Enzo Jannacci - "Vengo anch'io"

There's a football comparison in "Vengo anch'io" that, for once, doesn't feel out of place, and explains better than any words the uniqueness of Enzo Jannacci. Describing his friend, comedian Paolo Rossi recalls when Ezio Vendrame, the unforgettable Vicenza player and poet of football, in the middle of a soporific 0-0 draw, suddenly unleashed a lecca (slang for a powerful shot, ed.) toward his own goal, hitting the crossbar dead center, and in the post-match interviews justified himself by saying the match was boring and the paying spectators deserved to feel some emotion. An apparently self-destructive gesture but actually a calculated one (he aimed exactly at the crossbar), which closely recalls what Jannacci did during an edition of "Canzonissima," as recounted by Rossi himself: sitting at number one with "Vengo anch'io," the following week he decided to sing "Quando gli zingari arrivarono al mare," plummeting to second-to-last place. "Not even last, second-to-last!" he commented, a bit disappointed but with a hint of satisfaction, because "a resounding flop is better than a lukewarm success."

This "non-existent" relationship with success, made up of almost unwitting "highest highs and lowest lows," frames the entire journey of the Milanese artist, who is only today being fully recognized as an absolute genius of Italian song. Indeed, "the only great musical genius of song that we've had in Italy," according to Roberto Vecchioni, and "the greatest Italian singer-songwriter," in the judgment of Paolo Conte, who shared with him the success of "Messico e nuvole." And yet for years certain critics struggled to make sense of him: perhaps because he was first and foremost a dialect songwriter, perhaps because he was (apparently) lightweight, surrealist, or, ultimately, "anything but easy and so out of step," to use Fossati's words.

Credit for this rediscovery goes above all to the persistence of his son Paolo, tireless custodian of the Jannacci legend, always ready to reopen the box of family memories, perhaps sitting at a piano. To him are entrusted the most intimate and poignant stories in "Vengo anch'io," the ones that reveal all the tenderness and unconventionality of a father like Enzo Jannacci (Paolo actively collaborated on the film, also creating an instrumental version of "Vengo anch'io" and one of "Lettera da lontano," and made his personal archive available).

But cinema too has played its part, with compelling biographies, as was the case with Ranuccio Sodi's "Lo stradone col bagliore," broadcast by Rai 5 a few years ago, and as is now the case with "Vengo anch'io," the new film by Giorgio Verdelli, which has arrived successfully in theaters, following those the Neapolitan director dedicated to Paolo Conte, Mia Martini, Pino Daniele and Eros Ramazzotti.

Thanks to skillful editing, Jannacci himself becomes the film's narrator, partly through the recovery of his own words from a previously unreleased interview given to Verdelli in 2005. Aboard an old tram, we're carried into a timeless Milan that brings back, through a vast and often unreleased repertoire, all the key moments: the collaborations with his close friend Giorgio Gaber, with Dario Fo, the meeting with Cochi and Renato, but also his adventures on stages, in theaters and clubs, and that calling as a doctor - a cardiovascular surgeon, trained in South Africa under Christian Barnard (the first in the world to perform a heart transplant) - a path he perhaps would have liked to pursue further.

Contributing to the choral narrative, alongside his son Paolo and his piano, are the behind-the-scenes accounts of a moved Diego Abatantuono, Cochi Ponzoni, Massimo Boldi and Nino Frassica, as well as colleagues such as Paolo Conte, Roberto Vecchioni, Francesco Guccini, Paolo Rossi, Claudio Bisio, Elio, Valerio Lundini and many others. Last but not least, the surprising testimony of a visibly moved Vasco Rossi, who lays bare with unusual candor his immense debt to Jannacci, revealing for instance how "Siamo solo noi" was, deep down, nothing but his own take on a sequel to "Quelli che," and how "Vado al massimo" set out to revisit the suggestions of "Messico e nuvole," complete with unreleased glimpses of their friendship, summed up in a memorable TV duet of "Vita spericolata" (how Jannacci-esque that one sounds too!) and in a letter from Enzo brimming with sincere affection, which the singer-songwriter from Zocca still keeps faithfully framed in his studio.

“The affection of these artists moved me,” Verdelli said while presenting the film at the Venice Film Festival, but this is really just the flip side of that extraordinary humanity of Enzo Jannacci that overflows through all 97 minutes of this dazed, hyperkinetic film that was his life, because – as he himself says at the start – “I didn't want to stand still waiting for things to pass me by: wars, sorrows, snakes, cowards…”. A life lived in the front row, but never forgetting those who live in the back ones, like the factory worker Vincenzina or that homeless man on Viale Forlanini who “El portava i scarp del tennis” (“del” with the article, because tennis is a whole world, as he explained with a hilarious philological breakdown).

