The talent of Virgilio Villoresi: the exclusive interview

 

Virgilio Villoresi and the modern nostalgia of a lost time.

 Time is dilated, suspended in Virgilio Villoresi's studio. Antique toys, unusual objects, old magazines, his world is crystallized in a childish and melancholic universe. The goal is to tell a tale, to amaze the viewer who becomes a child again by giving a soul to these objects, which become the protagonists of his films.

A deep universe that speaks of the purest feelings that we lose as we grow up, becoming adults and that Virgilio Villoresi manages to revive through his animations.

Considered the greatest artist of contemporary Italian animation, he has won several awards and is internationally recognized for his experiments. "As a child I was a ballet dancer, it may seem irrelevant, but rhythm is a fundamental component of my work", he tells us at the beginning of our meeting.

"The idea of ​​choreography returns obsessively in my films and works. Rhythm is a fundamental component of my work."
Virgil Villoresi

"Classical music is a fundamental element, the starting point of many projects. My first work was a film I made with the stylist Vivetta Ponti in 2006, an animated collage of old magazines from the 1930s." 

What is your background?
I studied DAMS in Bologna, but I'm actually completely self-taught. I trained myself by doing research, watching films by Jan Švankmajer and Norman McLaren, the Polish nouvelle vague of the '50s. Observing the great masters of animation frame by frame, I began to understand how the different techniques worked.

Why are you so fascinated by Nordic and Central European culture?
What I like about that culture is the ability to synthesize and the inventiveness with very poor means. It reflected a bit my situation at the time, when I was starting my first experiments in Florence and wanted to create something of my own with little.

I have always collected old things, I have a natural inclination towards all the imagery of the 20th century, especially the great Italian avant-gardes, in particular the Futurists, but also the masters of design such as Munari and Gio Ponti.

Why do you define yourself as a cinema craftsman?
Everything is handmade: at the beginning it was just me, now we are a collective of artisans who work according to the work that is requested of us. There is nothing virtually reconstructed, everything you see in my films is real.

How do you manage to make these little miracles happen? What is your creative process?
There is a strong connection with music, I often start from the rhythm and the melody to imagine a story. I always look for a surprise effect, for me the playful and funny aspect that strikes the viewer is important. I like to have fun with what I do, I want to surprise myself in the game.

Do you think the success of your films depends on this?
Absolutely yes. It is the ability to see things through the eyes of a child, to be able to recover the childish dimension, the child that is in us.

Does great technical ability also support you?
For every second of animation there are about 25 shots, which when put in sequence give the illusion of movement. The movement of the objects occurs between one shot and another, the movement is always in relation to the shape.

I use very different techniques, even putting them together: in one of my latest works I used slow motion and stop motion at the same time. I imagine movement in an abstract way, often I mime movements and gestures to understand how to reproduce them, or I observe nature to understand anatomies and correspondences, as I did for some works with seagulls or butterflies.

"Mine is a cinema made with the hands,
where there is very little post-production."
Virgil Villoresi

Where do you find vintage toys and special items that you use in your films?
Around specialized shops, markets, sometimes even at auctions. It's as if these objects were calling me, I recognize in the object something that I have experienced, that is part of my life.

How did your career begin?
The turning point was a music video I made in 2008 for Vinicio Capossela, after that work production companies and big luxury brands started to contact me. Since then, thanks to word of mouth, I have always worked a lot.

"At the beginning I did everything manually, but now we are a team of technicians, illustrators, and set designers."
Virgil Villoresi

How did you manage to get the big international luxury giants as clients?
The first time was for Dsquared2, I think it was around 2010. I made an animated film for them that was a sum of everything I liked. I work a lot for the fashion world, for some clients even continuously like for Valentino and Bulgari.

How did the project for your latest exhibition Click Clack come about?
It was my first solo exhibition, I was invited by the Adiacenze gallery in Bologna on the occasion of Artefiera. I exhibited seven kinetic sculptures inspired by pre-cinema optical devices.

For the exhibition I created a zoetrope, a tool that allows you to have the effect of animation thanks to the stroboscopic light, but also a motorized flipbook, in addition to several other mechanical works. The children liked the exhibition so much, that they came back to see it also with their families, this makes me really happy.

What is the project you would like to realize?
A feature film. I would like to enter the film industry by experimenting with my representation techniques on the timescales of a long film.

Do you think that Milan could be the right place for a creative person at this moment?
It is the only Italian city I should live in and that has allowed me to carry on my research and my work. I like to live it in the old trattorias and in the flea markets, those magical neighborhood places where you can still breathe that atmosphere of the 40s and 50s.

"The Talent of Mr." is a project by Paolo Pecora Milano that investigates, through a series of interviews, Italian talent at 360°.

We have selected different stories that represent the excellence of Italian craftsmanship: from communication to creativity, to architecture, to cinema and the world of food. To tell a lifestyle that is unique in the world. The project in collaboration with the curator and journalist Alessio de'Navasques, was born with the idea of ​​focusing on that ineffable element of Italian talent, difficult to define and describe, an expression of a DNA and a cultural background that is lost in time.