Tell Pino Daniele, the elusive man, the fought musician

Pine It is a strange work, a story that tries to change something in the rules of the documentarical that now alongside the music industry on a permanent basis. His protagonist speaks very little, and after a while we start to understand why: Pino Daniele was the exact opposite of what we are used to seeing in contemporary artists, enthusiastic about talking about himself in songs and public relations. He was fine with people, but if possible he let the guitar speak. Thus, it is not told but is told by those who knew him, in this documentary who is also a little film, written by the journalist Federico Vacalebre, authority of Neapolitan music, and Francesco Lettieri, director who comes from a very different area, in a sense of a post -ino Naples. Born when Pino Daniele was already a name of first greatness throughout Italy, Lettieri is among other things the director of the video of Liberato and his film/documentary, as well as the film Ultras (2020). With him we talked about Pineand Daniele.

You were born in Naples in 1985. What is it that you always learned about Pino Daniele and what did you find out by turning this documentary?
I grew up with his records, especially the first ones, but my father was perhaps one of the few in Naples who had no records of Pino Daniele. So I discovered it at 16-17 in the period in which I really started to passionate about music. I have never met him in person; I knew so much of his music, of his private life not much.

You are not the only one.
There are several anecdotes about his quite well -known but very superficial life, especially on his childhood, these famous aunts with which he grew up … personally I ignored that he came from a situation of great humility and family problems.

The theme of his shyness and confidentiality is very clear in the first part, and yet, within a few years he has become charismatic leader of a whole music scene, and not only: you can see moments in which it seems literally at the center of Neapolitan worldliness.
One thing that struck me in viewing the material about him is that every time there is a goal it is as if he was afraid of it. Several times in the film it seems elusive, like when in the concert in Piazza Plebiscito in 1981 he tells the operator to leave. This thing has become part of our story: he arrives slowly, physically enters the scene after about 30 minutes that we talk about him. Then in the private individual it was very charismatic, even a little cazzaro, the easy joke, the basic ease … He loved being with friends, eating, especially playing. I believe that for people like Maradona or Troisi, being with him was very easy, they felt at ease.

Some, among acquaintances or colleagues musicians (Italians), confess that having to do with him was not always easy. On the other hand, the language of music opened many doors, from the fragments that appear in the documentary it is perceived that Eric Clapton, Pat Metheny or Chick Korea were admired and intrigued by him.
It should be emphasized that they were looking for it. Abroad he was not considered a songwriter like us, but above all a guitarist, for the sound he had created. In a pre-social era, he reached other musicians with his talent. Then, perhaps he was intolerant for certain aspects of work. In the final part of the career, after with the mainstream period of the 90s, he moved away from the early years, looking for new musical roads but has to deal with industry.

There is your authorial choice in the documentary, that of representing some songs by Pino Daniele with videos that bind them to today's Naples.
In part I had done such a thing The secret of Liberatowith animation. I wanted to break the narrative blocks giving space to music but also to today's Naples, which in some way is contained in these pine classics. 'O ssaje comme fà' o core For example, it is a poem by Massimo Troisi that Pino has translated into music, and that I have translated into contemporary images following the story. It was also my little guard, because I made video clips for Liberato, Calcutta, Giovanni Truppi and many other contemporary musicians, but I would have liked to do them for some of the musicians with whom I grew up. So I tried to make the videos of some of my favorite pieces by Pino Daniele. Then it was also my way of varying the internal rhythm and finding an alternative to live.

That is, did not you be going to show too many concerts?
I think I showed the right. In my opinion, in documentaries there is a tendency to leave a lot of space to live, and this makes the fans happy who already know everything about the life of the protagonists, but I was interested in telling the private life and pine underwear.

However, a concert is privileged in the story, and it is presumably a choice of your co-author, Federico Vacalebre: the 1981 concert in Piazza Plebiscito, which you mentioned a little while ago.
For the Neapolitans of the generation before mine it was an event for which to say “I was there”, and perhaps the moment when Pino realized what he had become. While we were already working, Alex Daniele, Pino's son, really found the file of this recording. And it is the real one, unlike other movies that are found on YouTube – for the simple reason that at a certain point the shooting Rai had jumped, so they put together extracts from other concerts. We managed to have the original audio and the original images of the square.

In Milan, there is a famous concert of which the previous generation says “I was there”, and there was also Pino Daniele: he had opened the live of Bob Marley in San Siro in 1980. It is something that all the spectators of the time still remember to emphasize the historicity of the event. But he did not enter the story, perhaps because it is not set in Naples?
No, in reality very simply that concert does not, unfortunately, does not exist any visual support: neither images nor photos. That we know.

What are the musical documentaries you prefer?
For me Amy It is one of the most beautiful musical documentaries in recent years and I admit that the use of voice-over is inspired by both the documentary on the Winehouse and others who have made school, such as those on Maradona or Senna. I am not a documentary maker, so I thought about what I like to see and how it would have been more beautiful to get closer to Pino Daniele for the spectators. One thing that I tried to avoid with all the musicians or the relatives and friends of Pino who speak with Vacalebre was the interview “Posata”.

In practice, in the film there are Vasco Rossi, Loredana Berté, Eric Clapton, Pat Metheny, Fiorella Mannoia, Jovanotti, Fiorello who, however, do not appear, listen to.
Yes, I don't like the seated interviewed: better then hear the words recorded on archive images.

The Neapolitans appear instead: James Senese, Rosario Jermano, Enzo Avitabile, Tullio de Piscopo, Tony Esposito. As if to reiterate that Pino Daniele must be told in Naples.
Exactly, I tried to make them speak on the streets and places of the city.

Lately we are used to documentaries-films, perhaps to episodes. You have been rather succinct.
For me 90 minutes are an ideal duration, not only for documentaries, also for the films. Then it is clear that they are not enough to tell the life of a person, but in that case they are not enough even three hours.