All language subtitles for MONDON MACABRO presents

The film is from 1 975,
that's to say we shot it in 1 975

when it was completed it went to
the Cannes Film festival in 1 976

So what sort of year was 1 976,
or even better, 1 975, for me?

It was a very significant year

One which saw us conclude
this production in a very few months

We managed that thanks to
a producer called Edmondo Amati ...

with whom during spring 1 975,
if I remember correctly...

we went together to speak
with Giorgio Venturini ...

to whom we told the idea,
nothing had been written...

which was indeed that of turning
the Mayerling story upside down...

and making of it a kind of
black fairy tale

To tell what, in Jancsó's head ,
might have been the truth...

thus umasking
a fabrication of history

He really liked this idea and said :
"Get to work right away".

He already had a co-production deal
with Jadran Film ...

so in the late spring, I remember,
we drove all the way to Croatia...

searching locations for 3 or 4 days
with people from Jadran Films

We found this amazing place,
actually in Slovenia, not Croatia...

that's to say,
in what is now Slovenia

So that year was...

It was the year that cemented my
relationship with Jancsó, for sure

H istorical facts are well known

There'd already been 2 or 3 films
made about Mayerling

So what's the official version?
Well ...

that Prince Rodolfo
fell in love with Maria Vetsera...

and since he couldn't marry her,
as he was heir to the throne...

he had to marry the woman
chosen for him by his father

So they lived out their secret affair
in this royal love nest...

as he knew
they could never marry

And so he and Maria Vetsera
committed suicide

This is the historical version
on which a few films had been based

I remember one with
Catherine Deneuve as Vetsera

So what was our idea?

That this story of suicide had been
made up by the Imperial government

Rodolfo's father didn't like his son
because of his liberal ideas

He'd rejected the bourgeois nature
of the Austro-H ungarian empire

so Rodolfo and his lover were killed
by the imperial guards...

under orders from his father

Over the corpses of the two,
the empire made up this love story

This is the idea
which Jancsó had in mind ...

and which we developed
during the film

Obviously, since the film was shot
during the 1 970's - in 1 975...

it has the vibe of that time,
of when it was made

the idea that freedom
was naked bodies...

that freedom was
mixed relationships

that you expressed your own
freedom through the body

therefore, through nudity

The film is deeply influenced
by an idea of "the last revolution. . ."

After which there would be paradise
and total freedom

We spoke to the present day
via this historical re-creation

I think that even now
watching the film ...

rather than the anti-romantic view
which the film wanted to impart...

it's more easy to see that 70's vibe

I'd worked with Jancsó for years
and always the same way

We first presented an idea
to that producer

as he was already interested ,
we didn't create a script...

but what is called a treatment

to build the skeleton of a script
through a number of scenes

and from that to formulate
the skeleton of the film

And work from there up to
the final version of the script

But about this I need to say a lot

as Jancsó's method of working,
especially on location...

really showed its full potential
on this film

He's someone who is more influenced
by the location than by the script

Many of the written scenes were
totally changed on location...

because he fell in love
with a tracking shot...

or with something suggested
by one of the actors...

or by the dances, of which
there are many in the film

I often found myself in the hotel
in the evening...

rewriting the dialogues
for the following day...

and then giving the pages
to the actors...

as they got ready
the next morning

Not all of them
were exactly happy about that

They'd already learned
1 0 pages of dialogue...

and then they had to learn
a whole new lot in half an hour

It was very much
a work in progress

That was his general method anyway

But, especially in this film ,
there was a lot of improvisation

Maybe a dance group
arrived from H ungary...

so we would then
shoot the party scene...

the one which starts with the
photography...

where Branciaroli takes a
picture of the imperial group

That for example is a long take
that wasn't in the script...

and which was
completely improvised on location

We used to work
in a rather unusual way...

and I have to say that the actors
especially the leads...

were very understanding
about all this...

and after some initial resistance,
they really had a lot of fun...

it was a very
theatrical way of working

And as there were
numerous long takes...

we rehearsed a lot before shooting
which was usual for Jancsó

There were many rehearsals
sometimes very lengthy...

sometimes we shot nothing
and rehearsed all day long...

and then we had to wait
for the right light...

since the film was mostly exteriors
so we needed good light

So we'd wait for the right time
and the right light...

to shoot those ten minutes takes

It was really made
out of improvisation

This wasn't the first time
I'd worked as assistant director

On La Pacifista, the first film
I made with Jancsó...

