Ettore Scola Accepts Golden Camera

In the film A Special Day (1977), he transformed the beautiful Sophia Loren into a vulgar fascist’s demeaned wife, not in any way attractive, and ladies’ man Marcello Mastroianni into a persecuted homosexual. “When I worked with actors from the street, I took a totally different approach, because they had no experience, so I strove to understand the true character of every one of them, and to entrust them with roles to them that were closest to their characters. It was problematic to simultaneously make use of professional actors and those from the street; experienced and famous actors had to suddenly adjust to those who weren’t at home in the craft of acting,” explained Ettore Scola. By the end, however, everything fell harmonically into place. Scola is indeed aware that it is actors who are the most important component of a film. In Trenčianske Teplice, Ettore Scola presented his film Le Bal (1983). Despite the cold weather, audiences didn’t miss this unique opportunity in the tented cinema. The film recounts key events in French history between 1936 and 1983. Scola had no need for words; he managed to masterfully convey everything through a synthesis of music, dance, pantomime, masks and costumes. But to write a script without words wasn’t easy for Scola. “I came to realize that for this kind of film, it isn’t important for actors to speak. It’s a film whose main theme is solitude, like most of my films. There weren’t any dialogues, but I had to find a way to express all the characters’ thoughts,” revealed Scola, who was inspired by a performance of the Parisian Theatre du Campagnol, and ended up casting actors straight from that theatre.