Tribute to Francesco Nuti: he would have been 70 years old on Saturday 17 May

For the occasion, we replay the 1979 interview conducted with the director by Sandro Veronesi

On Saturday 17 May, Francesco Nuti would have turned 70. To remember him, the City of Florence has organised a day full of initiatives that will pass through the symbolic places of his life and career, amidst emotion and collective participation. It starts at 11.30 am at Via Sant'Antonino 23, where a commemorative plaque will be unveiled on the façade of the building where the actor was born and lived. At 12.30 p.m., the homage will move to the Ponte dell'Indiano, near the famous bench that was the protagonist of a cult scene in the film Caruso Pascoski (by a Polish father). At 6.00 pm, appointment in Piazza della Signoria for a musical flash mob open to all citizens. Grand finale at 9.00 p.m. in the Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio, with the second edition of the Francesco Nuti Award, in the presence of his daughter Ginevra Nuti, his brother Giovanni Nuti and his former partner Annamaria Malipiero.

For the occasion we have decided to republish (published in Pratoreview no.57) the interview with the artist by Sandro Veronesi in January 1979 for the magazine Il Mensile.

Here instead you can read the memory of the great Florentine actor and director through his most iconic films and the words of journalist Piero Ceccatelli.

Francesco Nuti

Do not ask Francesco Nuti what he will do when he grows up: it would be a superfluous question, even though in the vast majority of cases it is the most appropriate and disturbing question you can ask a 22-year-old. He would smile and say “I'm already grown up, and I'm an actor”, making you ashamed of your question, but then he would add: “It's not that I feel grown up because I've been on television, mind you; I'm grown up simply because I've already made a major choice, the kind you make on your own, and suddenly I've grown up, and now I talk about myself as a man, not as a boy”. Anyway, I didn't ask him that question, fortunately, although it actually slipped my mind for a moment. I asked him more, of questions, after having placed him in front of a thousand-watt lamp that in the end didn't break in my head because we are friends and after all, you will have to get used to it.

Non Stop replied, and this time there was also Francesco Nuti among those comedians he intends to launch. Are you satisfied with how things went?

First of all, I need to explain the whole television thing to you; you know very well that I was continuing the repeats of my show - Pollo d'allevamento - and on the 23rd of July, I always remember the date, the Giancattivi, a group from Florence that was already quite well known in Italy, came to the theatre where I was working, in Calenzano, to ask me to work with them on this. And the television experience on my part was certainly positive, even though, being on network one, there were some problems with certain sketches that were rejected in discussions with the RAI executives. It was a kind of censorship, much more subtle because it spoke of “good taste” but it was still a bit annoying. But on the other hand, let's face it, what television offers today, with a programme like “Non-stop”, which is watched by twenty-two million viewers, you certainly can't get from a show like the one I did, which also went very well and is very dear to me. It was very positive, therefore, as an experience, and because the group of “Giancattivi” gave me back a more solid character, and for all the advantages it can offer me in the future. I can assure you that the language that Francesco Nuti used to answer my questions was much less academic than it may seem to read, but on the other hand it is customary for newspaper interviews to be written in Italian and not in dialect, and that each subject always corresponds to a predicate and an object complement, although in spoken language this does not happen.

How did you feel when you heard that Gaber titled his new show “A Breeding Chicken”?

Great satisfaction also because some people who worked with me, in the early days, said that ‘Un pollo d'allevamento’ was not a good title for a show. Therefore, if Gaber thought it was opportune to choose a title so similar to mine, and Gaber is one of the characters I respect most, it means that the title was not so bad, and maybe it was the most suitable, since the character of the two shows is practically the same, if it is true that I started in my underwear recreating the morning of a worker and Gaber more or less starts by proposing the mimicry of a man who gets up, washes and dresses before going to work.

But didn't it bother you a little, seeing that Giorgio Gaber is much more famous than you, so now it will be difficult for you to explain that your show came first?

This is a very fair question, but I tell you that it doesn't bother me at all, since ‘ Pollo d'allevamento ’, mine, closed in September after ninety-five performances, which for me is a very satisfying success. And the fact that Gaber, with his culture and talent, was able to develop the character better than I did (I didn't see the show) doesn't frighten me, on the contrary, it can be an incentive for me, because it means that that road is beaten also by big characters.

A question that many will ask and ask you: how big is Benigni's shadow?

This is a very long question, because ever since the Benigni phenomenon broke out on a national level, I have suffered a great deal. I would like to point out, now that you have given me the opportunity, that I hold Benigni in very high esteem, for me he really is a big character. Of course people, especially television viewers, will make comparisons. But I also want to affirm my character to show that if there is a similarity between me and Benigni, it is only because, both from Prato, we have had the same experiences, me in Narnali and him in Vergaio. I, too, have experienced the houses of the people, with the same characters; when in “Pollo d'allevamento” I played the Chiaramonti 'ciao Chiara-monti... "in the bar scene, which is similar to Benigni's bar scene, it wasn't that I copied it from him, because I also lived it, and no one can tell me that I can't do it too; and the telc-visual experience with the “Giancattivi” greatly benefited my character, which changed considerably compared to the one I presented in the theatre precisely because I was able to concentrate on it better. This is not to say that I am not sometimes annoyed when people tell me that I look like Benigni, but I am only annoyed if they mean that I imitate him, which is not true, as the people, including you, who knew me even before Benigni was successful know. That we then resemble each other physically, we are both from Prato and speak the same dialect is another fact: if Francesco Nuti, as he is now, were from Milan, there would not be this problem.