Friday screening of "Death at a Funeral" by Mario Martone.
Days in the Life of Renato Caccioppoli (Capodimonte-Napoli1904 Chiaia, Napoli1959), son of Joseph (known Neapolitan surgeon) and his second wife, Sofia, Bakunin, (daughter of Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, who stayed several times in his Naples political activity),
distinguished mathematician, anti-fascist provocateur, heretical fellow traveler of the PCI, the protagonist the cultural life of Naples, alcoholic dandy, fine pianist and film lover, a myth for young people, abandoned by his wife and estranged from friends and colleagues of the University, ended up committing suicide.
Martone, without rhetoric, says Caccioppoli (Carlo Cecchi of a harrowing intensity) without telling us of his life (not a biopic of legendary it would not be possible), the disappointment and anguish of a Naples almost twilight reflecting it as a shattered mirror, without leading the viewer to connect suicide to this or that other motif (the betrayal of his wife, alcohol, disappointment politics), how those journalists and writers who hand in doing so have reduced a great character and an extreme act for reasons fragmented.
If the time frame of the film is the last week of life, like talking to a person who was not already over, which was abandoned long ago, when life was already out of his mind, an extraordinary elsewhere, could certainly be the end. For this
conversations of the professor in the film are reduced to bone, to the distance between the reality and the word that belongs to this story.
In Death at a Funeral, almost a walk with Professor Caccioppoli in his "wandering", in his last days.
biography Here I tried to summarize stories and anecdotes drawn from various sources to give a minimum of one of the characters most interesting of the twentieth century ....
TEACHER TO FEDERICO II
young age he won a prize for mathematics and ministerial in 1931, winning the contest just 27 years the chair of Algebraic Analysis at the University of Padua. Nel1934 returned to Naples to meet the chair of group theory, and subsequently passed to the chair of Superior and Analysis from 1943 to that of Mathematics.
In a few years became a full member of the leading academies of sciences and mathematics.
He never had the big international awards, both for his neglect of his writings in detail, both because of the isolation in which the fascist regime had thrown the Italian culture. Today
Renato Caccioppoli is considered one of the most creative and important Italian mathematicians of the first half of the twentieth century, with its "think big" and his not wanting to conceal the infinite horizons of research.
Renato Caccioppoli was probably not the teacher who dreams of having a student at each examination: sometimes took lessons in Naples, (was polyglot, famous even his lines in French), other times he was visibly drunk and inattentive.
lectured very short, always arriving late and leaving early is often the classroom: justified it by explaining that a quarter of an hour of 'his' science lessons contained more and information of two normal class hours. And perhaps it was true: the students were affascinatissimi by his charisma, although many asked to change the chair for support after class discussion with the other professors. Pass an examination with Caccioppoli was a source of great pride, but only a few brave dare venture.
Caccioppoli was intolerant of little tricks for students, mezzecalzette recommended the bourgeoisie, and the surface of the carelessness that made him severe, sometimes intractable and poisonous especially in the examination. A lesson not. It was most helpful and friendly.
The assistant was Don Savino, and even he escaped the sharp lines of the professor. A "priest", d''o prufessore Cumün assistant, was part of the myth, the "paradox" Caccioppoli and fueled "urban legend" of this figure, so strange.
the Federico II still run many stories about his personality .. like the time a student guilty of ball did not draw the hatch at the ends of a line, the teacher forced the boy to continue the chalk line until the end of the corridor ...
THE FASCIST PERIOD BETWEEN THE CRAZY 'CIVIL'
Caccioppoli felt a strong dislike for the fascist regime as undemocratic and felt a deep discomfort at his rudeness.
already under control, in Padua, by eye fascist political police, was in Naples that anti-fascism of Caccioppoli is exposed with the weapon that feels more and more its subtle irony. Thus, the mathematician begins to gain reputation among the anti-fascists. Participate in the secret meetings of the opponents of the scheme taking place between a bar and the other in the house of a friend or companion, in the warehouse of a bookstore.
In May 1938 he made a speech against Hitler and Mussolini, when the latter was visiting Naples and his partner, Sara Mancuso, rang orchestra by the French national anthem, after which he began to speak out against fascism and Nazism in the presence of agents OVRA. He was arrested at the risk of confinement, but his aunt, Maria Bakunin, then Professor of Chemistry at the University of Naples, succeeded in persuading the authorities release him of the failure of discernment of her nephew.
Caccioppoli was interned in a psychiatric center as well as insane and hospitalized patients and forgotten for years, but even there he continued his studies in mathematics, working on just then some of his best theories. He will say later that at the time of fascism found among those crazy people much more civilized than the free slaves of the system.
Another famous story goes that during the Fascist period, following the ban on men to walk with small dogs (according to the fascists' Protection of manhood "), walked as a form of protest for the main streets of Naples (Via Caracciolo and Corso Umberto) with a rooster on a leash. (!)
PCI AND MILITARY - A RELIABLE PARTNER LITTLE
Caccioppoli is actively involved in politics, along with many other Neapolitan intellectuals.
the war approached the Italian Communist Party.
