At the San Salvatore in Lauro Museums in Rome, until July 19th, the exhibition Dante Ferretti. With My Own Eyes, curated by Raffaele Curi, showcases sketches, studies, and paintings. The exhibition aims not so much to reveal the behind-the-scenes of cinema, but rather to highlight the starting point of Dante Ferretti, an Oscar-winning set and costume designer.
Five films with Fellini. One of the sketches on display was created for And the Ship Sails On: “For that set, we built a massive platform on springs inside the soundstage. Fellini arrived, looked, said ‘Beautiful, I like it,’ then lowered his voice: ‘I have a problem: I get seasick. I vomit up there.’ I said: ‘You’re not vomiting because you don’t like the set, are you? Solution: a fixed turret built next to the moving ship. Fellini directed motionless while everything around him was oscillating.'”
After thirty years with Scorsese, what do you no longer need to say to each other?
“With him, we said very little. I would read the script and draw everything. I’d build the sets, and he’d come to see them the day before shooting began. It was incredible; he’d always say, ‘Dante, look, I’m tired, I have to finish shooting. See you tomorrow morning?’ And I’d say, ‘But look, we have to shoot. Tomorrow morning the scene is new, don’t you want to come see?’ And he’d say, ‘Alright, I’ll pop in for a moment.’ I made nine films with him. It seems everything went very well – he recounts ironically – and I even received some awards.”
One of those was an Oscar…
“We were shooting Shutter Island near Boston. Fifth nomination. I told Martin, ‘I’m not coming this time.’ We went four times, and they never gave us anything; we’d sit there watching everyone else get up. He said, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ He had a private jet, he convinced us. We went. We were so unconfident that we hadn’t prepared any speech. We didn’t even have seats in the hall: they had put us backstage with the other set designers, the technicians. At one point, Halle Berry reads the nominations. She says, ‘This year, the Oscar for Best Set Design goes to Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo for The Aviator.’ We could hardly believe it. No speech, nothing; we were just there and said, ‘Thank you, this is for our children, long live Italy, long live cinema, long live America.’ (pauses, then laughs) Down with Donald Trump: I’ll say that now.”
Scorsese in Cinecittà to shoot Gangs of New York. Did you bring him to your Rome…
“We were in Venice. We left for Rome on a private plane – myself, my wife Francesca, and the producer Barbara De Fina. Upon landing at Ciampino, he said he had to fly back to America. I said, ‘First, let’s go to the restaurant opposite Cinecittà, the food is good.’ It was Sunday, everything was closed. I called and had them open up. I started sketching there, on the spot. Then I brought the sketches and models to America. Harvey Weinstein saw the models and said, ‘It’s beautiful, it can be done.’ Gangs of New York was shot entirely at Cinecittà. The only shot with the real New York was two actors in front of a green screen on the Hudson River. And in the finale, there was the image of the Twin Towers being hit by planes; that’s why the film was released a year later.”
Your second Oscar was born from a failure…
“Two months of location scouting in China with Tim Burton. We returned to London on a Saturday. Monday morning, he arrived at the office dressed in black. He hadn’t washed: he smelled. And crying, he told me, ‘Look, the producer has withdrawn the funds. It’s not happening anymore.’ There were 200 million for that film. ‘But I have another little film to make. We only have 50 million.’ I said, ‘Alright, it doesn’t matter, let’s do it anyway. We’ll spend less. But you’ll give me all my money.’ The film was Sweeney Todd. We rebuilt everything at Shepperton: no bluescreen, everything constructed, with little money. They called a good set designer – he admits with his typical self-irony – who managed to do what he did. And it was my second Oscar.”
An Oscar for Hugo Cabret, a film that lives on wonder but also on substance: iron, glass, gears, dust. Can artificial intelligence imitate that imagination?
“Hugo Cabret was the last Oscar. It’s a film I loved very much. Visually powerful. I believe an artificial intelligence wouldn’t be able to give that… (pauses, then laughs) No, I adore artificial deficiency. In fact, I’m naturally deficient, not artificially.”
Today, is a set designer still an author, or have they become a budget line to be cut?
“Today, it has been greatly reduced. They use computer-generated elements a lot. I, on the other hand, am still a bricklayer. I like bricks one on top of the other, not just concrete. Roman aqueducts still stand, our bridges fall. I get under my brick bridges and try to hold them up with my hands.”
Does Italian cinema lack resources, or a vision?
“I haven’t worked in Italian cinema for a long time. The last film I made in Italy was with Fellini. Then there was The Name of the Rose with Annaud: a masterpiece. And The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. When it was released in America, they said it was the most beautiful film in terms of set design ever made in the history of cinema. However, it didn’t make a single lira. It wasn’t a public success.”
You made up for it with Hugo Cabret…
“Together with my wife Francesca Lo Schiavo, who is the set decorator. We’ve been working together for a lifetime. I am Dante Ferretti Lo Schiavo: my wife’s slave. She’s very good, she’s in charge. We have 20 nominations between us. Three Oscars, 4 BAFTAs, 5 David di Donatello, 14 Nastri d’Argento. All on IKEA shelves. An inferno.”
You designed your tomb. Is it your final set design?
“Yes, yes. The funny part is the section where I called the other dead friends who were upstairs… I was downstairs, I had made an apartment, and I invited them for dinner. They’d ask, ‘What are we eating?’ And I’d say, ‘Go see those who have been dead for one, two, three days. Open them up, cut: there’s still meat. Bring it down, we’ll grill it, let’s eat.’ And we ate, all of us skeletons. Then they would return to their tombs, and I would go to sleep. I had a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, a bedroom, a television. I made a nice apartment for myself, I must say.”
Better than an Egyptian pharaoh…
“Eh, I know… what can I do? They copied me.
You leave no heirs. Will there not be another Ferretti?
“No. Only brass, copper, iron. If it continues like this, plastic. But I’m too old to think about it now: I’m 52 plus VAT.”
