Publication Date
12-1-2013
Abstract
In his film Buongiorno, notte, Marco Bellocchio seeks to represent the kidnapping of Aldo Moro both as a family melodrama and as an analysis of the historical reconstruction of the Moro Case through mass media representations. Bellocchio claims to “have taken certain liberties” with the historical facts of the Moro Case in an effort to pursue his more artistic and sociological investigation, in the tradition of Manzoni. The metamorphosis of the historical revolutionary Laura Braghetti into the traditionally feminine, hesitant, and doubtful character of Chiara, the positioning of Moro as a father figure to his captors, and the insistence upon their quotidian domesticity (as opposed to the extraordinariness of the violent crimes they perpetrate) all indicate an artistic vision of the situation as a conventional family melodrama. Furthermore, this vision is evolved through images of the mass media, including repeated imagery of the mass media, particularly round-the-clock television news coverage, films, and newspapers. This intertextuality functions as an analysis of how modern society constructs and deconstructs its own identity through self-representation. The unusual structure of the film also lends to its analysis through the lens of the New Italian Epic, a literary movement in Italy that is quickly spreading into other artistic areas.
DOI
10.32727/13.2018.42