Torino, is not where the blog starts. it starts at 5:30 am leaving new york on a tuesday morning trying to get a cab on 10th ave. I am up early but figure I will sleep on the plane. The sun was rising as I hit the van wyck, and it was to set 6 hours later over the atlantic, making it the shortest day of my life. I arrived in london 8pm local time, but was at the intrepid fox downing pints and smoking cigarettes in a very mild outside.
Next morning up early for breakfast on brompton road, then over to the british museum to see the clay soldiers of the first chinese emporer *he is the creator of the great wall* he died, but for his tomb he created an army of clay soldiers to protect him in the underworld. 20 of the soldiers traveled- but it was the still mystery that obsessed me - the actual tomb is still uncovered, but he replicated his china within it. The rivers are flowing mercury and the night sky is lit with pearls.
A quick stop to see Micheal at Bankrobber gallery the new show is russell young silkscreens. Fame and shame, they were showing the shame part, I like this guys work an incredible portrait of kennedy on a mortuary slab in Dallas. These dealers are interesting they have a show of Bansky in New York in december.
Off to disappointment at Sherrys of London, my suit was not ready.
Drinks with future bonefilm star mat fraser, who is quite the agriculturalist, one needs to sample his herbal remedies, and ally gamble - the only white gal on ave. b back in the day. Mat says a special hello to bonefilm star Julie Atlas Muz, and Ally says hello to anyone. Dinner is japanese comfort food and the perpetual nite cap is at the crobar off charing cross road. OUCH
Another day another city, arrived in rome around 7 and was eating dinner with my family there at 8. A quiet night, but the next was spent with my dear friend lluisa and her up from the husband, whom we dumped to wander the night time streets of trastevere. Roma is warm, you barely need a sweater, of course the romans are walking around in furs. Europe is wealthy and the dollar is in free fall, breakfast is 30 bucks a pint is 8, do not go to dinner. my brother in law fabio, romano, romano takes me on a winding nightime crawl of the eternal city, we meet two gals from san francisco, they are totally charmed with his roman ways.
plane to the airport, beautiful roman morning driving past musolini vision of a modern rome. Arrived in Torino to be picked up by Elena who is working for the festival, she drives me into town. I ask her if her last name is agnelli? she answers magari, new word wish/magari. The hotel is totally depressing had to immediately do some voodoo on the room to clean the bad spirits, then off to the movies, with a million other people, everyone in torino was at the movies, of course it has been raining non stop for 3 days, everything i tried to get into is pleno - new word pleno/full e fa pleno. I tried to see Irina palm with marianne faithfull, but end up at the directors cut of til the end of the world, 280 minutes long, wim wender is trying to make his apocalypse now. he was there talking in english after the movie, and said some really great shit at local time 2 am, but it is a totally different film from the one I remember, though there is great stuff with jeanne morreau, just kicks everybodies ass on the screen, i do not think he improved it.
I walked home alone in the rain, singing o solo mio.
The european premiere is tonight, more domani
the bone blog.