Speaking of the voice-over, I’m convinced, reading this last draft and admiring the result, that the first-person story must have been an irksome cage for you (the first person, once it’s there, can’t resign itself to becoming the third). Yet you’ve come out of it very creatively, now enhancing the child Delia’s gaze, now inventing the device of the glasses. However—besides the difficulties having to do with the elevator scene—I’d like to encourage you to make a last effort to eliminate completely, or almost completely, the voice of the narrator.
In my book, it’s the voice of a Delia who is already outside the story; it belongs not to the woman who is living her days in Naples but to the woman who has emerged from those days changed and now, again far from Naples, can describe the change, internal and external, that she has undergone. You, on the other hand, from the moment you could (as you did) construct a Delia whom it’s possible to see “inside” and “outside” just as the action is happening (the finale, which is very beautiful, is the best proof of your fine result), no longer have a need for a retrospective summary. Thus the fragments of voice-over that remain in your text now seem superfluous and in a certain sense contradictory to their origin. Originating as bits from a voice that is telling a story after it’s over, they can’t function as “current thoughts” of a third person who doesn’t yet know what will happen to her—the person whom we see acting on the screen and who already has, among other things, an inner world effectively visualized in parallel.
Yes, if possible abolish what remains of the voice-over: it shouldn’t be difficult for you, at this point. Perhaps, if you don’t find anything better, you could keep only the beginning, without the adjustments there are now but, rather, displaying the literary articulation.
Now I would like to move on to some notes on the reading. Out of necessity you have fully occupied the verbal space left empty by my story: the dialect. You have done it with such naturalness that—I think—it’s one of the elements that contribute to the emotion with which I read your work. I imagine that the background noises, the unwritten lines, will also contribute to the creation of that dialectal tide that Delia feels as a threatening sign, a recall to the language of the obsessions and violence of childhood (in this sense I very much like that in scene 17 you avoid ascribing directly to Caserta the burst of obscenity, but have it flow out of the sounds of the city; similarly, I appreciated the insistence on the roar of voices in the lunch scene).
I am not very convinced, on the other hand, by Delia reporting to Giovanna (scene 6) the phrase that is partly (not alone) at the origin of her verbal block. I’ll tell you why: it seems to me wrong that Delia should resort to dialect in the first scenes of the film, in a setting distant from Naples in every way, when, instead, her cadence and her definitely dialect phrases should emerge either as an instinctive reaction (“strunz”—shit—she’ll cry later to the troublesome young man) or as a step in her approach to Amalia; but above all it seems wrong that we hear that sentence—from her mouth—immediately. It has a story that we have to traverse backward: we’ll start with Amalia; we’ll hear a mysterious hint on the part of Uncle Filippo; we’ll place it clearly in the mouth of the child Delia; we’ll learn that she heard it from old Polledro; and only at the end will we understand how she readjusted it, and hear it pronounced in a liberating way by the adult Delia.
In other words it doesn’t persuade me that the phrase is repeated, at the start of the film, by Delia (she wouldn’t do it, among other things; she would skip it; or she would use a generic formula, in embarrassment, unable to tolerate the irritation at the mother’s obscenity). I tend to believe that the phrase should appear clearly in the mouth of Amalia, which is unbearable for Delia. It will be the rest of the story that makes us think those words were uttered by Amalia, maybe in a state of anxiety and mental instability, as a signal of danger (with me is Caserta; your father still wants to hurt me, etc.) or as the outburst of a tipsy old woman or as a disoriented act of reconciliation.
In short, those words, in my opinion, should be heard by the audience, clearly, at the end of scene 5, among other muffled obscenities uttered by Amalia on the telephone, and immediately afterward collide with Delia’s bewildered expression: the first time her expression indicates to us inner richness and knowledge derived from suffering. “Mamma, who are you with?” could be uttered by Delia after that phrase of Amalia’s, as a kind of jolt of memory.
As for the phrase itself, I would like to cautiously observe (I don’t have clear ideas about it) that either it is really, intolerably obscene (and it isn’t) or it suggests the obscene through a total indeterminacy. Your phrase is of the second type; therefore I would favor the elimination of that “under,” which, precisely because it specifies, might lead the audience to think that it specifies too little.
Finally, still on this point, as I was reading I had the impression that at the conclusion of scene 44, when Polledro gets up and leaves, we could already see the father and hear the voice of the child Delia who reports old Polledro’s phrase as if Caserta had addressed it to Amalia. Then one could move to Delia, who says: “And then if I’m sick…”; then start with 12. This to clarify the story, because I’ve noted the need to know directly what use the child Delia has made of the old man Caserta’s words. But maybe I’m wrong. I’m writing in a hurry, without the time necessary to refine senseless suggestions.
There is another theme that has puzzled me somewhat: the economic exploitation of Delia’s father’s work.
