PORTFOLIO FRANK PERRIN CINECITTA IN CRASH #53

By Crash redaction

Cinecittà, the palimpsest of cinema. The décor of fictions written and rewritten a hundred times, theatre of lively imaginary passions, this second largest production ensemble after hollywood was created to compete with its rival across the atlantic. Spread over sixty hectares (150 acres) nine kilometres from the centre of rome, the first stone was laid by Benito Mussolini in 1936 and one senses a breeze of fascist inspiration around the corners of entirely recreated streets and façades, which originally made Cinecittà an instrument of propaganda for the ideology in power. This hollywood on the tiber next saw thousands of films played out between its walls; peplums and spaghetti westerns filled the streets and buildings with their plots, and Federico Fellini became one of Cinecittà’s most faithful directors. From helen of troy to la dolce vita and gangs of new york, the films contain the dwellings and artificial landscapes that provided backgrounds laden with stories. The fire that ravaged more than 4000 square meters in 2007 contributed to giving the place an empty and sad aspect. Like a reminiscence of a painting of hubert robert, nicknamed robert of the ruins, when cameras and film teams desert the place, the décors remodelled at will seem to interrogate both reality and fiction, lost in an ephemeral dust. Waiting for a new incarnation, this self-sufficient city of images and dreams is content to smile at phantoms of the greatest actors that once upon a time, played on its soil.

 Lorène Duquesne

Photography by Frank Perrin