Scented memories, with 'Fior Di Latte' director Charlotte Ercoli
Charlotte Ercoli joins us to discuss her debut feature 'Fior Di Latte,' a film as rich and layered as its title suggests. Her journey of transforming a personal obsession with perfume into a meditation on memory and identity reveals an artist unafraid to mine her own fascinations for cinematic gold.
Charlotte opens up about the intimate process of translating scent into cinema, revealing how she captured the essence of Italy within a demanding filming schedule. We dive into the meticulous production design choices that bring her vision to life, and explore the complex character of Mark—played by Tim Heidecker—as he navigates nostalgia's double-edged sword.
Our conversation weaves between the film's thematic depths and Charlotte's sharp wit, creating a dynamic that mirrors the movie itself: sometimes a delightful journey, other times a hazardous plunge into uncomfortable truths. A candid discussion about the art of storytelling and the treacherous power of remembering.
(Photo credit: Thimios Bakatakis)
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast.
Speaker A:And this is our conversation with Charlotte Tarcoli, writer, director of Fiordi Latte, premiering at this year's Tribeca.
Speaker B:I couldn't finish the script because I didn't have something I really had to say with that.
Speaker B:I didn't know what I had to say.
Speaker B:And so as a palette cleanser, I decided to write this movie.
Speaker B:I'm half Italian, my dad is from Italy.
Speaker B:And when I was 14, I had the same life changing experience as Mark has.
Speaker B:Just sort of being in guilt by family and friends and going to the disco and, you know, just things that I had never experienced as being a really sheltered kid from a small town in California.
Speaker B:I wanted Tim to be clear on, like, what this guy was writing about, even though we never really tell the audience what he's writing about.
Speaker B:But I wanted Tim to know that stuff and I wanted Tim to like, have a historical understanding of this person as well, of what he was interested in.
Speaker A:I guess to kick things off.
Speaker A:We all have, of course, those moments we'd love to not only revisit, but actually go back and relive Mark's perfume huffing.
Speaker A:Nostalgia trips feel like such a visceral way to explore that universal longing.
Speaker A:So what led you to scent in the first place as the gateway to memory rather than one of the more obvious ones like photographs, music, etc.
Speaker B:Well, it was actually something that I found myself doing, which is a bitch.
Speaker B:It felt like kind of a shameful, private, masturbatory act that I was doing over quarantine where I was like, I don't know, we.
Speaker B:I think we were all in kind of a bad place over quarantine.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:I think one of the only things that I really had was a small bottle of perfume that I got in New York from Diptyque.
Speaker B:And I just became addicted to smelling it.
Speaker B:And I would like, close my eyes and I would play music that I heard in New York and eat whatever, I don't know.
Speaker B:I kept on combining all the senses to try to have this more visceral, vivid experience.
Speaker B:And at a certain point I was like, this is so sad what I'm doing.
Speaker B:I should just.
Speaker B:I need to change my life.
Speaker B:I need to like, move away and like, this, this is wrong and so sad and.
Speaker A:And write a film about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, I was like this.
Speaker B:I not even write a film about it.
Speaker B:I actually pitched it as a perfume ad because I was working for a perfume company and they were like, Charles, this is this Is like, not for a perfume commercial.
Speaker B:You need to go like, this is great, but this isn't a perfume ad.
Speaker B:You should go explore this idea maybe by yourself and write it into a short.
Speaker B:So I wrote it into a short film, like a comedy short film.
Speaker B:And then I showed it to Marta Posan, who's the Italian romantic actress in the movie, and she was like, no, no, no.
Speaker B:Write this into a feature.
Speaker B:And within a month, I wrote it into a feature.
Speaker B:And it just.
Speaker B:It was the easiest movie for me to write hilariously.
Speaker A:But a month is.
Speaker A:That's incredible.
Speaker A:Fast.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was the most personal film and maybe the only personal thing I had ever written before.
Speaker B:Before that, I was really laboring over a couple other scripts that I had that weren't really, like, from a place of truth in my life.
Speaker B:And then I, as an experiment, decided to just sit down and write this for fun.
