Interview by Silvia Tarquini
Innamorarsi e altre pessime idee, Simone Aleandri‘s second feature film, is released in Italian cinemas distributed by 01 Distribution. The comedy follows Lino, a successful lawyer played by Lino Guanciale, whose life unravels when his wife Grazia decides to leave him for a charming chef. Convinced he can expose his wife’s new partner, Lino hatches a plan involving Sofia, a woman entangled in legal troubles, played by Andrea Delogu. The arrangement between the two — legal assistance in exchange for a strategic seduction — will however take an unexpected turn. The cast also includes Ilenia Pastorelli, Claudio Colica, Grazia Schiavo, Davide Devenuto, Mauro Cardinali and Chiara Condello. The screenplay is by Alessandra Martellini and Ciro Zecca. . The cinematography is by Gianni Chiarini CCS, which “accompanies the story with luminous, sophisticated tones” (Cristina Gallo, Unfolding Roma). The editing is by Lorenzo Campera, the production design by Biagio Fersini, the costumes by Beatrice Giannini and the score by Matteo Buzzanca. The film is produced by Rodeo Drive with Rai Cinema.
This is your first comedy. How did you approach the genre?
In truth, my usual way of working was somewhat turned on its head — I had to shift my customary register, but I embraced it as a challenge. The greatest risk, and I was well aware of it, was ending up with flat lighting, because in a story of this kind you cannot rely too heavily on chiaroscuro or strong contrasts: direct light must be avoided in favour of something soft, fill-based, reflected, filtered. In interiors, where I had greater control, I worked precisely along those lines, using small fixtures or LEDs to wrap the actors’ faces rather than define their features with sharp precision. That said, I always tried to preserve a hint of chiaroscuro, a small area of shadow, because in my view shadow always holds a suggestion for the viewer: what cannot be seen is left to the imagination. It was therefore important to introduce, wherever possible, at least a touch of contrast across the whole frame.
And what about exteriors? How did you handle those?
In daytime exteriors, controlling the light was far more demanding. We shot in Rome in summer, under a harsh, high sun, and there I decided to rely on Low Contrast filters, particularly in the more open locations. On faces I always used a Glimmerglass, indoors and out alike. These filters allowed me both to soften skin and faces and to bring the shadow areas closer to the lit ones, reducing the overall contrast of the image. Lens choice was equally crucial in building the look I was after. I opted for Cooke S4s, which I consider exceptional — they deliver a very soft rendition, with low contrast and colours that lean slightly towards the pastel. It’s a quality I’ve always been drawn to, going back to my days as a camera assistant, and one that has made them one of my favourite lenses over the years. For a film of this kind, they were without question the most fitting choice.
Were there any particularly challenging moments or scenes?
In certain specific situations, the lighting called for two entirely different approaches. The padel court scene is a good example — the script required a first moment with no direct sun on the court and a second with the sun high and unforgiving. For that I stripped away all the filters I normally used to soften the image, leaving the light as it was and relying solely on NDs to reach the desired stop. I knew we couldn’t simply bank on speed, shooting quickly before the sun cleared the trees. Being summer, it hit the court roughly two hours after sunrise. That particular day, however, every weather forecast was predicting rain broken by sunny spells. Having had confirmation from several sources, I decided to take the risk — though in the meantime I had already looked into possible schedule changes and spoken with the director about shifting the shooting plan at short notice, which would have been far from straightforward. In the end it all worked out perfectly. We shot every scene requiring shade precisely while the sky was heavy with cloud. For about four hours the light held: clouds kept rolling in without the rain ever really breaking. The moment we wrapped, a violent storm hit — lasting some forty minutes — which then gave way to brilliant sunshine and a wonderfully clear sky. At that point I thought we had been extraordinarily lucky.
How did you approach the film’s Roman setting?
One of the most enjoyable aspects of the work was going around Rome with the director, Simone Aleandri — especially during scouting — in search of corners of the city that cinema rarely visits. Our intention was to place certain landmarks in the background of scenes, but without turning everything into the usual Roman postcard. We were looking instead for vantage points where the monuments were partially concealed by buildings or trees, sensed rather than shown. The 2.35 aspect ratio helped enormously here, as it allowed us to capture exteriors in a panoramic fashion, making use of wide stretches of space and building central or lateral vanishing points within the frame, where the presence of the city and its landmarks was always felt. It was an approach that I think paid off particularly well in the scene on the Campidoglio, with the Vittoriano in the background, and in the one — sadly left on the cutting-room floor — in which the two leads enter a church.
Can you tell us something about the technical choices you made and your approach to camera language?
From the outset we understood that, as an ensemble comedy, using a dolly or too rigid a camera setup would have curtailed the actors’ freedom and the spontaneity of their performances. In comic films the best takes are often the first two or three, before the actors’ energy inevitably begins to flag. For that reason, together with the director and Peter Zuffa — the camera operator, who was absolutely central to the whole enterprise — we decided to make as much use of the Steadicam as possible, particularly in the ensemble scenes. It allowed us to give the actors greater freedom of movement and to keep rehearsals to a minimum, precisely so as not to dampen that initial charge which matters so much in comedy. Much of the burden of this choice fell on Peter’s shoulders, as he wore the Steadicam rig through extremely long shooting days. Equally vital was the work of Luigi Piepoli, camera assistant and focus puller, who showed enormous patience and great sensitivity, often forgoing more thorough rehearsals in order to go straight to camera — putting himself, as we all did, entirely at the service of the story and the actors.
Thank you, Gianni, and all the best to the film.
