It is a midsummer morning when Giuditta Simi welcomes me to her home in Rome. We are in the shadow of St. Peter’s Dome, in a city almost completely emptied by the heat and with the incessant singing of cicadas. We have coffee sitting at a table covered with drawings and details from the biography of her father, Carlo Simi. He has been working on it for a long time and is keen to tell me that it is a biography not only of the set designer, but more importantly of the man.
To understand who Carlo Simi was, we have to think about cinema not in its appearance. We have to go behind the scenes, there where his true essence, his soul, what creates the magic, materializes. Born in 1924, Carlo Simi started out as an architect. He probably would never have imagined the path that would make him an excellence in world cinema, but sometimes there are lives that have unexpected shapes and, only those with vision like him, can make that path unique. When at the Faculty of Architecture in Valle Giulia he chose theatrical scenography as one of his courses, it partly determined his destiny. The encounters that followed did the rest.
Of cinema, at first, he said he didn’t think it could have so many values. He could draw scenes and at the same time know great characters. Combine reality with magic through architecture. Walls not as such, but with thresholds to cross that take you inside the dream.
We are in postwar revival Rome, in 1964, when Carlo Simi first met director Sergio Leone. He had already worked for others such as Franco Giraldi and Sergio Corbucci, but for the past year he had returned to the pure profession of architect. Arrigo Colombo, producer at the time and founder of Jolly Film, had entrusted him with the renovation of his house, and Carlo Simi went to meet him during a business meeting Colombo had with Sergio Leone. Several years had already passed since the end of the World War, but Italy was an endless explosion of genius and creativity in which anything seemed possible.
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He stood in front of a table with drawings and drawings ready for the creation of “A Fistful of Dollars,” a film that would soon become legend. Carlo Simi stood on the sidelines listening, but attentive to catch the dialogue through every nuance. Unexpectedly, loudly and almost without realizing it, in front of the producer and director he said without filter that he found those drawings and studies absolutely unsuitable for a set design of that kind. The comment generated a moment of frost. The voice, however, was so authoritative that, although he did not know who he was, Sergio Leone put him to the test and, in 20 minutes, Carlo Simi showed him what it meant to create a set design for a western film.
Of “For a Fistful of Dollars” Carlo Simi followed sets, costumes and furnishings. A real film genre was born, which was joined by other films such as “For a Few Dollars More,” “The Good, the Bad, the Ugly,” and “Once Upon a Time in the West.” From that evening, Carlo Simi and Sergio Leone established a relationship of esteem and affection that continued throughout their lives. The great composer Ennio Morricone said one day, “Sergio Leone would imagine a fairy tale, Carlo Simi would erect a space around it, and I would fill it with music. That was how it worked.” That was how it worked in the era when everything seemed possible.
Years passed, years of continuous collaboration and great success, and it was this idyll that led them to the creation of what to this day is recognized as a masterpiece of world cinema, “Once Upon a Time in America.” Directed by Sergio Leone, starring Robert De Niro flanked by James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern and other excellent faces of Cinema. Ennio Morricone’s music accompanying the story of Harry Grey’s subject. The dresses by Gabriella Pescucci. The set design by Carlo Simi.
If it is true that cinema is the seventh art capable of uniting the extension of space and the dimension of time, we can say that, in those years and more than anyone else, Carlo Simi was the one who knew how to elevate the concept of set design and this film was a testimony to that. His skill was to be able to reinvent places, lending reality to fantasy and storytelling. He reconstructed in Rome at the Cinecittà studios the entire set of Washington Street, the street in Brooklyn that in reality is under William’s Bridge and around which the whole story revolves. It is the place where the past and present are connected with the glamour of the 1930s. He went to America and came back with hundreds of photos to help him and the workers reconstruct that street with the flavor and aesthetic of the era of the story.
Mock facades to be applied to the new buildings were built in Rome, as were all the urban elements. Not everything could be shot in New York so he decided to create twin scenes, one in America and one in Rome. Twin the facades of the buildings, but also the manhole covers, the details of every corner. He even took note of the times so that he could have the same shadow play so that, in the editing, the difference would not be felt. He assembled it in Rome to see if correct, disassembled it and shipped it to New York where he assembled it again.
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Carlo Simi’s drawings were perfect metaphors for the film’s narrative, almost a second story intended for those workers who would later have to shape the plot. He would draw the set design and, at the same time, give all the directions on how to build them down to noting how and how many screws were needed. The soul of the architect met the dreamer in the construction, the visionary in him created the magic.
Alfred Hitchcock said that “cinema is the how, not the what.” Carlo Simi was absolutely the excellence of the how. In his work he succeeded in creating the background of emotions that passed from images through characters, story, and looks. “A Designer of Dreams,” as his biography written by Andrea B.Nardi titles.
November 7, 2024, will mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. The biography that his daughter Giuditta edited with immense love will be presented at the Almería Western Film Festival and will be published by the Experimental Center, a tribute intended for the few. In the summer of 2025, a museum will be dedicated to the great set designer in Covarrubias, in the land of the sets of the wonderful Western films that inextricably linked him to Sergio Leone. The University of Burgos will establish a chair of architecture and cinema in his name.
When I asked Giuditta to tell me about this biography, she said that it is first and foremost the story of a man. Ironic, highly educated, creative, a lover of beauty, but always with a humble approach to the things of life. In his recollections, a man who never shied away from sharing his thoughts, certain of his ideas and the immense skills that made him an ace. Carlo Simi was a great architect, an immense set designer, an unforgettable man, but most of all, quoting another famous film, he was his father.
The article Carlo Simi, the architect of cinema comes from TheNewyorker.
L’articolo Carlo Simi, l’architetto del cinema proviene da IlNewyorkese.
