Sarri and Juventus Swiped Right for Each Other. Why Did They Fall Apart?

Juuso Kilpeläinen

27th September 2020 | 12:32 AM

Art by Onkar Shirsekar

I’m a cultural goods aficionado, including that of classical cinema. Imagine a world where Alfred Hitchcock and Marilyn Monroe made a documentary about zebras together, with Hitchcock doing the directing and Monroe as the narrator. In real life, this clash of the titans would have, most probably, caused nothing more than on-set conflicts between the two at the expense of le zebre.

Le Zebre, the Italian term for ‘the zebras’, also happens to be one of Juventus’ nicknames. During the star-studded 1980s, the club emblem was the blurred silhouette of a rearing zebra, alongside the two stars forming an oxer in front of the animal. Today, a zebra named Jay is the official mascot of the club. Jay is a cartoon-designed zebra, black and white stripes with fluffy mohawk on top of its head, brownish eyes, and a massive muzzle.

But back to Hitchcock. Hitchcock abhorred method acting, including those who practiced it. He didn’t care about the truth of a scene, and infamously repudiated improvisation; he just wanted his thespians to hit their marks and articulate their lines out as written. Monroe, conversely, exploited method to fine results, especially in her later career, but caused problems and kept people waiting during principal photographies. Hitchcock regarded actors as ‘cattle’. Hitch also didn’t have as much respect for Marilyn Monroe-esque blondes as his Italian contemporary Federico Fellini did, saying in his book-length series of interviews with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock/Truffaut (1966), “We’re after the drawing-room type, the real ladies, who become whores once they’re in the bedroom. Poor Marilyn Monroe had sex written all over her face.” 

Hitchcock’s strengths and Monroe’s cultivated screen persona would’ve distracted the audience from the film’s subject: zebras.

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