My Name is Nobody (2017)

Directed by: Denise Janzee | 89 minutes | documentary

Take an eighty year old class photo. What would have become of all the students? Every child has its own story. But what if two students from the same class went on to become world-famous artists? And what if they were flanked by the same boy in that class photo? With that in mind, Denise Janzée – daughter of actress Willeke van Ammelrooy and stepdaughter of opera singer Marco Bakker – set off through the Roman district of Trastavere. The starting point is a photo she found in Checco er Carrettiere, an eatery that is full of beautiful old photos of celebrities who once came there. Think classic Hollywood stars like Ava Gardner, sports legends like Muhammad Ali and Italian cinema greats like Federico Fellini and his wife Giulieta Masina, Bernardo Bertolucci and Gina Lollobrigida. Perhaps the most special photo is the class photo from 1937, which not only shows master filmmaker Sergio Leone, but also the legendary film composer Ennio Morricone. They are also almost next to each other. Almost, because there is one boy in between. And it is precisely that boy who fascinates Janzée. Who is this boy, who may stand between two later grandmasters? What became of him? All that is known of him is his last name – Grisanti – scrawled on his likeness.

In her documentary ‘My Name is Nobody’ (2017), Janzée tries to track down this Grisanti. She does this in the Trastavere district and in the vicinity of the nuns’ school where the photo was taken. Not surprisingly, anyone who shows them the photo immediately starts talking about Leone and Morricone. They all have a story about that. But who is that boy standing between them, Janzée wants to know. They don’t know. Grisanti is the great unknown – a nobody between two great stars. As she continues to ask about Grisanti, and gets several people in front of her camera, information slowly but surely trickles in about the best man. But she has to dig deep for it. There are several stories about Grisanti – was he a lawyer or an engineer? – but through a (former) bigwig in the law world, a general practitioner and former neighbors of the Grisanti family, the great unknown gets a face. However, it remains an unclear picture. It is striking that the Romans prefer to talk about the other two boys in the photo. It is the power of fame. A taxi driver reveals that he himself would have liked to become famous. A B-movie actor/director muses on the fame he could have had. Janzée gives this Willi Colobani extra time and even lets him take on the role of Grisanti in a monologue. He represents the transience of fame; he was once allowed to sniff it for a moment, but sixty years later no one remembers who he is.

Janzée films in a loose way, which makes it seem as if her quest has arisen very spontaneously, while she has really mapped it out in advance. ‘My Name is Nobody’ is a nice study about how people think about fame and anonymity. Moreover, with her film she honors the ‘ordinary’ inhabitants of Trastavere, whom she brings in front of her camera to have their say. Because isn’t that what everyone wants: to be heard and seen? Janzée’s film is most striking when she finally gets none other than Ennio Morricone herself – Leone has been dead for almost thirty years – after many fives and sixs in front of her camera. Morricone is a man who has been doing nothing but talking about himself for decades; you see him thinking in exasperation: why is this woman asking me about one Grisanti, a boy he’d long forgotten? If, like Morricone, you’ve been worshiped everywhere you go for three quarters of your life, that also does something to your perception. Speaking and thinking freely is no longer there for him; perhaps he has even forgotten it. For example, ‘My Name is Nobody’ teaches us not only about the allure of fame, but also about its dark sides and transience.