Mauro Pagani

For cinema, this is a period rich in titles concerning the lives of illustrious Italian musicians. Shortly after the biopic on Franco Battiato “Il lungo viaggio”, from February 16 to 18 the documentary “Andando dove non so. Mauro Pagani, una vita da fuggiasco” will be released in theaters as a special event, written and directed by Cristiana Mainardi and produced by Lumière & Co. and Luce Cinecittà in collaboration with Rai Documentari.

The director has made a very precise choice: the narrative is built on the alternation between present-day footage and archival material from the past, with the intent of giving shape to the thoughts and memories of Mauro Pagani at a critical moment in the musician's life, when a few years ago, following a neurological problem, he temporarily lost his memory. “I'm alive by chance,” he says. In this state of distress, however, he never forgot his music and his instruments… and little by little the memories resurfaced.

The film thus presents itself as the courageous reflection of an artist on the deep meaning of what he has done in his life. Pagani lays himself bare with sincerity, and it's striking to compare the man of today, worn down physically by age and injury, with the sensual, wild young man who more than 50 years ago played the flute and sang “La carrozza di Hans” alongside Pfm. The Premiata Forneria Marconi enjoyed an enormous following in the 70s, both in Italy and abroad, sealed by a memorable tour of the United States. “Impressioni di settembre”, whose lyrics Pagani wrote together with Mogol, is considered one of the most beautiful and most-covered songs in Italian music, but at a certain point Pfm was no longer enough for the “Fuggiasco” (the Fugitive), which, as Pagani himself explained, is a sort of alter ego that periodically drives him to seek change.

In a black-and-white interview from those years, the young musician offers a reflection that could be a key to understanding the whole documentary: “I'm not particularly talented, I just have a desperate need to communicate and to be with others.” The small-town boy, raised in Chiari near Brescia, a self-taught musician, had to endure strict family discipline: his father wouldn't let him leave the house, and once even smashed a violin over his head. It's no wonder, then, that as an adult, the Fuggiasco went to live in Milan in a commune with a group of intellectuals, from whom he learned the rules of communal living, rigor and the constant drive to improve, the sharing of personal culture, and the value of politics. Manuel Agnelli, who met Pagani in the late 1990s during the production of several Afterhours albums, says of him in the film: “He made me understand what was great about the 1970s.”

Pagani's life and career have always been marked by intense friendships: first and foremost, the one with Demetrio Stratos. The partnership between two extraordinary musicians, two restless souls who had each recently left Pfm and Area, considered the crown jewels of Italian alternative music, saw them collaborate on several projects that anticipated world music, until a severe form of leukemia took Stratos from us in '79. The documentary pays tribute to his extraordinary voice with the track "Gerontocrazia" ("What if society lost its memory?" Stratos asked), and shows a scene from the concert at Milan's Arena Civica, organized by Gianni Sassi in June '79 to raise funds in support of the singer. The legendary founder of Cramps also appears in a fragment, visibly devastated by the loss of his friend, in one of the few pieces of footage in which he ever spoke on camera.

And then, of course, there's Fabrizio De André, with whom Pagani built a relationship of deep trust and mutual esteem (the footage of the boat trip the two took alone in Greece is genuinely moving), in which the former Pfm member often served as a counterweight to his friend's obsessive attention to detail and moodiness. The two met at the Stone Castle Studios in Carimate in 1981 and in 1984 created one of the most prestigious albums in Italian and international music, "Creuza de mä". We'll never tire of pointing out how decisive Pagani's contribution to the album was: as mentioned, he had already spent a long time exploring the sounds of the Mediterranean, specializing, among other things, in the bouzouki, a Greek stringed instrument that the musician adapted to the needs of Western music. The documentary also features Dori Ghezzi, who highlights the enduring relevance of some of the tracks on this masterpiece, such as "Sidún", dedicated to the tragedy of the Palestinian civilians massacred in the refugee camps of Lebanon in the 1980s.

Pagani came out of this intense period of work with the Genoese singer-songwriter suffering a nervous breakdown, as he himself recounts in the book "Nove vite, dieci blues". But despite everything, their collaboration would continue until 1990 with "Le nuvole", a new album made together. "It's not easy working with the best of them all," Pagani reveals in the film, speaking of his great friend's formidable personality. Then he gets emotional and pauses for an endless moment, one that says more than a thousand words.

Besides friendship, love also runs through the life of the Fuggiasco: his first wife Adalaura, a translator with whom he had also lived in Milan's "commune", and above all his current partner Silvia Posa, who understands his restless spirit deeply, respects his moments of disorientation, and describes him as "a man driven only by feeling". Together they run Le Officine Meccaniche in Milan, the recording studio around which the whole documentary essentially revolves: overlooking the Naviglio Grande, whose waters are realistically far from clear, this space was something Pagani fought hard for, buying it, renovating it and filling it with magnificent instruments starting in 1998. "I'm very good at getting into debt," the Fuggiasco recounts with a smile, "I chose music and I accept the consequences. Music eats up everything." And this is where the true meaning of Mauro Pagani's journey lies: because Officine Meccaniche, named in honor of his father, who ran a mechanical workshop in Chiari, is not just a beautiful, welcoming recording studio where Pagani has produced albums for Afterhours, Bluvertigo, Marco Mengoni, Arisa and Muse; it was — and still is — a community, a point of reference and encounter for artists, a tribute to analog music and to feelings, to records that aren't made anymore, to "the old masters" (like the piano in the studio once played by Duke Ellington), and to the education of new generations. So much so that at one point Giuliano Sangiorgi of Negramaro, visiting the studio, affectionately exclaims to Pagani: "You bastard! You never change on purpose!"

All of this is palpable in the many scenes in which Manuel Agnelli, Marco Mengoni, Ligabue, Arisa, Mahmood, Sangiorgi and even Ornella Vanoni meet their mentor; from the way they embrace him and talk to him, it's clear that the Fuggiasco passed something special on to them, not just technical knowledge. We were particularly struck by the testimonies of Manuel Agnelli, a sincere admirer of the maestro, and Marco Mengoni, delightfully witty at times. The only real criticism one could make of the documentary concerns precisely the involvement of these "guests": starting with the trailer, it feels a bit excessive — undoubtedly necessary to draw in a younger audience, but it could have been handled more effectively.

You leave the cinema enriched, and a little moved too. This isn't a celebratory account of a career that, however splendid and multifaceted, is treated here with great intellectual honesty in the search for one's own identity. It's a journey that doesn't stop at the years with Pfm and De André, supported by careful, never intrusive direction. Because, as Mauro Pagani himself has said, it's your fellow travelers who tell you where to look and where to go. His solid experience as a musician has allowed Pagani to become a respected record producer and artistic director of various festivals, but the most satisfying thing is seeing this fine gentleman with the blue glasses smile, with the same gentle restlessness of 50 years ago, as he announces the upcoming release of his new album. It's called: "Tutto è già qui".

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