I was also screenwriter
and assistant director

At first he didn't speak Italian...

so I was an interpreter between
him and the actors and the crew...

those who couldn't speak French,
which was the other language he spoke

So what was my role?

That of rewriting
dialogues at nightime...

of being on set
like all the assistants...

of helping actors with their lines,
especially when they improvised

By the way, the film wasn't shot
with live sound

There were some who spoke French
and others Italian or H ungarian

For example Balázsovits, the main actor,
used to say his lines in H ungarian

It was a very cosmopolitan set...

so I had to be in control
of the dialogue as well

So in addition to being an assistant,
I was a mediator, in a sense...

between Miklós and the cast,
between Miklós and the actors...

between him and the crew

I was kind of a custodian
for his secret aspirations...

which I had to transmit
and explain to the others

A work of diplomacy,
if we can call it that

The screenplay had been written
with Lajos Balázsovits in mind ...

since Miklós wanted Lajos
for the role of the Crown Prince

So the main character was in both
our heads when we started writing

All the others came slowly
one by one

After Lajos, Teresa Ann Savoy
was maybe the first actress chosen

We saw her
in a film by Lattuada...

where she was very young,
very pretty, very interesting...

and Miklós
wanted to meet with her

Then, as happens
with any film production...

once the screenplay was ready,
we started to meet actors, agents etc

The core at the beginning was Lajos,
and Lajos remained the strongest core

I have to say
that everything was very easy...

looking back at this film
after many years

The writing, the relationship with
the producers and co-producers...

the choice of both the cast
and the crew...

it all came together
very naturally...

with no great problems on the way

Laura Betti's role, for instance,
who plays the prince's nanny...

Miklós and I were both good friends
with Laura Betti ...

and when we told her
we were working on this film ...

She said : "I want to be there,
I want to do something"

So Laura's role was created for her,
because we knew her so well ...

her excesses, her style of acting,
how she interacted with people

Laura's role was based on Laura,
on how she was in real life

So I would say that everything
came together very easily...

and it was one of the easiest films
that I did with Jancsó

Franco Branciaroli was
a young actor back then...

an up and coming
young theatre actor

He really wanted to meet Jancsó,
very much wanted to work with him

The amazing thing about
those two young actors...

Pamela Villoresi
and Franco Branciaroli ...

who back then were rising stars
of the Italian theater...

they both really wanted
to work with Jancsó

They didn't ask to read anything

We said : "We start next week". . .
"Great, we'll be there next week"

They gave themselves in a very
spontaneous and open way...

to the relationship with the film , with us,
with the troupe and everything

During those 5 or 6 weeks
that we spent on the location...

since then there was only one hotel ,
once we were done shooting...

we went all together to the same hotel
which was close to the film location

We were together all the time...

and it was very much a community,
if I can put it like that...

where everybody worked , ate, slept,
came together, very naturally...

much like the story of the film itself
when I think about it

Another interesting thing in Jancsó's
working method

is that he didn't only begin,
as in this film ...

with Balázsovits as the main character,
or Laura Betti as the licentious nanny...

but he began with the location

So before writing we spent time
looking for the locations...

or the house, because in this case
all the film is set there

So the screenplay was written
based on the photos we took

How the wood looked , how to
pass from interior to exterior...

how dollies could get in and out
and move around

That's how we built the screenplay...

which, as I said , could be changed
during the shooting...

but it was a strong framework
for costing the production...

and gave an idea of the style,
how the camera would move...

and was a big help for the actors
to see the theatrics...

how they had to move, enter,
exit, even change costumes...

and then get back into the same take
with different clothes

Kind of like in the theatre, as I said

The location really was
another character in the film

as on that location we built...

I remember an idea that came up
during the planning...

as there was this beautiful park
in front of the villa...

we had the idea, which
then happened in the film ...

of having a painter, a friend of ours,
create a trompe l'oeil...

and to paint a scene of the park
on an inner wall of the castle

So you'd come in from the park...

and there was a painting of the park
on the wall in front of you

She went there some months before
to create that huge fresco...

some kind of a trompe l'oeil,
which was very funny in the film

The time we are talking about
Yugoslavia was a communist country

where no private property existed

so this abandoned castle
belonged to the state...

and the hotel we lived in
was property of the state as well

There was kind of a fight between
Laura Betti and the hotel manager...

because she wanted
to have dinner in her room

It was a basic place and
we usually ate in the restaurant

The hotel manager told Laura...

that the rules forbade the option
of having dinner in her room

She got angry, so he called
the head of the Party in that village...