To characterize the trafficking among the three men, I would aim, yes, at a Caserta who, as it says in the book, does business with “the Americans,” but I would give more details. From the way you’ve constructed the beginning of the scene of the slap (another good solution), we know little about what those three men really did: the exultant cry of Uncle Filippo doesn’t tell us much. If you develop, instead, the few lines in the book in which there is a mention of “portraits for the Americans” Uncle Filippo could—let’s say—arrive, in scene 4, with some photos and say something like: “Now make four more American portraits. Caserta says he wants them right away. I’ve brought the photographs” (forgive this ridiculous pseudo dialect sketch). And we could see in detail the photos brought by Uncle Filippo (there are some descriptive hints in the book), a last one attached to the edge of the easel and in a corner the portrait that has just been made from it, other portraits ready, mixed with seascapes and country scenes. Delia then could say, on page 31: “He’s the one who did business with American sailors in the Galleria, he got them to take out family photographs and persuaded them to have oil portraits done of their mother, their fiancée, their wife. He exploited homesickness and allowed us all to eat, including you…” Caserta’s scheming, at least in regard to Delia’s father, would consist, in that case, in getting in touch with the sailors and transforming them into commissioners of oil portraits made from photos (their photos, of fiancées, of distant mothers, etc.). The other middleman, Migliaro, would intervene later to get Delia’s father out of a market that was probably in decline and place him in another, completely different market, expanding along with the petit-bourgeois expansion of the fifties.
I suggest these things because I’m afraid that visually the weakest point of your text is precisely the definition of the activities of Caserta and Delia’s father. If you refer to these not at all unlikely “artistic” dealings with the Americans, you gain a concreteness (the photos, the portraits scattered through the room) that—it seems to me—is at the moment missing from Uncle Filippo’s irruption (very effective, besides: it shouldn’t be touched), which is completely focused on the Gypsy.
I have nothing else to suggest, except for some small annotations that I will list here below by page number. But note: I realize that I have already let myself get out of hand. I’ve discovered that because of certain, scarcely rational idiosyncrasies of mine I’ve even eliminated that “no?” in Delia’s remark on page 5: “Your
father is still at the police station, no?” Take out the no. Be merciful, please.
p. 13 The dialogue between the sisters is better, but there are still things that I would change. Especially Delia’s “very many”: it seems vague and mournful, I would replace it with an approximate number (but there is the scene in which Delia has revealed to her mother her refuge in the elevator, on the top floor. When did it happen? Two years earlier? Three? Can’t Delia answer, without contradiction: “Yes. Two or three years”?); or I would leave only the “yes”; or replace it with a “yes, many.”
Maria Rosaria’s answer also continues to bother me: maybe I feel a danger implicit in all the lines in dialect, the lurking stereotype of the recitation in a Neapolitan cadence, complaining, maudlin, tremulous, overdone, with a display of sentimentality that doesn’t communicate sentiments. It’s true that there is a type of communication in Neapolitan that has these characteristics (and in the text the echoes are heard here and there in Uncle Filippo and in Signora De Riso); but I wouldn’t exaggerate it in the writing with a disparaging imitation of a theatrical or film performance, etc. I would make a Maria Rosaria who tries to contain her emotion with a blunter: “It was mamma who was supposed to get on the train and go to visit you in Bologna,” a half reproach: then the weeping, which Wanda joins with a certain irritation.
p. 25 In Signora De Riso’s line, at the bottom of the page: wouldn’t “this apartment” be better, eliminating “in the Galleria”?
p. 28 It occurred to me that in the old, yellowed photograph, shown after the identity card (which Delia naturally doesn’t examine), it would be good if Amalia were also there and we could see her face, her hair. The audience has to match the identity card with a distinct photographic image of Amalia, so that it can be a bigger surprise when Delia, after the quarrel with Polledro, checks the identity card and discovers that the photograph (an old one) has been touched up. But any other invention that would allow us to see Amalia in a photograph before we get to the scene with Polledro and the surprise of the identity card would be fine.
p. 32 I feel something unnatural in this important line but I don’t know what. Maybe it’s that “half naked” that seems redundant, especially if otherwise the actress’s tone—and expression—are the right ones. It occurred to me, further, that this might be one of the points where Delia lets a little dialect escape, calmly, without overemphasis, as if suddenly she heard the voices of that time. Something like: “He did good. He didn’t want hundreds of copies of that Gypsy to end up in country fairs…” But I don’t want to overdo it: am I stupidly interfering in your work too much?
p. 54 I wanted to tell you that the erasure of a too powerful mother by breathing on the glass is very beautiful; even more beautiful is the way the mother and Caserta return, having aged, as the glass clears, amid the crowd in the Camorrist-electoral dining room.
p. 56 I would take the “Delia” out of Polledro’s line at the bottom of the page. He addresses her and that’s all: he is thinking of his own troubles, he doesn’t want to establish a real contact with that particular person who is called Delia; it’s why she is ironic in the following line.
p. 57 Polledro’s line doesn’t seem clear to me. Maybe it’s better: “You came to the shop. It wasn’t that I went looking for you.”
p. 65 Shouldn’t Delia dial a telephone number at the end of 48? Isn’t there confusion in ending on a ring, opening on a ring?
p. 69 I’d like the father to be more yielding and say at the bottom of the page: “…What did she think: she loved me, she never loved me. She was a liar,” etc.
