Fernanda Pivano: Nanda
Photos
Quotes
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The radio journalist : How did you meet Ottavio Rosati?
La mitica Nanda : Ottavio Rosati was introduced to me in 1973 for an interview, by the publisher who remained the most dear of my long series: I refer to Raimondo Biffi, publisher of the Arcana who commissioned me two books left in my heart: "C'era una volta un beat" and" Beat hippie yippie."
The radio journalist : Why?
La mitica Nanda : Biffi told me: 'This boy has made Ezra Pound talk in Spoleto!"
The radio journalist : How old was he?
La mitica Nanda : He was very young then, clearly much more mature than his age: 23 years old. He impressed me with his unusual genius and intrigued me with his knowledge of psychoanalysis. In practice, Rosati taught me the very little I know about psychoanalysis, naturally as a friend...
The radio journalist : From a psychoanalytic play between you and Rosati that leads you to rummage in your childhood and in your incredible and extraordinary memories, a beautiful and moving cinematographic portrait was born...
La mitica Nanda : I'm not surprised. Our long friendship allowed him to get to know me well, also because, since I met him, I know how passionately he carries out his activity as a director. Both with his psychodramas, both in the popularization of psychoanalysis. And in the purely creative field.
The radio journalist : In Rome, you and Ottavio live in the same house: the Trastevere old palace of your novel "La mia Kasbah"...
La mitica Nanda : We live in the same old palace. But in two different houses. Rosati has opened a passage on the terrace. But they are two different flats.
The radio journalist : What amuses you and what makes you angry about Ottavio?
La mitica Nanda : I really enjoy his humor, which is often irresistible. What makes me angry is not about anyone.
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The radio journalist : Fernanda, I know that you have dedicated a poem to Rosati... "La dialisi"
La mitica Nanda : Yes. I wrote this poem to thank Rosati for his care when I was sick.
The radio journalist : Please, would you read it?
La mitica Nanda : "La dialisi": Di nuovo questo terrore. Che paura. Di quali colpe mi puniscono gli dei, mi punisce il Buddha forse non abbastanza venerato, con questo orribile spettro che da anni mi perseguita, va e viene, subdolo e sadico. Cosa avverrà di me se la commuovente attenzione di Ottavio, in nome di decenni amorosi, mi verrà meno, e sarò abbandonata a specialisti villani, a medicine vigliacche. Le medicine che mi stanno uccidendo le ha cancellate con mano sapiente me le dosa a una a una e mi impone ubbidienza, mi impone di rispettare la vita che mi sta sfuggendo, mi impone di amarla con la sua paziente tenacia: ragazzo dolcissimo, diventato dolcissimo uomo, rubato alle donne ma fedele alla loro realtà, fedele alla mia. Ottavio Rosati, di cui conosco speranze e sogni di luce, di cui conosco malati guariti, malati che guariranno nei misteriosi sconquassi di inconsci crudeli, malati che lo invocano durante la notte protetta dal Buddha, malati che si aggrappano alla sua forza, fino a lasciarlo sgomento. Grazie silenzioso eroe silenzioso di abnegazione a un'idea, grazie, generosissimo uomo che conosce gli dei.
The radio journalist : But what do you like more in Ottavio: the therapyst or the director?
La mitica Nanda : Both. His selfishness as a director is balanced by his generosity as a therapist. At least with me.
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La mitica Nanda : I for example have a necklace of human fingers.
Teto : Uaaak...
La mitica Nanda : [smiling] What I found in New Guinea.
the young Ottavio : Human fingers?
La mitica Nanda : Yes. Of a tribe standing atop a hill. Where you can get only by snapping on ropes. And there they have the ritual of letting the deads dry in the sun and being devoured by birds. And I bought this thing. And then I have a kind of terror to keep it because I think I've made a sacrilege. And then, every time something bad happens to me: "Eh! Because I made a sacrilege with these human fingers..."
the young Ottavio : Well...
[the parrot Teto descends from the shoulders of Lorenzo who caresses him with his hand]
La mitica Nanda : And so I'd like to give it to the British Museum.
the young Ottavio : Yes...
