Laboratorio Dell'immaginario LUNARIO DEL PARADISO

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Laboratorio Dell'immaginario LUNARIO DEL PARADISO laboratorio dell’immaginario issn 1826-6118 rivista elettronica http://cav.unibg.it/elephant_castle LUNARIO DEL PARADISO a cura di Nunzia Palmieri dicembre 2018 CAV - Centro Arti Visive Università degli Studi di Bergamo GABRIELE GIMMELLI “Kicked off Somewhere”: sul Lunario, l’interpolazione e il gag1 Permutazione ed espulsione L’intento delle pagine seguenti, deducibile già dal titolo, è quello di rileggere Lunario del paradiso alla luce di un altro testo di Gianni Celati, ovvero il saggio “Su Beckett, l’interpolazione e il gag”, incluso in Finzioni Occidentali. Come risulta da una lettera dattiloscritta, oggi conservata presso l’archivio Einaudi,2 è uno dei testi più antichi del volume (compare infatti in tutte e tre le edizioni della raccolta, a cominciare da quella del 1975). Nella missiva in questione, Celati lo riassume così: SU BECKETT L’INTERPOLAZIONE E IL GAG: l’unico pezzo pronto senza molti dubbi; devo aggiungerci la conclusione che tutte le fughe dalla linearità3 ricascano dentro in affermazioni della egemonia della scrittura lineare; c’è poi in fondo una piccola storia del comico testuale che avevo scartato, in cui dico che la comicità, da Don Chisciotte in poi, non è più comicità su un vizio esterno al testo che il testo rap- presenta, ma è il testo nella sua totalità a farsi oggetto comico, perché libro strampalato, parodia del libro, come dice Beckett in Watt “il riso dianoetico”, o “il riso che ride di se stesso” (Celati s.d.: 6; corsivo mio). 1 Una prima versione del testo è apparsa su doppiozero, il 3 maggio 2018 (http:// www.doppiozero.com/materiali/kicked-somewhere-sul-lunario-linterpolazione- e-il-gag). 2 La missiva, non datata, risale probabilmente alla primavera del 1972, quando Celati è negli Stati Uniti in qualità di borsista presso la Cornell University di Ithaca (cfr. Palmieri 2016a: XCIII). 3 Va ricordato che il primo titolo immaginato da Celati per Finzioni occidentali era “Avventure della linearità” (cfr. Celati s.d.:1). 5 Elephant & Castle, n. 19, Lunario del paradiso, dicembre 2018 G. Gimmelli - “Kicked off Somewhere”. Sul “Lunario”, l’interpolazione e il gag 6 Il saggio su Beckett si può leggere come una sorta di “palinsesto In Beckett trovano posto gag verbali, sul modello di quelli di Groucho teorico” dei romanzi che Celati, a quell’altezza cronologica, ha ap- Marx, nei quali il personaggio suggella il proprio ragionamento con pena pubblicato (Comiche è uscito nel 1971) e che pubblicherà di lì una battuta che lo contraddice o che ne capovolge il senso: “Ciò vi a poco (Le avventure di Guizzardi vedrà la luce nel 1973; seguiranno dimostra quanto ero costipato, a quei tempi. È l’ansia che mi costi- La banda dei sospiri nel 1976 e, appunto, il Lunario nel 1978). Nelle pava, credo. Ma ero realmente costipato? Non lo credo” (da Premier sue pagine, la scrittura di Beckett viene messa a confronto con i amour, cit. in Celati 1975: 63). Vi sono poi quelli che Celati chiama procedimenti mimico-gestuali adottati nelle slapstick comedies del “gags-immagine”, basati sia sulla corporeità dei personaggi (sulla cinema americano. Ebbene, se è quasi superfluo ricordare come la loro andatura, per esempio, o sulla loro eventuale perdita d’equili- comicità slapstick sia stata per Celati ben più di una passione gio- brio), sia sul rapporto con gli oggetti, come la seguente pantomima vanile,4 bisognerebbe d’altra parte cercare di capire in che modo di Molloy alle prese con i sassi: essa trovi sbocco nella sua opera – nella fattispecie, nel Lunario – e in quale misura ne influenzi non soltanto lo stile, ma anche l’idea Avevo supponiamo sedici pietre, quattro in ognuna delle quattro ta- stessa di scrittura. sche che erano le due tasche dei miei calzoni e le due tasche del mio Nel saggio, Celati traccia una tassonomia delle gag – anzi, “dei” gag, mantello. Nel prendere una pietra dalla tasca del mantello, e nel met- come era d’uso scrivere all’epoca – presenti nell’opera beckettia- termela in bocca, la sostituivo nella tasca destra del mantello con una na, in particolare nei lavori del primo periodo francese: la novella pietra della tasca destra dei calzoni, che sostituivo con una pietra della Premier amour (Primo amore, 1946),5 la raccolta di prose Nouvelles tasca sinistra dei calzoni, che sostituivo con una pietra che si trovava nella mia bocca, appena finito di succhiarla [...] (ivi: 64). et textes pour rien (Novelle e testi per nulla, 1955) e, soprattutto, il romanzo Molloy (1951). Celati ribalta l’immagine di Beckett come Infine, ci sono i “gags-situazione”, basati sull’equivoco e il qui pro cantore dell’inazione e quasi lo trasforma in un precursore della quo, come il memorabile scambio fra Molloy e il commissario di propria poetica, individuando, sulla scorta di Renato Oliva e di Jean- polizia. Pierre Coursodon, precise parentele fra la slapstick comedy e i pro- cedimenti comici