For this character I would like—beyond my book and as if to counterbalance a scene that I feel as terrible—a good moment before. For example, at the end of 4, the child could wind up with her father, who has now gone back to the easel, and the Gypsy, or while he’s already sketching one of the new commissioned portraits. The man would take her on his knees, perhaps distractedly, and she wouldn’t willingly accept that contact and he would ask her: “What happened to you? Who made you cry?” and she would wriggle free, sullen: “No one,” and he would go back to painting. But I don’t know if you can do that, since there’s already the really fine scene with the assistants.
p. 71 Isn’t the father’s second line, “What was she doing,” too little? Wouldn’t it be better “What was she doing with Caserta?” And then Delia’s line, too, should perhaps be harsher: “Yes, it was a lie, but what did you start making a child believe? For you she was a whore if she just said hello to another man! You didn’t think twice about believing me. Not twice! You believed me the way I believed you when I saw that she was going there and I thought: If she goes, it means she really is a whore.” Or something like that. Anyway it’s here that Delia could slip again into dialect.
p. 72 The father’s third line: better to be specific. “I had done it already when I was twenty-five. I sold it…” etc.
p. 75 I don’t like the line “Look.” From “Where are you” we perceive that Delia believes she’s being observed.
p. 76 Delia’s third line: I would eliminate “disgusting”; it’s a redundant comment, what we are seeing is already repulsive. Furthermore, I would add: “I told my father…” or (in my view preferable) the “Come here etc.” could be uttered by Caserta as an old man, and the adult Delia, after repeating it to herself, could finally admit: “I told my father that Caserta had said and done to Amalia what instead that old man had said and done to me.”
I’m finished, I hope I have done diligently what you asked of me. I foresee that these notes of mine will reach you when you have already started shooting and will be of no use. Ah well. It gave me pleasure just the same to focus on your text and imagine what might help it: at certain moments it was like being able to put my hand again to mine. I’ve been happy about this involvement, which I didn’t expect or pretended not to expect, because I was afraid of it. I ask you not to take account of my poorly controlled narcissism, drools of pride, immodest intrusions.
With friendship, with gratitude,
Elena Ferrante
Rome, January 29, 1995
Dear Elena,
The film is now ready. Some phases of the editing (sound editing and mixing, photographic correction of the final print) are still to come, but the working copy that we are now able to project contains essentially everything. Troubling Love will be in the theaters in April.
The last time I wrote to you was August, and we were a month away from starting to shoot: the following months were so intense that it’s hard for me to try to describe now, in a letter, the whole combination of emotions and reflections during this exciting and exhausting period. I can only try to tell you how grateful I am to you for having given me the chance to make this film, which I absolutely and completely love independently of whatever success it may have. The trust that I would be truly happy not to have betrayed is yours.
Your last letter was very precious to me. I kept it with me during the shooting, and it helped me confront decisively the more obscure areas, besides polishing and perfecting the screenplay. Elena, would you like to come to Rome to see the film? I know your reserve, and I don’t mean to violate in any way your wish not to appear. You choose the time and the means, or, if you don’t want to, tell me no, I will understand very well. But know that Anna and I, and all my collaborators, loved and respected you, and we always thought we were making the film with you.
With affection, and I hope to have an answer from you soon,
Mario
Dear Mario,
Your invitation has complicated my life. It’s pointless to tell you how much I wish to see the results of your work, it’s very important to me in a particular way. But in this period every day is a risk for me. I’m working intensely on a new book—it’s hard to call it a novel: I don’t know exactly what it is—and every morning I start writing with the anxiety of being unable to go forward. I know
from experience (a very bad experience) that any accident can weaken the impression of necessity in the pages I’m writing; and when that impression fades, it’s the work of months that vanishes, all I can do is to wait for another opportunity.
Seeing your film is, obviously, anything but an accident. Although I’ve tried, in these months, to think of it as an artistic activity independent in substance not so much of Troubling Love as of the feeling I preserve of it, I doubt that I would be an indifferent viewer. The idea I’ve formed of you—of the passion and intelligence with which you threw yourself into this work—keeps me from fooling myself. I can very well foresee the effects of a work that, I imagine, will strike me with an energy far greater than what I needed for the book. I’m sure, in other words, that your film will leave a deep impression, and that for a while I will have to reopen accounts with myself, with what I’ve done up to now, with what I intend to do in the future. This is why, after much hesitation, I’ve decided to concentrate on this new work and try to finish it without risking interruptions that could be definitive.
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