All language subtitles for THE PRAISE OF LIGHTNESS Bluray

1 975, it was a very important year

There were many feminist battles
for the liberalisation of morality

We fought against the strictness
of a bourgeois society...

and this film was kind of
in the same direction

At that time I was only 1 9...

and when I first read that script
I was a bit shocked ...

because actually there were
quite a few strong scenes

But of course I insisted it was art
not pornography

Nevertheless later society
took its revenge...

not only in banning the film ...

and later the trial
which of course we won...

but for many years after,
until recently, people used to say...

"Miss Villoresi acted in pornographic
films when she was young. . ."

"And was even photographed
in pornographic magazines"

In fact this film was
very beautiful and important

I watched the film again recently
and saw it in a new light

The truth is that death is always
closing in round these characters

When someone
challenges their elders...

or questions
the general way of thinking...

and goes in a new direction,
it can have extreme consequences

U ltimately it can lead
to your own death

But these characters
were drowning anyway

The ship of aristocracy
was sinking

so what could they
have done otherwise...

if not to live among the luxuries
enjoying it while it lasted

That's why they accepted to die
along with their own world ...

That's why there's
a sense of death in the film

But also so much lightness

A key figure
to understand the film ...

is the young H ungarian girl
who works as a waitress...

with this powder...

a kind of a drug she puts
in the champagne glasses...

and who becomes
happier and happier...

more and more free...

she takes her clothes off,
and is finally naked

I remember she dances
among the tables...

making everyone drink

There was lightness, I mean...

which was kind of the queen,
a co-ruler together with death...

in the story of this film

Back then
I lacked a certain lightness

The character was light,
my body and my face were light

I'm Austro-H ungarian looking,
Italian but my mother is German...

Austrian grandma,
H ungarian great grandma...

this is part of my family's history,
you can see that

But those were years when,
because I was in an adult world ...

working since I was 1 5,
I had to make myself stand out

Those were years
of social struggle, the 1 970's

And I was kind of
a grumpy little duck

So for instance there are many
scenes in the film ...

like one where I am in a bath
with warm water...

and yet I project this
gloomy feeling, all too serious

And I think I was lacking
a degree of lightness

And yet lightness is a
leading theme of this film

I was playing the role
of the Crown Prince's sister

Let's say a character kind of
on the edge of the story

But she gets closer to her brother

Maybe by herself
she would not have done it...

become so rebellious
with no way back

Nevertheless
she fosters and supports it...

always looking from afar
to her brother

And she is...

a sister deeply in love
with her own brother

so she supports him
until the very end

She is a character
capable of supporting...

without becoming
the center of the story

A beautiful character

I can't remember my audition at all

I've blanked it out. . .
I'm not even sure I did one

But I remember being on set

I remember his elegance,
with that cigar in his mouth

I remember them as much older,
Giovanna and Miklós...

Actually Giovanna is only
ten years older than me

But I remember them
as so much older

And I remember him as so calm ,
with very clear ideas...

and a great sense of humor

We were staying in a dream place,
it was called Maribor...

and there in that villa
and in that park...

even in decay...

it felt like lying in a bed
from which a body's been taken...

it's not there anymore but the
bedsheets are still messy and warm

You could still feel the warm press
of that vanished empire

A beautiful place

I also remember the cold

Even if it was summer it was
further north than Rome...

and so quite cold

On some mornings,
since we were naked ...

we had bathrobes and gowns...

but by the end of the shoot
it was really quite cold ...

as it was
already September

I remember they used to give us
Slivovitz and Turkish coffee

Slivovitz is this Croatian brandy
made from plums

But we didn't get drunk at all ,
we just used it to keep warm

This incredible set
was full of so many people...

but yet there was
a calmness about it...

as if Miklós had imposed
a kind of elegance...

a certain way to behave

I also remember the beauty
of those long takes we rehearsed

it was amazing to see all those
different movements we tried

where everything had to
line up perfectly...

the horses had to enter on time,
we had to move around the camera

That set was a little bit magical

There were many extras who didn't
know exactly what they were there for

and in the film there are many scenes
where all you see is their behinds

I remember all these trucks arriving
with the extras...

There was
an Italian businessman there...

while the extras were having
little bows in the Imperial colors...

tied onto their penises

"How shall I explain all this
when I get back to Italy? "

And then the porn stars arrived ,
including Ilona Staller

I remember they spent hours
putting on make-up...

but then they only shot
their behinds

I remember laughing so much
about that with Teresa Ann Savoy!

