Experiencing All

Some artists have this tendency of experiencing all. They want to dare beyond normality, beyond the ordinary. The use of drugs as mental trip has been a research path that many artists and writers have tried, from Baudelaire to Sartre to many others, from various past theories and experiences, lived for example by American 68 counter-cultural figures like Timothy Lear and Ken Kesey, until today.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man
Play a song for me …
Take me on a trip upon
Your magic swirlin’ ship,
My senses have been stripped…

Bob Dylan here probably was referring to some experiences with LSD.

Many years ago an American experimental theatre actress lived in a small apartment here in Trastevere (from Latin Trans Tiberim = beyond the Tiber river). This was at a time when this rione was just starting to be trendy (enjoy some Trastevere pictures). In any case one night, on a tiny terrace overlooking Rome’s romantic roofs, while together with some friends we were eating delicious tuscan caciotta and placidly sipping good red wine, she suddenly got inspired and told us that, if Shakespeare was so good at describing all the hues of the human soul, positive as well as negative, it was because he actually had lived them all, it couldn’t but be like that – she said – since what he wrote was actually so incredibly vivid and real– from the most dreadful horrors up to grace and joy and sublime love between youths. An artist, therefore, in order to access some bits of greatness had to behave in the same way and experience life at a highest and even extreme degree.

She undeniably tried to follow this principle and while her life was gradually falling apart her acting on stage was amazingly gaining intensity and strength, as if actually there were this sort of relationship between the experiencing-all type of lifestyle on one hand (extreme sorrow, pure joy and less pure transgression) and a greater intensity and power in acting, on the other hand.

The intense beautiful eyes of this American woman, whose family originated in Campania, expressed all these things. They were the complex, ancient eyes of an Anna Magnani from Chicago.

Enjoy these Anna Magnani’s intense eyes, showing all the vigour and dignity a contemporary Roman woman can have. I will show you better pictures when I can. The American actress too had definitely a deepness of her own. She later moved on from that intemperate phase of her life and now she happily lives a fruitful life back in Chicago.

Let us then also enjoy Anna verrà, a beautiful song sung and written (in honour of Anna Magnani) by Italian pop-blues singer, songwriter and musician Pino Daniele from Naples, a city we will talk about soon since it is the Greek cousin of Rome (Naples, or Italian Napoli, comes from Greek Νέα Πόλις, i. e. new town).

Anna verrà col suo modo di guardarci dentro … noi che ci emozioniamo ancora davanti al mare. Anna verrà e sarà un giorno pieno di sole … Anna verrà col suo modo di rubarci dentro …

Anna will come to us, with her way of looking deep into our eyes … Us folks still so excited by the sea … Anna will come to us in a day the sun will fully shine … Anna will come to us with her way of seizing deep into our souls…

PS
Permanences. Rome has a special relationship with that Campania area. There was located Cumae, which founded Naples and which was the first Greek colony in the Italian mainland. In those Hellenic areas, lush with climate and fertility, and where later great Roman men like Cicero had their villas, Rome encountered the Greeks for the very first time, a fact that will greatly influence succeeding history. Talking of permanences, this relationship between the two cities is still alive today, based on empathy, common roots and a comprehension of two identities which are diverse though eternally attracting each other.

This song by Pino Daniele (in the album Mascalzone latino, if I’m not wrong) I love to imagine as a direct tribute from Νέα Πόλις to Rome. And Rome - we also love to imagine - honoured returns.

Italian version of this post