On 4 December, an exhibition of photographs taken on the set of the two-part TV film Mike will open at the Biblioteca Centrale in Turin. The film, produced by Rai and Viola Film, commemorates the centenary of Mike Bongiorno‘s birth and the 70th anniversary of Rai’s founding. The photographs, captured with a Leica M9 at the request of director Giuseppe Bonito, were taken by the film’s cinematographer, Alfredo Betrò CCS, who shares the story behind the exhibition here.
Alfredo Betrò:
“Cinematic photography is created through moving images, and we cinematographers are predominantly tied to motion photography. However, I’ve increasingly noticed, particularly among students, a significant passion and talent for still photography. For decades, film sets featured the important figure of the on-set photographer, whose role was to document the making of a film and provide images for newspapers and magazines, as well as for international sales. Personally, I’ve had the privilege of knowing Angelo Novi, Sergio Strizzi, Emilio Lari, Angelo Raffaele Turetta, and Stefano Schirato. In recent years, things have changed. On-set photographers are now a rare presence, appearing only on select days considered significant. Among cinematographers, few use their Nikon, Canon, or Leica cameras on set. I could name Storaro, who frequently employed the double-exposure technique, or Crescenzo Notarile in the U.S., who has developed a highly personal style of reworking his images.
Giuseppe Bonito, besides being a brilliant director I’ve collaborated with many times, has a passion for both analogue and digital photography. During the preparation phase, he expressed his desire for me to create a still image narrative of the set, in black and white, using his Leica M9 and a single 35mm lens, in the great tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson. I’d never used a Leica before, as I belong to a generation that grew up with reflex cameras. But the first time I focused with a rangefinder viewfinder, I was captivated. The process of aligning the double image to achieve focus, the clarity of the viewfinder, and the speed of execution opened up a new way of photographing for me, perhaps even inspiring a freer sense of composition. Of the 20 photographs in the exhibition, only one has been slightly recomposed, though I remain an advocate of post-production, a tool employed by all the great photographers of the past.
Sometimes, it’s difficult to photograph the real world, especially for those of us in this profession, as we’re accustomed to reconstructed worlds, set design, costumes, and controlled lighting. Being able to photograph on set, our own set, offers immense satisfaction. We light the scene based on the script, know the best angles to frame, and seek aesthetically strong images that won’t necessarily make it into the film due to editing but provide pure aesthetic pleasure. Some of these photographs were seen by Bruno Gambarotta, our consultant for recreating the historical broadcasts. Bruno offered his contacts to arrange the exhibition and wrote a wonderful introductory text.”
Bruno Gambarotta on the Mike exhibition:
“Alfredo Betrò is not just the cinematographer of the two-part film on Mike Bongiorno’s life; with his Leica, he is also the chronicler of this endeavour. In the history of cinema, there are a fair number of films that tell stories set on a film set. The first titles that come to mind are 8½ by Federico Fellini, Day for Night by François Truffaut, and La ricotta by Pier Paolo Pasolini. In this case, however, we’re witnessing a double somersault. With his photographs, Alfredo Betrò narrates the construction of the film set for Mike, which in turn recreates the set not of a film but of legendary television programmes from the past. He does this not with words but with images that suspend time and people. Silence reigns. The cavernous black reminds us that cinema’s allure stems from its manifestation in a cave — the dark screening room. Similarly, in the early days, the television studio was a kind of cave.
Each of these twenty photographs is a story. They depict the temporary and fleeting resurrection of characters and objects. The vintage cameras, brought back to life from the Radio and Television Museum, cease to be mere tools and become characters in the film, akin to miners turned tour guides in a museum mine. These photographs reveal that the fate of becoming decorative relics to evoke a bygone era is shared by both humans and objects. This is also true for the character Mike Bongiorno, here depicted as both a young and an older man, both captured by Betrò in silent contemplation.
These images convey that, in fiction, everything is doubled — not just Mike but also the cameras, microphones, lights, and other characters. Everything fades. Yet the artistry gifted to us by these photographs endures.”