A thread of lucid madness holds together this inventory of anecdotes. From the improbable tour in Nuremberg following Celentano in the vain hope of the messiah Elvis (with the promoter fleeing with the takings and the musicians left to split four dried figs bought at the market with the 20 cents that remained), to Milan football matches at San Siro with his friend Fabio Treves, whom he asked to write his name in marker on a seat so he could keep claiming it afterwards (defying the protests of fans, since the seats weren't numbered!), from the surreal phone calls with Guccini, terrified because he couldn't understand what he was saying, all the way to his cameo at the tenth anniversary of Zelig – successor to the Derby, Milan's historic cabaret venue – where he wrong-footed everyone with the tongue-in-cheek “Prete Liprando” and had Bisio playing the drum, right through to all the memorable duets with Gaber, his more rigorous and methodical alter ego – hilarious is the story of when Gaber was absorbed in searching for the right line, and Enzo burst in shouting: “I've got this line in my head: ‘la vita è un buco nero in fondo al tram’”, with his friend crumpling up the sheet of paper, disconsolate, before whispering to those present: “But he still doesn't know how to carry on anyway”.

Less well known, however, are Jannacci's other close encounters, those as a talent scout with younger artists towards whom he poured out all his generosity – besides Vasco Rossi, also Ligabue, Enrico Ruggeri and Eros Ramazzotti, of whom he even does a funny, screeching impression, declaring “not everyone can be Caruso, so you have to stand out somehow”. Or noble Italian chanteuses like Milva, terrific in the duet on “Per un basìn”, Dori Ghezzi, who is also entrusted with recalling the friendship between Enzo and Fabrizio De André (by the way, did you know that the music for “Via del Campo” is by Jannacci?), and Mia Martini, the star of a poignant “Io e te” – and it's a shame no one recorded that impromptu performance in America in the '70s in which Mimì joined Jannacci and his piano for “Vincenzina e la fabbrica” (retrieved here instead from a TV broadcast, with Monica Vitti nearly moved to tears listening to it).

It would be reductive to claim that today Jannacci would run up against the limits of political correctness. Because Jannacci didn't want to be incorrect, sexist or crude. Jannacci was always and simply “out of place” – even physically, as director Massimo Martelli points out, recalling the famous opening credits of “Canzonissima”, in which he appeared as the one dissonant figure in that group shot. No one has ever had – or ever will have – the nerve to lament not being able to visit his beloved just after she died at the morgue for fear of getting blood on himself (“I can't get my suit dirty”), to use metaphors like “having the package submerged in the bucket” to evoke the duty to understand reality, or to make sexual requests like “give me the thrill of tendons” or “move all my freckles for me” (“Silvano”). No one will ever dare so much, perhaps not even “Those who do a team job convinced they're employed by a different company” (“Quelli che”).

Here, then, is the meaning of those words spoken on a tram by Vecchioni, which might have seemed excessive, notwithstanding the sheer quality of Jannacci as a musician: “I have always considered Enzo the one great musical genius of song that we've had in Italy. Because, mind you, even hugely gifted people like Guccini or De André still stick to a familiar template, the culture and nobility of the word, which they used superbly. Enzo, on the other hand, does what you never expect, both in his Pirandellian humor, the humor of the unexpected, and in tragedy. He'd start off one way and you never knew where he'd end up or what he meant. But in the end, something always stayed with you”.

Today it's hard, without Enzo and without that world anymore. Even for his Milan, which – as the head of the charitable organization Casa Jannacci observes – “if it loses that way of wearing its heart on its sleeve, becomes New York”. But if “la vita è un buco nero in fondo a un tram”, it will always be worth living life to the fullest, driven by his humanity and his lucid madness.

Technical details

Original title: Enzo Jannacci Vengo anch’io

Director: Giorgio Verdelli

Cast: Roberto Vecchioni, Diego Abatantuono, Paolo Jannacci, Dalia Gaberscik, Vasco Rossi, Claudio Bisio, Massimo Boldi, Cochi Ponzoni, Elio, Dori Ghezzi, Paolo Tomelleri, Nino Frassica, Paolo Rossi, Francesco Guccini, Massimo Martelli, Gino & Michele, J-Ax, Paolo Conte, Valerio Lundini, Francesco Gabbani, Guido Harari

Screenplay: Giorgio Verdelli

Cinematography: Giuseppe Talotta

Editing: Vitaliano Murdocco

Producer: Silvia Fiorani, Giorgio Verdelli, Nicola Giuliano, Francesca Cima, Carlotta Calori, Viola Prestieri, Gianfranco Romano

Production: Sudovest Produzioni, Indigo Film, Ala Bianca Group, Jando Music

Distribution: Medusa Film (Italy)

Country: Italy

Year: 2023

Runtime: 97′

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