The PCI is seen as a force able to rebuild the country and give a perspective of transformation. Began to attend the sections of the party (of which, however, will never take the card), the seat Neapolitan del'Unità and hold meetings for the party. Turn it seems with a copy of the Unit in the jacket. The passionate political discussions with young people who attend (Francesca Spada, Ermanno Rea, Franco Prattico, Ivan Palermo, Mariano D'Antonio) will be held at the headquarters of the communist newspaper, around tables in the bar "Gambrinus" or in some inn, and often go late into the night.
For his criminal history and for his efforts in at least two occasions in 1953 and 1954, he was denied a visa on the passport to attend international conferences. But
Caccioppoli is a non-conformist born, is intolerant to the logic of the party. Critica a PCI too rigid, loyal only to their own objectives, Judas himself and who, did not share the politics on some international issues (he was deeply troubled by the invasion of Hungary in 1956) and the doctrine of official Soviet science.
His presence around the party was living with suffering, with undisguised endurance.
For fear of his speeches are too critical, Amendola pressed him to get a ladder to check before writing a draft of the rallies in Bari
One day instead of a rally for "Partisans for Peace", the professor gave an impromptu piano concert . Of course it
initiatives was a great advantage in terms of propaganda. But that weight and concern that having brought a "supporter" Similarly, since the genius that you want, but it dipped in decadence, so different, so distant. And so dangerous, because of the great influence he had on young people in particular ... and he was not unaware of being a source of apprehension and even discomfort. He was just the game, replicating in their own way: by force of irony.
The love of freedom, the fierce critic of bourgeois convention, the intolerance for stupidity and arrogance of power, not only come from a family tradition dominated dall'ingombrante Bakunin grandfather figure, but maybe they were also a consequence uncompromising intellectual rigor of his direct, uncompromising, cantankerous mathematician and his innovative activities. A great moral rectitude
hidden under a mask of irony and nonchalance, but "unreliable" for his teammates.
TWO AND A PIANO PORTRAITS - THE CULTURE OF Caccioppoli
attended the same sitting, the same circles, the same coffee in La Capria, Ghirelli, Anna Maria Ortese Patroni Griffi, Francesco Spada, Alicia: Sorrento meets Gide ( Journal will remember that in his eyes sparkling with intelligence as well), he attended Moravia and Elsa Morante, ties of friendship with Neruda and Eluard.
His reputation is not limited to intellectual circles, when the day along the Cellucci street from Palazzo Via Chiaia, where he lived alone, until college when passes until late at night from a cafe to another, all acknowledge, if only for the slender silhouette of shabby dandy, 'or prufessore, or even call him 'or genius, o'pazz, o'comunista.
experienced the life of the homeless, and was arrested, drunk, begging for the night by the police for a check to Piazza Garibaldi, Naples, unbelief agents.
a raincoat and a white undershirt (always dressed so whatever the weather and temperature), in what will go down in history as the legend of the "dress Caccioppoli" for this white trench coat worn beige, dirt, carried around, to Columbo, the streets of Naples, with increasing sloppiness, this mathematical genius and unsurpassed is lost in alcohol, intellectual, cultured and refined, ruthless and uncompromising opponent of 'ignorance and triviality, relied on his long nights in companies is not always recommended.
A man in love with cinema (the founder of the Circle Cinema, one of the first post-war film club in Naples) and a music fan (it was also an excellent pianist). With
Caccioppoli, unconventional night until the scandal, the evening ended mostly tavern. At other times it ended up at his house, where with Francesca Nobili Road (Unit journalist who committed suicide two years after the death of Renato) the professor began to play piano: four hands playing pieces for the most part damn romantic pieces that never end, or to join almost ended interruption to other pieces, forcing an inveterate talkers enforced silence, sometimes unbearable, so that the group was trimmed gradually by successive defections on tiptoe. Influenced
dall'anticrocianesimo, loved to talk about Nietzsche, Proust, Rimbaud and the beloved.
had placed on his desk, two photo frames in silver, the face of a young poet and the mathematician: Rimbaud and Galois, designed to communicate with one another and at night both with the same professor.
DEATH
The May 8, 1959 came the news of suicide, a gunshot to the head, at his home in Palazzo Cellammare (between Via Chiaia and Via Filangieri). Renato Caccioppoli
So he decided to abandon a life that no longer deemed worthy of being lived. The growing instability
had sharpened his "weirdness" to the point that the news is not caught by surprise who knew him. A man
'deserted' in a country away, a divorced man, he brings with him all the divisions and internal conflicts never resolved, absent a man with death on him. We conclude
with its splendid suggestion: "If you're afraid of something, measure it, you'll discover that this is trivial, then maybe he let go and measure its afraid to die, discover that it really was not much.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Renato Caccioppoli was mentioned, without any rhetoric, a film directed by Mario Martone, "Death at a Funeral", in which his role was made by Carlo Cecchi, heartbreaking and intense in 'interpret the loss of the last days of the professor.
Some books dedicated to him or that abundantly quoting: "The rule of disorder" by Roberto Gramiccia, "Mystery Neapolitan "by Ermanno Rea and" Renato Caccioppoli. The enigma of Peter A. Toma.
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