Speaker B:And I think by tricking myself into saying, like, ah, this is.
Speaker B:This isn't for anything.
Speaker B:There's absolutely no pressure on this.
Speaker B:I was able to just do it really fast, which is how writing works for me.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, I have to trick myself that there's absolutely no pressure.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's stupid.
Speaker B:Nobody's ever going to see it.
Speaker B:And it just happened very quickly.
Speaker A:Um, and when writing about the lead character, Mark's creative paralysis, did you find yourself identifying with his struggle?
Speaker A:Were there any moments where, as you know, art imitated life?
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:I mean, to reiterate kind of what I was just saying, I was laboring over something else that was.
Speaker B:I was trying to do something that was sort of inspired.
Speaker B:And this is still a North Star project of mine.
Speaker B:I would really like to do something around Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, and Sammy Petrillo in the future, but I didn't really know what the colonel idea to that story was.
Speaker B:And it was just.
Speaker B:I couldn't finish the script because I didn't have something I really had to say with that.
Speaker B:I didn't know what I had to say.
Speaker B:And so as a palette cleanser, I decided to write this movie.
Speaker B:And it was easier because I knew what I wanted to say with it, so it just flowed.
Speaker B:But absolutely, I understand writer's block.
Speaker B:I think anybody that writes knows what that feels like.
Speaker B:And the thing that I just tell myself when I feel like that is just think about what you want to make, what you want to say and what makes you laugh.
Speaker B:Because, you know, I'm a comedy writer.
Speaker B:I just.
Speaker B:I'm trying to entertain myself at the end of the day and maybe Others.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And as we witness in the film itself as well, there is a pretty fine line between a healthy trip down memory lane and getting trapped in a nightmare rich loop of nostalgia.
Speaker B:Well, it's an analogy for drug abuse.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:100%.
Speaker B:I think that's pretty obvious what's happening.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So how did you calibrate or even find that balance and then decide on just kicking that to the side when the time comes?
Speaker A:Came.
Speaker B:Finding the balance of what exactly?
Speaker A:Walking that fine line.
Speaker B:Oh, well, I didn't want to walk the line.
Speaker B:I wanted him to just barrel down into the depths of abusing perfume.
Speaker B:I wanted him to hit rock bottom.
Speaker B:I wanted it to be an extreme, which by the end of the movie, I think you see that, like, everything kind of implodes for him.
Speaker A:Mark is played by Tim Heidecker, who is known primarily for comedy, but this role requires him to do some pretty emotional heavy lifting as well.
Speaker A:So, especially now that you've mentioned being a comedy writer, what was it like directing a primarily comedy actor through Mark's more vulnerable, obsessive moments?
Speaker B:Well, the best thing about Tim's comedy for me is that he breathes truth into every single thing that he.
Speaker B:He says.
Speaker B:And that's part of what makes him so funny to me.
Speaker B:And the characters that he's played have a really distinct naivete and sincerity, even when they're being absolutely just like, deplorable or delusional or crazy.
Speaker B:And that was something that Mark's character had to have.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I could see in Tim that I believe everything that he does as an actor and from watching on cinema, and that's just what sold me on him as an actor.
Speaker B:And it was really easy for him to tap into that and for me to buy in to everything that he was doing.
Speaker B:It wasn't just like 100% comedy and shtick the whole time.
Speaker B:He really breathes truth into his words, and you want to go along with him, and that's what I love about him.
Speaker A:Understandable.
Speaker A:And yeah, as far as the supporting roles go, to me, it was just like, even from the biggest to the smallest supporting roles, I was like, yeah, this is on point.
Speaker A:This makes sense.
Speaker A:And then, like, Kevin Klein comes on the screen.
Speaker A:I was like, wait, what?
Speaker A:But then it made sense as well.
Speaker B:Yeah, his character is very grounded in reality.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:I think maybe because he sings, people expected him to play like, oh, I'm magical.
Speaker B:I'm Willy Wonka.
Speaker B:But no, his.
