Article by Alberto Anile, taken from Sorrisi & Canzoni Tv
Translation by Maria Rosaria (sorry for the mistakes)
Londoner, 37 years old, Roth has a very long filmic crime list: undercover cop in Reservoir Dogs, bloody fop in Rob Roy, robber in Pulp Fiction, con in Captives, killer in Little Odessa, suspect of murder in the about to be released Liar. On the screen he's a very bad guy, but now, curled in this hotel armchair, he looks just like an ordinary bloke.
The first question involves Italy. The Legend on the Pianist on the Ocean was his first occasion of visiting our country. He turns his eyes upwards towards the ceiling, frowns and after some long minutes he spits out: "I'll give you the tourist version: fantastic!". English humour, it takes a bit of patience. "When I came to shoot here in Rome", he tries to explain, "I brought the whole family with me. It has been a wonderful way of working, we were like a touring circus who establish themselves and keep on living in a world apart. But I didn't have much time left to go around sightseeing."
He hadn't even seen 'Cinema Paradiso'. To convince him doing the 'Legend' wasn't Tornatore but the monologue 'Novecento' (Nineteenhundred) by Alessandro Baricco: the story of the extraordinary pianist who lives in myth and out of history deeply moved him and he said yes to the director.
But, he couldn't play the piano; what's more he couldn't play any instrument ("Music? I'm atrocious"). So, in order to fake correctly Nineteenhundred's original and at times furious art, he had to take lessons. "But the real difficulty" he says, seriously at last, "was the language difference with Tornatore. The most difficult moment in Odessa, the conditions were really hard and Giuseppe tried to do something immense. So at times we discussed and fought a bit. But it was just our job, I never had serious problems with him."
"Something wonderful about the Italians", he adds, "is their magnificent way of expressing themselves, while the Brits are more closed. On location we went till the very bottom of each discussion, we'd deconstruct our discourse and reconstruct it; then, in front of the camera, I did need everything we had talked about. When I saw the finished film I realized that on the screen there's everything we talked about".
In Roth's career there's no character similar to the pianist (except, perhaps, the shakesperian little man in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead); and it's pretty normal there must have beeen plenty of discussions on such a role. "Everyday. It is extremely hard playing a character possessing angelic features and qualities and still being interesting".
In order to shoot the Legend Roth had to postpone the beginning of The War Zone, his directorial debut, an incest story played by Tylda Swinton and Lara Belmonte. A strong script which Roth will face without shilly-shallying. "Violence is in life", he simply says, "it's the art's task to reflect life. Censorship, instead, is more violent one can imagine. Filmakers do films, the governments' task is not to censure but to face the problem of violence, the real one".