La mitica Nanda : This necklace of human fingers is very strange.
Teto : Aaarghhh aaargh...
La mitica Nanda : I never dared to put it in public.
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La mitica Nanda : I had a little brother, very pretty
The hidden player : Bigger or smaller?
La mitica Nanda : He was six years older than me. Then in the family there was a kind of... like saying... sluice... so that there was no... that I could not notice the difference between my brother and me.
The hidden player : Meaning?
La mitica Nanda : Then we both slept with very poor pajamas to open, for example. But this I understood much later. Then it seemed natural, it seemed logical to me. So my brother never had to, by any means, even take my hand,
The hidden player : Not even playing?
La mitica Nanda : No. He couldn't touch me in any way. He was very nice. Very pretty. I was also very pretty. In short, we were two beautiful children but there was this terror in the family that there could be an incest. All things I understood 20 years, 30 years later. I didn't even suspect it then.
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The hidden player : Do you have read the treatment of my story?
La mitica Nanda : You are very good. I tell you that this is a beautiful love story and you are right to write it. But I have nothing to do with it. Take away the episode of the gay boy and start everything from your girlfriend... without the entrance of that plebejan.
The hidden player : But no. The boy is talented. I helped him to study because he comes from a poor family. How can you say Fabio is a plebeian? If anything, he is disturbed and poor.
La mitica Nanda : Oh yes! I realize that it is a reactionary expression...
The hidden player : Then, dictated by you... the ambassador of the Counterculture and the Children of the Flowers!
La mitica Nanda : You are right. But if you talk or write about our love, you are not a Man.
The hidden player : Oh yes? And who is a Man? The dentist with the Porche? The alcoholic journalist who never wrote a line about his life? The upstairs general? Tell me a little about who a man is, so I adapt myself.
La mitica Nanda : [With a bitter sigh] It's my fault. I shouldn't have put myself in this story with you when you were a boy. Forget it. Forget everything. It was just a nice dream. A play. Just a play.
The hidden player : A play can be very important.
La mitica Nanda : You are wright. It is important but forget it.
The hidden player : Now I forget everything at the controls because you have become a myth of the nation and want to be a Senator for life. You press a button and I cancel thirty years of my life. And then, sorry, you haven't always told me that a writer has to write what he knows and tell his life...
La mitica Nanda : In fact you are a famous psychoanalyst. Write about when you do your ballets with dreams, that you are very good. Not about us.
The hidden player : Listen to me. I am neither Freud nor Jung and I have not invented anything because now there is nothing left to discover. My psyche is in creating, writing and not in psychology.
La mitica Nanda : I am very sorry that you say so because you are very good in your profession. If you no longer want to be a psychoanalyst, do as you wish, but keep me out of what you write, please.
The hidden player : And how? Now I open the computer and change the motherboard! It is a thing that breaks the heart and the head. Do you know what it's called this in psychology? Retroactive cancellation!
La mitica Nanda : And what it means? You know that I don't understand psychoanalysis.
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La mitica Nanda : In my novel I did not talk about the love story. Do you want to understand that my public character with sex does not enter? I'm a Victorian woman.
The hidden player : And you want to understand that your public figure from your point of view is different from your character from my point of view? The story is of both, indeed of all. In your book there is your truth. In mine there is mine: a boy meets an extraordinary woman and falls in love with body and soul. What's wrong?
La mitica Nanda : [changing voice] I was pretty then.
The hidden player : You still are.
La mitica Nanda : No, I'm not anymore. But then I was pretty. I do not want it anymore.
The hidden player : [moved] You are full of charm! Bitch!
La mitica Nanda : [tenderly] Let's see. What would my charm look like?
The hidden player : Above average?
La mitica Nanda : No.
The hidden player : Above the norm?
La mitica Nanda : No.
The hidden player : Superior to fame?
La mitica Nanda : [laughing] No. Greater than legend, my dear! Do you see that you don't know me?
The hidden player : Give me a kiss?
La mitica Nanda : No way.