which I think was called Ormož

He threatened to walk out
if Laura didn't leave the hotel

So it was . . . they were ...

this was Eastern Europe,
there was no private property

The Jadran company showed us
this totally empty castle...

with no furniture or anything

It was maybe some kind of an
abandoned Imperial property

And so the producers rented it
for pre-production and shooting

As it was far from the village,
they also let us use the park...

where we put costume shops, make-up
rooms, a kind of open air stage...

with all the services the
production needed around the set

Miklós Jancsó's grand passion
was moving great crowds around

He used to feel awkward with just
two or three people talking...

he needed to be able to see
huge crowds around him

He did it in his H ungarian films
and he did it in this one

H is passion was to have people
moving the camera around ...

in these endless long shots

So the dancing and orgy scenes were
organised in quite a scientific way

A beautiful corps de ballet
came from H ungary

Some very good musicians
came from Croatia...

This aspect of the film ,
the choreographic part...

was organised exactly
as in a theatre show

We organized the crowds...

and rehearsed it like theatre
for an entire day or even two

The main actors were then
introduced into the mix...

entering these scenes, with the
dialogue, movements and so on

Setting that up was always
a work in progress

So we'd start with
the broader choreography...

and then fill it with the moving dolly,
the ballet, any singers...

and then the actors
who go in and out of the scene...

and bring the dialogue
and develop the story

It was Cannes Festival 1 976,
I remember it very well

The film played
without any controversy...

even if the film was such that it
could have been called outrageous

Actually in Cannes
nobody batted an eyelid

On the contrary I remember
that in the auditorium ...

Cannes is
a rather seasoned festival ...

and I remember that some of the
judges really liked the film

They wanted to meet with Jancsó
and to honor him

Tennessee Williams was on the jury,
and he really liked the film

Then the film was released
and it was seized at once

It was tried for obscenity

Back then
attitudes were very different...

and we all got sentenced
for making pornography

The producer, the distributor,
the director of course, and me

Then there was an appeal process

All charges were dropped
and the film was released again

The film was released in September
and seized after a week...

then released again 6 months later
after the trail and the appeal process

Back then this kind of film
was regularly seized ...

after only 3 or 4
days in the cinema

Pasolini's Arabian Nights...

and of course Last Tango in Paris,
which was the first to be seized

As I said before,
this film was made in the 1 970's...

and so it carries with it an idea
that was very common back then

For sure it is a film that talks about the
uprising of sons against fathers...

and for sure it tells how these sons,
as I might have said already...

had the idea that freedom could be
expressed through the body...

and that this freedom would be
stronger than their fathers' power

This is a very common theme
of those years...

that through nudity
we might reach heaven...

as if going around naked
was enough to be free

This was the illusion of those years,
the dream of those years

This film , like many of that time,
reflects this last frontier...

before total freedom ,
the last border to tear down

In the idea of these rioters . . .
These young people...

opposing the imperial , or at least
centennial power of their fathers...

against this absolute
and inexorable power...

they had no form of protest
except the riot

The action of these sons
was not a revolution, but a riot...

and these are
two completely different things

Maybe the film expresses
this idea of a riot against the fathers...

knowing that it can't be anything
but an example

For sure it is not a war,
but rather a form of protest...

and for all one's objections,
one also knows the biggest risk...

is that of losing,
and losing one's own life

The protagonists probably
understood all this

I remember a scene,
after they have been killed ...

dead under the white sheets

it's been a few years
since I last saw the film ...

but I have some images from the film
clearly present in my eyes

and some kind of Jesuit priest comes,
tells a fabrication of history...

and reconstructs what never happened
which will be taken as the truth

So, right there is the very essence
of Jancsó's cinema...

in this film and in others...

That's his cinema...

his "riotously pessimistic" way,
of making sense of the world

which is in all of his cinema,
not only this film

Having shot six or seven films
with Miklós...

written them and lived through
the process of making them ...

although the H ungarians never allowed
this film to be released there...

in Private Vices Public Virtues
Jancsó was fully himself...

more than in any other film

It deals with the obsessions
which appear in all of his films...

but here with no restrictions...

neither political
nor commercial

He was truly free

And since I lived through all of the
professional and creative challenges

when I watch the film now,
it really moves me...

when I see the talent he had
to express what he wanted ...

in countries where he had to use
metaphors to make films...

or in our country, where we
have to please the producers

In this film he didn't
have to please anybody else...

and I think that is
the beautiful legacy of this film

and that's what I feel
when I watch it now