The First Motion of the Immovable
Documentary
Director : Sebastiano D’Ayala Valva
Duration : 81 minutes
Year of production : 2019
Broadcaster : Arte Cinema, Radio France, Tenk
Support : Sacem, Scam Brouillon d’un rêve, CNC, Radio France, Fondation Isabelle Zoghreb
A childhood memory of a terrifying music sets the filmmaker on a quest to uncover his mysterious ancestor, composer Giacinto Scelsi. Scelsi, who claimed not to be the author of his music, instead said he received it from the gods. He forbade anyone to photograph him and lived a reclusive life in his Roman apartment. Toward the end of his life, Scelsi recorded his memoirs and thoughts on tape, asking for them to be made public only 15 years after his death. In this film, Scelsi returns, like a spirit, in the form he always preferred: the sound wave. The director seeks to meet him by listening to his voice, his music, and the performers Scelsi handpicked to interpret his work. This film is a deep dive into the spiritual and sonic universe of an invisible artist.
First Appearance Award at IDFA
Special Jury Prize in Turin
This film was presented at the Rencontres d’Août 2014, organized by the Lussas Documentary School, at EURODOC 2015, and at Alliance for Development 2016.
Composer Giacinto Scelsi was a unique figure in the world of contemporary art, never seeking fame and actively avoiding it throughout his discreet and mysterious life. Scelsi carefully avoided contact with the media, especially photographers, resulting in only a few images of him and a handful of rare audio interviews. He considered himself, first and foremost, as an intermediary who received his music from divine spheres and modestly transmitted it to humanity. "I would like to be seen as a mere postman who occasionally receives messages and has a duty to deliver them," he would confide to those close to him.
Although some regarded his work as equally important as that of Pierre Boulez or Karlheinz Stockhausen, Scelsi refused the status of author his entire life, insisting on hiding behind his work and remaining invisible. Thus, in the film, Scelsi will, of course, also be physically invisible. Still, he remains the main character, "appearing" as a sound wave, the form he always favored.
Concerned about dying misunderstood, Scelsi secluded himself in his Roman home for several nights in March 1973 to record a strange narrative on his Revox tape recorder, a message to the world to be revealed posthumously (he ensured the tapes remained locked in a vault until 15 years after his death). These tapes and their "message" have been carefully preserved by the Scelsi Foundation in Rome and will be brought out for the first time to form the backbone of this film.
In these recordings, Scelsi recounts his life and thoughts in a nonlinear manner. He speaks to the listener like a storyteller, leading them through an exploration of his most intimate universe. He starts with his life's story: his "medieval" childhood in the family castle in Campania, where his piano improvisations would already lead him to a near-trance state; his year-long stay in a Swiss psychiatric clinic where he played a single note endlessly to heal himself. He also recounts the rumors that circulated about his work, alleging that his music had been written by another composer, Vieri Tosatti, who only revealed the truth after Scelsi's death by declaring, "Scelsi is me!"
Scelsi's life is a long quest of a complex man who, through exploring sound, reaches out firmly to the divine that he felt and heard within himself while other forces constantly pulled him back to his earthly condition.
The content of these tapes goes beyond a simple autobiographical account. The narration—always in the first person—takes surreal turns, often interrupted by three imaginary characters. Scelsi calls them "the chatterers," and he "interprets" them himself by slightly altering his voice. Throughout this quasi-schizophrenic dialogue, Scelsi tackles various themes with a touch of irony: the meaning of existence, the role of art, his relationship with spirituality, his mysterious illness and his vain attempts to treat it, and his conception of sound.
The voice of Scelsi will be brought to life on screen by those who knew him best, particularly the musicians he entrusted to interpret his work. Near the end of his life, when his music was finally being recognized, musicologists like Harry Halbreich said that "the history of 20th-century music must be rewritten" in light of his work.
These interpreters, and others close to Scelsi, will be the visible protagonists of the film. The only "physical" suggestion of Scelsi’s presence will be the palm tree in his Roman villa, filmed through the seasons with a touch of humor. The film is structured around a mosaic of characters connected by Scelsi’s invisible presence, with the palm tree symbolizing his reincarnation, as he predicted he would return as the palm on the 8th of August, 1988.
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