(by Andrea Gropplero - Cinecittario: Archivio Luce)
There are very few small hamlets in Italy that can claim to be the setting for three cinema masterpieces. But this is the case of Villaggio Coppola, a small “village” in Castel Volturno, province of Caserta, where Matteo Garrone set three of his best films: The Embalmer, Gomorrah and Dogman.
Print itineraryVillaggio Coppola also holds another record: it is considered a prime example of large-scale, real-estate speculation. Contrary to perception, the place was not built by the Camorra (organized crime syndicate), but by developers from the Veneto region in the late 1960s who intended to create a popular tourist area. These developers were the Coppola brothers, considered the real-estate moguls of Casal di Principe, and the “village” owes its name to them. The coincidence of a surname shared with the great Italian-American director, Francis Coppola, must have greatly amused Matteo Garrone; we’d like to put our trust in the gallantry of time and imagine this place one day renamed “Villaggio Garrone”, and ideally the setting for a theme park or museum bringing together the sets and artefacts from the Italian maestro’s films.
Directors usually entrust the narrative development of their characters’ state of mind to costumes, make-up, lighting in addition to their interpretation. In The Embalmer, Gomorrah, Dogman, Garrone seems to entrust this function to the location, Villaggio Coppola.
The Embalmer, presented in 2002 at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs during the 55th Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of Peppino (Ernesto Mahieux), a taxidermist who, while searching for beauty, falls in love with Valerio, his future assassin. Entwined with weather conditions, the location underscores significant moments in Peppino’s emotional development: in the opening scenes, serene on the beach, and while delivering an embalmed buffalo to a mozzarella factory a short while later, where a celebration, featuring a triumph of buffalo mozzarella of all shapes and sizes, has been organized to mark the event. Then, clouds scattered across a blue sky announce an approaching storm as Peppino, Valerio and Valerio’s girlfriend, Deborah, go out to sea in a motorboat, the towers of Villaggio Coppola outlined in the distance. As the film ends, torrential rain descends during Peppino’s murder.
Awarded the Gran Prix at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, four intercut stories develop the theme of the film In Gomorrah. These are the stories of Pasquale the tailor, of Totò, Don Ciro and Maria and of Franco and Roberto where a businessman dealing with toxic waste (Toni Servillo) is abandoned by his disgusted right-hand man. The fourth and final story is that of Marco and Ciro, young hoodlums whose attempt to seize power leads to their execution. The cathartic scene in this “story” - where Marco and Ciro shoot at the horizon from the sea - marks a turning point in their “professional” growth while also demonstrating the harshness of the territory, predicting its end.
Dogman, awarded Best Actor for Marcello Fonte at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, is the story of Marcello, a dog groomer living in the suburbs of Rome (actually Villaggio Coppola) who is intent on murdering his oppressor, the bully Simone (Edoardo Pesce), in order to redeem himself in the eyes of his daughter, Alida, and the entire neighbourhood terrorized by the man. This film also begins with an alfresco lunch in the square of Villaggio Coppola, the sky is clear and Marcello is happily eating spaghetti with tomato sauce with his neighbourhood friends. Matteo Garrone himself expressed his surprise at how the location and changing weather conditions accompanied the emotional and narrative arcs of the characters and story throughout the film, contributing a magical combination to its overall success.
Several kilometres away, the regal splendour of the Reggia (Royal Palace) of Caserta stands in well-defined contrast to the degradation of Villaggio Coppola. Built in the XVIII century for King Charles of Naples and designed by Vanvitelli, the Royal Palace was commissioned to provide Naples with a European-level building to compete with Versailles. Naples was already famous in the courts of Europe for the banquets given by the Spanish king’s regent in the previous century, prepared by his cook, the carver Antonio Latini. Some believe that the fame of these banquets convinced the King of Naples to commission the palace.
