A funny thing happened on my way to the (fake) Forum
Scientists have been trying to get to the bottom of laughter for years. One of the most celebrated experiments on why we laugh is the weight discrepancy test.
Subjects are asked to lift a series of weights, similar in size and appearance and varying only slightly in heaviness, and to rank them according to weight.
Then, slyly, another weight is introduced by the testers, similar in appearance but made of polystyrene. Unbeknown to the participants, it’s substantially lighter than the rest.
When the subjects lift the new weight, their reaction is invariably laughter — because, it is argued, of the incongruity between this newcomer and the others. The lighter the new weight is, the more hearty the laugh.
Roughly the same thing happened to me last week. I almost flattened a whole Roman street. Basically I leaned against the Forum and it collapsed. And everybody laughed. Because all the buildings in the street, all the columns, all the pillars, — although identical in every aspect to Rome circa 200AD — were made of fibre-glass, cardboard and plywood. It’s basically the Not-So Eternal City.
Iwas at Cinecittà Studios just outside Rome, where productions ranging from Ben Hur and Quo Vadis, to Death in Venice and The Name of the Rose, have been filmed.
Aside from costumes and scripts and props and clips from films, you can also take part in your own film karaoke, or even make your own Oscar speech (I thanked everybody I’d ever known). You can also get the rundown on the work of filmmakers such as Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini, Visconti, Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.
Currently at the studio they’re filming The Pope, directed by Fernando Meirelles, a production which focuses on the extraordinary situation of two popes being alive at the same time. The pontiffs are being acted by Jonathan Pryce (Pope Francis) and Anthony Hopkins (Pope Benedict).
I was glad when my guide assured me I hadn’t knocked down any part of Rome vital to the papal filming. In a spirit of jocularity I added that if Pope Francis were to resign, we would have three popes. It would almost be a Father Ted situation. Maybe get Brendan O’Carroll to take the part of the third pope.
My guide smiled when I suggested the concept, but I think it lost something in translation. But Craggy Vaticans could certainly be a runner as far as I’m concerned. Or maybe go the whole hog and enlist John Cleese as the third member of the trio — maybe Fawlty Pontiffs.
However the film turns out, should you find yourself in Rome head for the Cinecittà Studios. I know that Rome is pure cinema anyway; but it’s fascinating to see the prism through which we’ve seen the city on-screen.