Tosca and the Women: Directors Notes
By Giorgio Ferrara

While planning the set design for "TOSCA AND THE WOMEN" together with Danilo Donati, we knew at the outset that it would have been a huge mistake to set the action in existing 19th century Rome, which could have been described as "true-to-life shooting." But that framework is more suitable to stories in costume in realistic settings. We needed to imagine a Rome closer to our story, to reconstruct it in the studio, painting it on giant backdrops, creating unusual points of view through lanes, streets, squares and buildings. A Rome as it "really was", the way it was represented by painters at the end of the 18th century, majestic but poetic, dominated by pink skies, silvery nights and leaden sunsets.

The interiors were also reconstructed in the studio; the eye dwells on realistic images, but reinterpreted through the film's own pictorial style.

It is a "special" film, strongly marked by an unmistakable expressive line, which celebrates the exhilarating and fantastic mingling between two sovereign entertainment genres: comedy and melodrama, which are the foundation of our cinematographically told story.

Tosca, seen here only as the object of gossip. No more depressing scenes, no singular passions, no mannered sighs. The original libretto by Illica and Giacosa is given over to an imaginary place of earthy witnesses, a story perceived by subordinates, common people.

Franca Valeri has an inborn flair for satire, tackling genuine people of rank and posers alike, and wanted to get into the heart of the drama as Sardou originated it, from the bottom up.

She conceived a parody based on the dialogue between the Scarpia's porter and Armando Sciarrone's wife. The latter is a gendarme and the favored "strong-arm man" of the tyrant, who is intent on persecuting Cavaradossi and on possessing Floria Tosca.

The Rome reflected in the austere porter's lodge is gullible, zealous, shady and destructive, though easy to cheer up. Whatever masters and husbands might do, it's considered understandable, because, after all, they belong to the category of "poor things, you must understand..."

The theme has been treated with subtlety by the author. Also, with an intelligence and wit befitting a duo of seasoned actresses, Valeri and Asti, taking a pair of very unconventional roles.

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