Speaker B:His character is actually one of the most based in reality and reasonable characters in the movie who's telling Tim that he's like, crazy.
Speaker B:You're not supposed to be puffing this stuff or ingesting it or giving it to your girlfriend as a tea.
Speaker A:How did you pitch this role to Mr.
Speaker A:Klein?
Speaker A:Or maybe to you, Kevin?
Speaker B:I did not pitch it to him.
Speaker B:I mean, Kevin just.
Speaker B:I can't imagine anybody better or that I would want other than Kevin in this part.
Speaker B:I mean, he is so good in this movie.
Speaker B:But there was actually somebody else that we had for this part before and it did not work out with them.
Speaker B:And I have mutual connections to Kevin Klein personally.
Speaker B:And I just.
Speaker B:I got a text on my phone saying Kevin will do the part.
Speaker B:And so I let somebody else go and had Kevin step in and do the part.
Speaker B:And if I had known in any world that he would have been interested in playing that part, he would have been the first person I asked, to say the least.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, hey, Charlotte, here.
Speaker A:He's a legend for you.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:The fact that he's in my first film is ridiculous and I don't deserve it at all.
Speaker B:And he is such a pleasure to watch in the movie and to direct and to work with.
Speaker B:I mean, he's one of those people that just like steps on a set and you're.
Speaker B:You don't even need to tell him anything.
Speaker B:Like whatever he does, he's one of those people.
Speaker B:It's just going to be incredible and perfect and.
Speaker B:So that was a dream.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like where now.
Speaker A:Pretty hard to talk.
Speaker B:No, no, you couldn't.
Speaker B:You actually couldn't.
Speaker A:To talk a little about the technical side of things.
Speaker A:There is a pretty striking distinction between present and past reality.
Speaker A:And the nostalgic, lesser reality.
Speaker A:Marx static.
Speaker A:Not so.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Fluffy.
Speaker A:Happy.
Speaker A:Current life versus the handheld.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Energy of his memories.
Speaker A:So how did you and the incredible cinematographer Themios Bakatakis develop that language?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So from the beginning of just the genesis idea of the script, I wanted those two points to feel extremely different.
Speaker B:Like night and day almost.
Speaker B:Inside Mark's apartment.
Speaker B:I wanted it to be very desolate, dark.
Speaker B:And I wanted to have sort of like maybe more of an unnatural feeling in a way or something more unsettling and then.
Speaker B:And no and like completely locked off shots and dolly and just things feeling very controlled.
Speaker B:And then in Italy, I wanted things to have more of a looseness and natural lighting.
Speaker B:Handheld.
Speaker B:We didn't do a single shot of handheld in New York.
Speaker B:I wanted stuff in Italy to feel more of like a pov.
Speaker B:And actually something that's interesting to note on in Italy is that we never ever shot a close up of Tim.
Speaker B:It was always through his.
Speaker B:We shot him in the wide, but it was always his pov.
Speaker B:All the other shots, looking at Francesca, looking at.
Speaker B:At the cousins, we never shot a closeup of him.
Speaker B:And it was always handheld and just a more naturalistic approach to things.
Speaker B:Whereas, you know, New York, it's like, you know, we had 100 foot long dolly shots on the street and it had more of a cartoon, Frank Tashlin me inspired approach to it.
Speaker A:And when it comes to the production design, what went into not only supporting but even inducing those contrasts?
Speaker B:Well, we just let Italy breathe as it was.
Speaker B:There was really almost no production design to do.
Speaker B:I mean, small, small things, no lighting, really just letting it breathe.
Speaker B:And then in New York, everything was designed to a T.
Speaker B:I mean, like, I had.
Speaker B:I drew every single thing.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:I was on set dressing everything myself.
Speaker B:And, and I worked very closely with Madeline Sadowski, my production designer, to like, make sure everything was exactly as I wanted it.
Speaker A:And especially with the personal element.
Speaker A:How important was it to.
Speaker A:And what was it like to capture not just Italy, but this romanticized version of Italy that can exist in one's mind when desperate to be somewhere else?
Speaker B:It was incredibly important to me because that's something that I've lived.