With Branciaroli as well

All this. . .and then the only thing
that they shot was their arses

Lajos Balázsovits
was a great actor already

Although we were young
we were all quite well known...

in the theatre back home

Lajos had already acted
in another film with Miklós

He was a very handsome
and easy going boy

There were quite a few
"film set" affairs going on

I remember we had a lot of fun

And then I remember there was
the female protagonist...

which was Teresa Ann Savoy

She had an English friend with her,
very fair skin, freckles and red hair

They were both on
some kind of a diet...

and only ate
bread crusts and grapes

The rest of us really enjoyed
all the food there

Like local sausages,
grilled vegetable kebabs...

all that stuff...

and potato and cabbage salads,
red wine and white wine...

so we all really looked forward
to dinner every night

We were in the countryside
so it was all local stuff

But those girls ate only
bread crusts and grapes...

and it really upset me

And I remember Franco Branciaroli ,
we became close friends...

because we were both actors
from the Italian theatre

And I talked a lot
with him and his partner...

about very serious topics
regarding the theatre

He was always
more serious than me!

I was forgetting Laura Betti

Laura had a heritage
she brought with herself...

from working with Pasolini ,
which was important to her

I acted with her again in
Il Gabbiano a few years later

One year later actually...

or maybe only a few months. . .
just after Pasolini died

She brought with her this heritage
but she was very easy going

and I remember that this
area of sexual transgression...

was very important to her

Perhaps because of this
Pasolini heritage

We were a long time
in make-up...

because we were wearing
those wigs...

and Iole Cecchini
was a stunning hairdresser

What hairdos!

We all had vintage hairdos,
vintage clothes...

when we had clothes!

But it all took a very long time
because there were so many of us

But mostly I remember
waiting in the cold

But it was also a pleasure...

because I learnt a lot
from these skilled make up people

It was a training which was
very useful to me...

in the theater

I'm quite good at wearing hairpieces,
putting make-up on for the stage

Of course the audience
don't see it in close up

They're at least
1 0 meters away

but I became good at this thanks to
these amazing film artists

I remember "wearing" this nudity
with a certain lightness...

because those were the years
of free love...

and the body was not pornographic,
but rather beautiful and alive...

which is really part of
the Austro-H ungarian tradition

If you have the chance to go to
Budapest thermal baths...

the famous ones at the Gellert Hotel

I remember a beautiful
experience there once

in the thermal baths of the Hotel
there were a small child ...

her mother who was maybe
20 something...

a very old woman maybe 85 years old ,
and me, about 40 at the time...

and it was lovely because we seemed
to be dipped in the fountain of life

In this
Austro-H ungarian tradition...

there's a more relaxed attitude
towards the body

There's a pornographic book from
the end of the 1 9th century...

maybe the beginning
of the 20th...

called , in English,
Pauline the Prima Donna...

where this Austrian girl
goes to Vienna for work...

and has a lot of fun

Then she accepts an engagement
in Germany...

and for heaven's sake, she
spends two years in chastity...

because any scandal
could have ruined her career

Finally she visits Budapest...

and from the night she arrives
it's a real orgy of pleasure...

in every possible meaning
of the word

So there was this great freedom
in the eastern side of the empire

Also, this was post 1 968,
the years of revolution...

so I felt no trace of embarrassment
related to nudity

Instead , there was a great pride,
a great pleasure...

and even though we should
feel like that at any age...

if you can't feel free at 20,
when can you?

But there is also something else

Those years were
years of liberation

We didn't have this sense
of the body being dirty

I'm not talking about people
who don't wash, obviously

There was nothing sinful
in the human body

We used to do that during concerts
as well sometimes...

touching each other,
woman to woman or man to man

There was something very pure
about owning one's own body

There was something very innocent
in our way of making love then

There was no morbidity

Let's own our own bodies

In those years, I owned mine,
and I had a lot of fun

But I don't remember that sense
of morbidity or shame...

that many people feel nowadays
about many aspects of sexuality

It was very liberating in this respect,
there was no kind of false modesty...

none at all

There was an amazing
H ungarian musician called Tamás

And my son is now
called Tommaso

Partly as my father-in-law
was H ungarian...

Gabor Pogany,
great cinematographer...

but mostly because that name
remained in my heart

There was a scene
where we were dancing a waltz...

our costumes start melting,
clothes flying away...

One of the sweetest moments
in the film ...

and Tamás was singing...

I was kissing Lajos and then Teresa

It was beautiful ...

and back then such things
could really happen