The film marks some other departures for Salvatores, in terms of his usual way of working. It was his first film shot using high definition digital, rather than film stock. “It’ll definitely be the technology which will be used within five or six years,”he explains, joking “and I didn’t want some 23 year old knowing more about it than me. Then, naturally there are interesting things you discover working with it, for example the way that you can control colour, the images, in a very precise way”. Colour and place have become hallmarks of his film-making, if one thinks of the vibrant yellows of Io non ho paura, the overcast greys of Amnesia, and now the magnificent buildings of Bologna, whose red bricks become almost black or blue in this noir world.

It also has a particular narrative structure. It’s inward looking, and self-referential. The plot uses references to other films throughout (Quo Vadis, Baby? is a line from Last Tango in Paris). “It’s like a puzzle,” agrees Salvatores, “that was already in the novel, a puzzle that you solve, like some sort of detective story. The story isn’t recounted from start to finish in a chronological sense, but the detective receives a series of clues and it’s for him/her, if capable, to close the story and arrive at the truth.” Warming to his theme he continues, “This task, in this book is left to the audience: it’s the public that will be the investigator, and the audience that will create the story from a series of clues that we throw here and there. In fact, the last piece of the puzzle, the final clue, the one that can close the case, is trusted only to the audience, that is none of the characters in the film know it, or get to see it, other than the audience. We trust the audience in the end.”

That Baraldi is a singer, rather than an actress, may have just been a coincidence, but the Director is quick to point out that this is his most ‘rock’ film. “It’s a film full of music [PMF, Talking Heads, Ultravox amongst others], but also because at its heart there’s a bit of that rage, that instability, and at the same time those dreams, and the sense of losing yourself that rock has given us. Actually”he says, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “I would have really loved to have been a rock star, rather than a director. Unfortunately the premature loss of hair [points to his youthful but sparse hair style] forced me to give up the idea!”.

Aside from the female protagonist, the location, the music, what will interest many is why the choice of noir? What is it about the form that made him not only decide to make a film, but also launch a publishing venture? Part of its appeal is because “in this difficulty in understanding truth in the world in which we live, with the complicity of the media, the politicians and the likes, the noir takes on a value because it wants to di
scover the truth. In the last number of years the thriller, the noir seem to relate reality better, than a documentary could or some more realistic form. Also, in cinema in particular, we limit ourselves, particularly in Italy where we have this vice, of transforming the screen into a mirror. Now, if I put a mirror in front of me, I’ll obviously look at it for a while, I’ll see myself, recognise myself, I’ll stay there watching, and after awhile nothing happens and I’ll go, even though I’ve been watching myself for awhile. So, I don’t think that the screen should be a mirror, or if it has to be a mirror then it should at least be a distorted mirror, to give me an image slightly different to the one I expected. That’s the vision of a director. We can’t limit ourselves to reproducing things as they are. That’s gratification, but it doesn’t help us progress. Only monkeys stay hours in front of the mirror.”

Pushed to name his favourite director, and he has many, Salvatores picks the late Stanley Kubrick. “Because he was a director that managed to change so many times, and that’s the most beautiful thing.” While he picks an American director, Salvatores confounded expectations after his Oscar win by avoiding the possible jump to Hollywood and continuing to work in Italy on films that have by and large had less of a high profile. “It was a type of fear”, he says candidly. “The American system is very different from ours. The director is a technician and replaceable, you work inside what is really an industry. They even call it 'the industry', meaning ‘the film industry’, this is to say how important and controlled it is for them. We still have in Italy a production system that’s more artisan. I was on my third film, and didn’t know much [“Not that I know much more know, though a little more”, he self-deprecatingly quips)].” Which is not to say that he’s opposed to working in the ‘industry’. “Now, with Maurizio [Totti, his long-time producer], hand in hand we’ll try to go there but to make ‘our’ films. That’s the plan. I think it could be interesting, encountering a film industry and technique different to ours.”
There are advantages for European directors, but they should be aware of what they’re bringing to the deal, instead of being only grateful: “They’re finishing up ideas there [in the US], I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re finishing up and so have a need. Perfect, we can use that need. They have things we don’t have, primarily money and a worldwide profile. An American film gests shown around the world when it comes out, while one of our films that gets shown all over Italy is already fortunate.”

That begs an obvious question: why isn’t Italian cinema more fashionable outside of Italy? From fashion through to fast cars, the world fawns on Italian produce, but its films rarely break across borders. “We’re the cinematic children of two important parents,” he responds, quick as a flash, as if the question were one that he’s pondered in depth. “Neo-realism on one side, and Italian comedy on the other, two cinematic genres born in Italy in the ’50s and ’60s. That made Italian cinema famous throughout the world. They were born thanks to one fundamental idea: let’s not make more ‘theatrical’ films, with white telephones, all fake, with actors that recite in a certain style. Someone in Italy had the idea to take someone from the street, to capture those smiles that are so much more real and sincere, and let’s shoot in real places, because there was no money to build. That idea made Italian cinema famous. And we’re still a bit tied to these parents, important as they are. But Parents in some way have to be killed, or at least overcome. The problem that we have here is that we have this subtle dependence on these two genres, in which the actor had to reveal himself in front of the world, and that, at times has created problems. For example here in Italy, genres like the thriller, the noir, the western, or science fiction aren’t touched upon. It’s as if they were considered like a lower level of cinema. […] we’ve a tendency to build stories that talk about our own back yard, when we should maybe be broadening our horizons, and say we here, with our feet planted in our own country, our own culture, with our roots, but the beautiful thing is to, with these roots, to look at the world and tell stories that everyone can buy into. That’s why we find it tough to break out of Italy, in cinematic terms.”