Speaker B:I didn't mention earlier, but I'm half Italian, my dad is from Italy.
Speaker B:And when I was 14, I had the same life changing experience as Mark has.
Speaker B:Just sort of being in go by family and friends and going to the disco and, you know, just things that I had never experienced as being a really sheltered kid from a small town in California.
Speaker B:And it was really incredibly important for me to try to do justice to that experience.
Speaker B:And Italian people, which is something that's just so near and dear to my heart.
Speaker B:And that was incredibly difficult to do in the amount of time that I had in Italy.
Speaker B:One of the biggest time constraints we had on the film was that I only had two days of shooting in Italy and I had to shoot on film and somehow convey this amazing time that he had in that amount of time.
Speaker B:And it was the biggest challenge.
Speaker B:And the original script had.
Speaker B:It was like at least 40 pages of Italy.
Speaker B:So by the time, you know, we were shooting, I had to keep on whittling it back and cutting it down to just like the most important moments to show.
Speaker B:And that was.
Speaker B:That was a huge challenge.
Speaker B:But it was incredibly important to me to try to get that across in the time.
Speaker A:What did it mean for your conversations With Tim, like as in not letting him know, but yeah, talking about how he isn't really playing or portraying you, but he, he's there to relive and portray the experience.
Speaker A:And experience that's so personal to you.
Speaker B:Well, there were a lot of people that the part was inspired by.
Speaker B:I'm just one of many.
Speaker B:It's, it's a composite of a lot of people.
Speaker B:So I did show him a lot of videos of people and we talked about different behavioral things that he could do and, and like his accent and his interests and you know, I taught him about sort of like old showbiz things and vaudeville.
Speaker B:And I wanted Tim to be clear on like what this guy was writing about, even though we never really tell the audience what he's writing about.
Speaker B:But I wanted Tim to know that stuff and I wanted Tim to like have a historical understanding of this person as well, of what he was interested in.
Speaker B:Because there's just a lot of references to things from a long time ago in the movie.
Speaker B:Like in the first scene he's ranting about Shirley Temple and having this, this swatch of Shirley Temple's like shirt that he got on ebay.
Speaker B:I wanted, I had to sort of like, I don't know, take Tim down a rabbit hole with me to learn about this character, which he fully embraced.
Speaker B:And so that was fun for me.
Speaker A:Love to hear that.
Speaker A:And before we wrap, I'd really like to reflect on the title Fiordi Latte and how it's almost vanilla, at least for Tim, but it isn't.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:With that in mind and to somewhat flip it now to a point in hindsight, as a first time director on your debut feature, how did you navigate those moments when you had something planned to absolute perfection maybe, but had to admit you just couldn't realize it exactly that way?
Speaker B:That's being a director is trying to tread water every single day and make the most of every situation and being malleable.
Speaker B:I suppose I'm from making no budget movies.
Speaker B:I'm, I'm very good at sort of making the best of every disaster that happens and you have to sort of be okay with relinquishing control sometimes.
Speaker B:Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker B:Like, how do you, how do you deal with things falling and disasters on the day to day?
Speaker B:At the end of the day you just have to think about the essence of the film and trying to make the movie that you want to make and being kind of ruthless.
Speaker B:But when there's things that you can't control, you just can't fight that.
Speaker B:You have to just make the most out of it.
Speaker B:And that's why I'm lucky that I started as somebody that makes really small, no budget movies is you.
Speaker B:You just learn how to do that and adjust.
Speaker A:And finally, after spending so much time in Mark's head exploring the seductive danger of living in the past, did making this film change how you handle your own most cherished memories?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:If anything, I'm more obsessed with perfume than I ever have been.
Speaker B:And I think I'm more addicted to it than I was when I started writing it.
Speaker B:And I should probably get professional help.
Speaker B:Just kidding.
Speaker A:Well, once again, Charlotte, thank you so, so much for your time and, yeah, for this lovely chat.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:Have a lovely fest.
Speaker B:Thank you so much.
Speaker B:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:Good to talk to you.