beckettiani.6 [...] E di colpo mi ricordai il mio nome, Molloy. Molloy, esclamai tutt’a un tratto, Molloy, mi è tornato in mente proprio adesso... E il nome 4 All’inizio degli anni Sessanta, scrive Celati, “quando potevo partivo per Parigi, della vostra mamma? disse il commissario. Cosa? dissi io. Voi vi chiamate con i soldi che mettevo da parte facendo lavori saltuari, e restavo chiuso alla Molloy, disse il commissario. Sì, dissi io, mi è tornato in mente proprio Cinemathèque, nella sala dove si proiettavano solo film comici americani, anche adesso. E la vostra mamma? Non riuscivo ad afferrare. Si chiama Molloy dalle nove di mattina fino a mezzanotte” (Celati in Palmieri 2016a: LXXXIII). anche lei? Si chiama Molloy? dissi io. Sì, disse il commissario. Mi misi a Quanto la passione dello scrittore emiliano si possa inscrivere in un “sentire” riflettere [...] (ivi: 66). più vasto – la riscoperta della slapstick comedy in ambito cinefilo e in chiave “controculturale” – rimane a mio avviso una questione ancora da indagare. Qualche accenno si può trovare in Belpoliti 2010: 295 e passim. segnala anche l’incontro di Beckett con il grande comico bavarese Karl Valentin, 5 Benché scritto nel 1946, per volontà dello stesso Beckett venne dato alle stam- avvenuto nel 1937 a Monaco: i duetti con la sua spalla Liesl Karlstadt potrebbero pe soltanto nel 1970. aver ispirato, insieme a quelli fra Stan Laurel e Oliver Hardy, gli scambi “cupi 6 L’influenza del cinema comico sull’opera di Beckett è attestata da numerose ma vivaci” dei protagonisti di Aspettando Godot (cfr. Knowlson 2001: 306-07). fonti. Nella sua corposa biografia, James Knowlson (2001: 69) ricorda per esempio Altri cenni sull’argomento sono presenti in Bertinetti 1994: XXIII e XXVI. Una che in gioventù Beckett si recava spesso al cinema, “gustandosi i cortometraggi e i prospettiva originale è infine quella proposta da Maude 2014, che rilegge Beckett primi film muti di Buster Keaton” e “numerosi film di Charlie Chaplin”. Il biografo e la slapstick alla luce degli esperimenti di Charcot sull’isteria alla Salpêtrière. 7 Elephant & Castle, n. 19, Lunario del paradiso, dicembre 2018 G. Gimmelli - “Kicked off Somewhere”. Sul “Lunario”, l’interpolazione e il gag 8 Se mi sono dilungato nel riprendere gli esempi portati da Celati, è dicotomia fra gesto virtuale (Zeigen) e gesto concreto (Greifen), perché ho l’impressione che si tratti di pagine cruciali: rileggendo mutuata da Merleau-Ponty: Beckett come scrittore-performer e accostandolo agli amati comici della Silent Era, egli sta indirettamente parlando di sé e della pro- Nel primo caso il mio corpo è il mezzo espressivo d’un pensiero spa- pria idea di scrittura. Ed è proprio grazie a Coursodon e alla sua ziale e di riconoscimento delle leggi oggettive d’uno spazio, nel secon- monumentale monografia su Buster Keaton, che Celati individua do caso è strumento di occupazione di uno spazio familiare o no, in due “temi comici” comuni all’attore americano e al drammaturgo ogni caso non interpretato (Celati 1976: 23). irlandese.7 Il primo è la permutazione (cfr. Coursodon 1973: 339-42), presente Qualche pagina più avanti, Celati conclude quindi che “tutti gli effetti sia a livello di singole situazioni (lo scambio di persone e di oggetti), comici del personaggio maldestro” si basano sul “non riconoscimen- sia nella struttura stessa del racconto (simmetrie, percorsi avanti/ to di uno spazio che richiede comportamenti interpretativi, cioè indietro, rovesciamento dei ruoli, ecc.). La permutazione è dunque astratti” (ivi: 27). la “figura della peripezia” all’interno dello spazio, il quale appare – L’altro tema comico individuato è l’espulsione, che Celati, riprenden- tanto ai protagonisti di Beckett quanto a quelli di Keaton o di Har- do Coursodon (1973: 343-347), definisce “una specie di nascita”, ry Langdon –8 come sospeso in un’incertezza onirica che avvolge traumatica ma necessaria. Figura “dell’inizio, del cominciare, dell’in- senza distinzione persone, oggetti e luoghi. È un aspetto su cui Ce- stallarsi in uno spazio estraneo o non familiare-quotidiano” (Celati lati ritorna frequentemente in questo periodo. Per esempio, in uno 1975: 71), è presente in Keaton fin dai primissimi two reels. Celati 10 scritto apparso nel 1976 sulla rivista il verri con il titolo “Il corpo menziona The High Sign (1920-21), esordio alla regia dell’attore, comico nello spazio”,9 egli rilegge l’onirismo slapstick alla luce della che si apre con questa didascalia: “Our Hero came from Nowhere, he wasn’t going Anywhere and got kicked off Somewhere” [Fig. 1]. 7 Giustamente Celati (1975: 68) non manca di ricordare come, nell’estate Ovvero, nella traduzione di Celati (ivi: 70): “L’eroe non viene da del 1964, Beckett e Keaton abbiano collaborato alla realizzazione di Film, un nessuna parte, non è diretto da nessuna parte, ma è cacciato fuo- cortometraggio diretto Alan Schneider e scritto dallo stesso Beckett dietro ri da qualche parte”.
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