“We all felt part of a great adventure: bringing life back to life on the screen. Ours is a special profession, if you do it with passion you can’t get rid of it”. These are the words of Francesco Rosi, on true passion, which invades and does not die with the subject. On the thirtieth anniversary of his death, the Venice Film Festival remembers Gian Maria Volontéone of the greatest Italian actors, with the documentary “Volonté – The Man of a Thousand Faces” by Francesco Zippel, in competition in the Venice Classics section Documentaries on Cinema. A passionate, at times moving, amarcord that takes the viewer into the personal and artistic life of the great Turin actor, characterized by coherence, love for his work and for the characters he played, from his first television dramas to the heights of auteur cinema.
A career of over forty years, on a coherent and passionate path, similar to that of directors such as Giuliano Montaldo, Elio Petri and Rosi himself, with whom Volonté established precious professional partnerships. This makes him still today an absolute reference for the great contemporary interpreters, who in the film remember him together with his family and dearest friends, alternating their testimony with archive and unpublished images that make everything present.
In addition to Montaldo, who passed away in 2023, his daughter Giovanna Gravina Volonté, Pierfrancesco Favino, Fabrizio Gifuni, Marco Bellocchio, Margharete von Trotta, Valerio Mastandrea and others offer their contribution. A long research work for the director and author of the film, who drew from the Rai archives and the Luce archives, especially for the period linked to television dramas: «Volonté participated in great works – he tells us -: “Life of Michelangelo”, “Caravaggio”, “The Idiot”, which represented his first moment of great visibility. These works allowed me to trace his path and understand that from a very young age he was that actor that we learned to appreciate more and more in what was his artistic maturity. I saw how his path as an artist has always been strongly intertwined with his painful personal history and that of our country after the Second World War».
But how would Volonté have described the complex times of our contemporary world? «Angelica Ippolito, his last companion, often says that he would have found it uncomfortable to describe the times we live in, but he would have continued with great conviction to propose an idea of a better world. He would have found a way to leave his mark in the theater, at the cinema and on TV, continuing to have fun by choosing new negative characters, who by contrast could have told something that was close to his heart and with which he deeply disagreed: a profound “artist’s game”». A man of a thousand faces, in fact, for his ability to be profound and light at the same time (in his private life he was a joker), but the thing that most characterized him, according to Zippel, was the rigor of his work: «He had a very strong ethic, very rigorous, a maniacal preparation. He was aware of the responsibility that the actor had towards society and therefore thought that any topic had to be offered to the public in the best way». A fundamental honesty, therefore, also recognized by contemporary actors: «Talking with Gifuni, Toni Servillo, Favino, Valeria Golino, Mastandrea I perceived a great admiration for the basic talent, especially for the great work ethic and the way in which he managed to put together these aspects, which then made the difference».
Produced by Quoiat Films, Rai Documentari and Luce Cinecittà, with the contribution of Rai Teche, “Volonté – L’uomo dai mille volti” will be in theaters on September 23, 24 and 25 with Lucky Red and will soon be broadcast on Rai3.