Gianfranco Rosi on His Naples-Set ‘Below the Clouds’: ‘There Is a Spirit of Civil Resistance’

Gianfranco Rosi, who scooped the 2013 Venice Golden Lion with “Sacro GRA”, is back on the Lido with “Below the Clouds.” It’s a passionate personal exploration of Naples and its suburbs that lie under the Mount Vesuvius volcano.

Shot in black-and-white, “Below the Clouds” criss-crosses between different characters and situations. These include a teacher who runs a makeshift afterschool, a fire department switchboard operator who calms the fears of locals as the ground shakes due to continuous “seismic swarms,” a law enforcement official who tries to track down ancient tomb robbers and sailors on a ship unloading Ukrainian grain near Naples just as the port of Odessa is being bombed.

“In all of the characters I chose, there is a spirit of civil resistance,” says Rosi, who spent three years roaming the land with his camera. For this he thanks his producer Donatella Palermo, since “no other producer would give me the means to stay for three years in one place, giving me full trust.”

Below, Rosi speaks with Variety about the choices he made for “Below the Clouds,” starting from the film’s title, which takes its cue from the Jean Cocteau quote: “Vesuvius makes all the clouds in the world.”

What drew you to Naples and what was your approach to depicting this area?

I’d been to Naples as a tourist, and from the very first time I always felt there was a particular passage of time there. This gave me a great opportunity to experiment with a new approach. I always had the impression that Naples is this big off-screen space, suspended between what it is and what it could be. This was a huge challenge for me, besides the fact that I felt like I was in this huge time machine. The Circumvesuviana — a network of train lines running out of Naples around Mount Vesuvius — is like a huge tracking shot that goes through space and history and creates this idea of suspended time.

The film begins with archival footag, of Roberto Rossellini’s “Journey to Italy,” screened in an old, run-down movie theater. Talk to me about that choice.

I found this abandoned movie theater and I asked for permission to go in. And then I filmed it and I realized that all my archival footage had to be screened there. It seemed to me like an archeological site — the theme of archeology in the film is quite recurrent in my film. It echoed stories that are buried, the peeling of walls, the broken seats, the destroyed screen. And then I made some choices in terms of what to screen. Of course, I screened Rossellini because he is my favorite director. Even before going to Naples, I had thought of the part of “Journey to Italy” when they go to Pompei.

How did you choose the film’s protagonists?

This is where time comes into play. When I arrived in Naples, I had no idea who the people in the film would be. I decided from the start to make a film on “the other side” of Naples, on the Sarno Valley where all the archeological sites are. The first person I met, when I had my camera with me, was the prosecutor. I went to Pompei to film there and he was doing a conference on tomb robbers. I really liked him, so I introduced myself and told him I’d like to film him. He’s a very busy guy, always moving around with body guards. So he was the first person I met and the last person I filmed. But in all the characters I chose, there is this spirit of civil resistance. This is civilization. As Margaret Mead used to say, civilization begins when each of us does something for someone else.

I get the impression that, compared with your other films, this is a more personal, intimate, work — sort of stream of consciousness. Is that the case?

Yeah, that’s probably true, but what’s important is that the audience will find the same element of freedom in looking at the film. My other films had more of a point of departure and a point of arrival. And there was always either a political thing or a social drama in the backdrop. There was always something that you had to follow. Here, I didn’t have that element. I think each viewer will connect with this film depending on their own culture and their own curiosity. It’s open to many different interpretations.

Talk to me about the editing process.

Unlike my previous films, we started working on the editing from the very beginning of the shoot. It was a constant process of rewriting, because for me that’s what editing is. The fact that we edited from the beginning gave the film a very precise structure.

Why did you shoot in black-and-white?

That was a fundamental choice. When I found the Jean Cocteau quote that “Vesuvius makes all the clouds in the world,” I though that was an extraordinary image. I always film with clouds because they protect me from shades, from contrast. This led me to the title and the look of the film. Below the clouds, there are no shadows. I had to learn to perceive the world around me, through the shades of black and white. It’s not an aesthetic choice, it’s a narrative choice.

Talk to me about your collaboration with Daniel Blumberg (winner of the 2025 Oscar for best original score for “The Brutalist,” especially in the final scene.

His work is in eight or nine scenes in the film. I’ve know Daniel for 14 years and I’ve always loved the way he experiments with music. At first, I only wanted to put music at the end. I tried all kinds of things that didn’t work. So I went to London and spent 10 days with him. At first we tried to isolate the final scene, but the more we talked, I felt that he could work on different parts of the film. I told him: “I want this to be a soundscape, not a score.” He works with this incredible sax player, but I wanted a sound where the instrument became unrecognizable. So when we were in his apartment he said, “Let’s see how it sounds underwater.” We went to his bathtub and put underwater microphones in his bathtub. So this sax became this incredible transformed sound. From that, we started putting this soundscape in different scenes.

Speaking of the amazing underwater final scene, involving fish and Roman artifacts, where and how did you shoot that?

We shot it in Baia, in the Gulf of Naples [known as the “underwater Pompei”]. We filmed with a crew, since I’m not able to go underwater. It was very difficult. Underwater shooting is usually handheld, but I didn’t want that. So I said, “Let’s put the camera down there in one place and see what happens. Just a steady shot.” It’s a single shot. That was a big challenge, because nothing was happening within this frame. Then someone moved the sand underneath, and what was uncovered, with the sand moving, was incredible!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.