Undoubtedly, “Volere Volare,” a whimsical motion picture directed by Maurizio Nichetti and Guido Manuli, already has been labeled “an Italian `Roger Rabbit.’ ” Fact is, a half-dozen years before Robert Zemeckis’ film hit the screens, Nichetti and Manuli had come up with a similar-and unsalable-idea.
“We thought we would like to make a film that mixes live action and animation in which a character becomes a cartoon,” Nichetti is saying in halting English during a phone conversation from Los Angeles, occasionally asking for assistance from an interpreter.
“This was six years before `Who Framed Roger Rabbit’ and people would ask us, `What kind of a film do you want to do? A love story with cartoons? Cartoons are for children.’ But after `Roger Rabbit,’ everybody understood very well that it’s possible to use a cartoon for adults, and that it’s possible to make a good mix between live action and animation.”
“Volere Volare” (“I Want to Fly”), which opens Friday at the Fine Arts Theatre, is a comedy about a cartoon industry sound man named Maurizio (played by Nichetti himself) who goes around recording unusual sounds for his cartoons-from a squash game to an earthquake-and eventually finds his own hands turning into cartoon appendages.
“In 1982 this was not yet the subject for a film. We thought, `OK, why does he become a cartoon? Because it’s a love story.’ But that’s not enough. A love story between whom? All right, between two strange characters. We need two strange professions to make the story credible, because this metamorphosis is incredible.”
The object of his affections is Martina (Angela Finocchiaro), who makes a living by acting out weird sex-substitute fantasies for her clients. A cook covers her with chocolate and “decorates” her. A professor pretends he’s a baby and whines for his bottle.
The cartoons the protagonist works on are vintage ones from the ’30s: Paul Terry’s Terry-Toons and Max Fleischer’s Popeye. “I wanted to use them because these two men, plus Walt Disney, invented an extraordinary world of fantasy,” Nichetti says.
The 44-year-old previously directed “The Icicle Thief” (1989), a satire about commercialism on television in which a “Bicycle Thief”-type drama is shown on TV with such a horrific number of ads that the film and ads become intertwined. His first job was as a screenwriter for Bruno Bozzetto in the ’70s, during which he wrote three animated films and the mixed-media “Allegro non Troppo,” in which he also starred.
As an actor, he has been called his country’s Buster Keaton-a comparison he acknowledges with a laugh. “I’m proud, but I’m afraid, too, because he’s a master, a teacher. I like him very much, and also, sure, Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. They’re my favorites because they invented a lot of gags, a lot of timing, that is very useful for a silent comedian.
” `Volere Volare’ is a simple comedy, full of gags and visual situations. But it’s a European film with subtitles, and perhaps the American audience that goes to that kind of cinema looks for a product that is very intellectual, maybe even sad. So I would like people to understand that it’s also possible to see a European film and have a good feeling. With this, it’s not even necessary to read the subtitles or understand the Italian language very well because the important thing is the movement, the color, the noise, the music.”
Nichetti says has no plans to work in Hollywood. “I am afraid, because I speak English so-so, and because it’s not my culture, not my country. I think I’m more interesting as an Italian director, with an Italian story, an Italian situation. Here, there are a lot of directors who can work in English; I don’t know if it’s good for all the people in the world to come here. Also, I like the freedom working in my own country. We don’t have the budget of the American films, but it’s possible to make a good film with a low budget.”
One thing that puzzles him is that the $4 million “Volere Volare”-which does contain a bit of nudity but seems otherwise harmless to the morals of this country’s youth-has been rated R.
“The sex is all fantasy. Very quiet. It’s a love story, full of tenderness and poetry. And here it’s rated like `Basic Instinct,’ which is full of violence. I’m not an American, but I can’t understand how a naked cartoon is more dangerous than `The Terminator.’ “