Latini was the first ever superstar in the history of cooking. Born in Colle Amato near Senigallia in 1642, he worked first for Cardinal Antonio Barberini in Rome later progressing, as a mature and experienced expert in carving to the service of the regent of Naples, Esteban Carrillo. Here he would become master of ceremonies at the banquets attended by the nobility of Europe and he produced a book that is still today a key guide for those in the industry: Lo scalco alla moderna.
Latini was indeed modern: to him, we owe the use of tomatoes and bell-peppers, previously considered ornamental plants, in cooking. In addition to these key ingredients in the Mediterranean diet, we must also thank Latini for the introduction of wild herbs, salad and pumpkin into common use.
A contemporary of Francois Vatel, the French cook at Versailles, with whom he shared the fame and honours of their time, he was however, more innovative, almost always replacing spices in his recipes with herbs, a true Copernican revolution for the cooking of the time and a key element in the structural birth of the Mediterranean diet.
Without Antonio Latini, neither Marcello Fonte in Dogman nor any of us would be eating pasta with tomato sauce in our daily lives. The person who might suffer the most from this would be Matteo Garrone himself whose favourite dish combines buffalo mozzarella and spaghetti with tomato sauce. Garrone likes simple food, cooked with the correct care and attention, as demonstrated by his recipe for tomato sauce which includes four different types of tomato to give depth of flavour. These are first blanched for a minute, skinned and cleaned of fibres and seeds, then cooked for 7 minutes in a pan with two cloves of garlic sweated in extra virgin olive oil and scented with thyme and basil, blended into a creamy consistency off the heat with the addition of a spoonful of cooking water and served with a little parmesan cheese.
His co-writer, Massimo Gaudioso, has more complicated and elaborate tastes: his favourite dish is Neapolitan rice timbale, sartù di riso.
The rice timbale (sartù di riso), a star dish in Neapolitan cuisine, was developed during the 1700s alongside the Reggia of Caserta, inspired by King Ferdinand. Rice had first arrived in Naples in the XIV century on Aragonese ships. However, arroz was not successful in the area where it was referred to as “o’ sciacquapanza” (i.e. a tummy cleanser) and was subsequently taken up North where it found greater favour. For his marriage to Maria Carolina of Austria, King Ferdinand summoned French cooks to court to satisfy the palate of his bride who did not enjoy Neapolitan cooking. And it is thanks to these monsieurs (as the French cooks were first known, later contracted into monzù) that the rice timbale/sartù di riso was created. The name is a contraction of “surtout” (everywhere) which refers to the breadcrumbs covering the tasty dish.
The recipe we’re giving you is not that of the monsieurs however, but the version used by Massimo Gaudioso, writer and director, co-writer of The Embalmer, Gomorrah, Dogman among others.
INGREDIENTS
METHOD
Make a “light ragù” (as they would call it in Naples) by stuffing the slices of rump veal with the raisins, pine nuts, rosemary, garlic, parsley, dried breadcrumbs and prosciutto. Tie this up with string, sear in oil and garlic, then add the puréed tomato, lower the heat and allow to bubble for 4 hours.
Make little meatballs (approx. one hundred, 4 g each) by combining breadcrumb, ground beef, egg, pepper and nutmeg. Fry the meatballs and pat dry.
Remove the meat from the ragù and reserve for the main course, keep aside part of the sauce. Add water and rice into the rest of the sauce, and cook until all the liquid has been absorbed. Hard boil 4 eggs. Put the cooked rice aside in a bowl. In another, combine 4 beaten eggs, 70g grated pecorino, pepper and nutmeg, then mix this into the rice.
Grease an oven dish, leaving a 2 cm margin at the base and the sides. Stuff with the meatballs, the remainder of the sauce, the mozzarella (in cubes), prosciutto, peas and slices of hard-boiled egg. Seal it all with rice and cook in the oven for about 35 minutes at 160°. Serve hot.
This game is for anyone who wants to make a homemade trailer for The Embalmer and Dogman at Villaggio Coppola and food. We’re providing the time codes to some clips from the films. Any edit program will work for this. Insert the following data into the timeline and you’ll have your trailer in minutes.
