Aldo Dalla Vecchia, "Specchio segreto"

Education is a so outdated word today that it appears revolutionary. The grace with which are conducted the interviews that Aldo Dalla Vecchia — television and theatrical author, journalist and novelist — collects in the volume “Secret mirror”, called as the program (cult we would say today) by Nanny Loy, to celebrate the sixty years of television, results in a clean, elegant style, like a respectable columnist of the past.

After an insignificant introduction by Maurizio Costanzo, sixty interviews, followed by a small comment by the author, parade, ranging from 1992 to 2013, released by television personalities, some immense, such as Mike Bongiorno or Pippo Baudo or Raffaella Carrà, others minor but always known to the general public. The cut of each article is angular, it does not contemplate the whole character, his life or his work in its entirety, but portrays him for a glimpse, zooming in on some private mania, such as Paolo Limiti’s doll collection, Cristiano Malgioglio’s evening baby food, Sandra Milo’s love for furs, beyond any animalism. Roundup of faces, of television studios, but also apartments, sofas, kitchens, trinkets, and sequins in profusion.

For the author it is a sort of compendium of everything he has seen and done, behind the scenes of TV programs and as a collaborator of important newspapers such as “Epoca” and “Smiles and Songs”. He lives it as an insider but above all as a lover of television.

For us who read, however, it is curiosity, good-natured and modest voyeurism. Certain kitsch attitudes leave us dumbfounded. Alba Parietti who, for her fiftieth birthday, gives a party worthy of Sorrentino, referring to the film “Eyes wide shut”, between Venetian masks and miniatures of herself poised on the cake. Marcella Bella who describes her house as if it were normal to have “the relaxation area, with gym, sauna, Turkish bath, table tennis and table football”.

On the other hand, we apply the same morbidity towards those who, like Panicucci, appear to be “normal”, in their frantic juggling between children and work. The “stew with potatoes” she prepares for dinner reassures us, and, however, becomes the other side of the coin, resizing and balancing the fifty hats stacked in Malgioglio’s house. Vip life that amazes both in its extravagance and in its opposite, ordinariness.

But, more than anything else, Dalla Vecchia’s is a nostalgia operation. We go back, at the dawn of commercial TV, we go back to the squares in delirium for a boy with a pigtail, named Fiorello, who made people sing in the street, helped by a close relative who has not yet become the great dramatic actor of today. We go back to sit on the sofa with Sandra and Raimondo, realizing how much they are missing, as are the great Mike, fake naive, fake ignorant but true gentleman, and Enzo Tortora, with his parrot, his market, his first attempts to connect “On the net” all over the country, in a sort of ante litteram social network. We would like to rewind the tape, have more time to compensate the conductor of Portobello for all that we have taken from him, for the harm we have done to him, we would like to hear those rumors and see those faces live and not just in old archive videos. Particularly heartbreaking is the second interview with Sandra Mondaini, made shortly before her disappearance, so full of decorum, so laconic and kind.

“According to you, is there the new Sandra Mondaini?,” asks Dalla Vecchia.

“No, but only because I’ve never been anything …”

Only those who are truly great possess this humility.

Then we come across some gems for those who are fascinated by television mechanisms and the war of the audience, such as the interview with Luca Tiraboschi, director of Italia Uno. He complains that Canale 5 tends to co-opt successful programs on other networks.

Lorella Cuccarini’s words also hit the mark:

“We live in a television moment in which no particular professionalism is required. I myself, for example, no longer express everything I know how to do in the show business on television. If I want to dance and sing, I have to do it in the theater. “

We reflect that this is the case: today, the conductors, the dancers, the guests of the programs are only asked to be there, to be “tronisti” and commentators, a bit like all of us are now commentators on social networks. If anything, it is from the competitors of the talents, from complete strangers, that every ability is demanded: the children of Antonella Clerici must amaze us with their warbling, the young people of “La pista” must circle like professionals. VIPs and strangers, experts and beginners, cross paths and swap roles. We are witnessing the extravagant phenomenon whereby, if you are good at one thing, you must, instead, do another. Famous people must learn to dance, to ice skate, to starve on the island, to imitate. In other words, the professionalism, the apprenticeship, the study, the profession are no longer required, an often improvised and coarse presence is enough, or the painstaking preparation but in a field that is not the usual one.

An interview with the sacred monster Pippo Baudo could not be missing, as a worthy conclusion. With him we retrace first the dawn of TV, then the seventies, when television was still considered an educational and unifying means for the country, and the leaders were, according to Baudo, “of a crazy culture.” We then move on to the legendary decade of the eighties, with the two television pillars of Domenica in, a large afternoon container that mixed journalism and entertainment, and Fantastico, a Saturday evening show, whose most beautiful edition was number seven, starring Cuccarini and Martinez. In the end, here is the nineties, the drug of continuous work, of the constant presence on video for the Sicilian conductor. And it is with Baudo’s words, referring precisely to this period, that we conclude our excursus.

“An artist would like the applause for him to never end. Success is like a drug, and failure is the same: both are bad. “