Этторе Скола. Исторические и семейные хроники 1980-х

Abstract

The article explores the language and themes of the films made by Italian film director Ettore Scola in the 1980s. The author of the article considers this period of Ettore Scola’s career in the context of the general evolution of his cinematography and the development of Italian cinema — movement from early Italian-style comedies to historical frescoes and parables of elusive time. Scola’s films not only reflect the social, political and cultural changes in the Apennine Peninsula in the last three decades of the 20th century, but also address universal, philosophical themes. These melancholic stories often contain a warning of danger and a reminder of responsibility for our actions which can lead to irreparable consequences. In 1983, the director made one of his best and most famous films, Ballando, ballando, in which the characters do not speak a word. Presenting a Parisian ballroom as a model of history, Scola argues that the value of a person’s private life is undeniable, and that it is he, the hero emerging from the elements of everyday life — funny, absurd, and contradictory, but able to hope in spite of unbearable circumstances — who is its main protagonist. In The Family (1986), this model is a flat in Rome, where the protagonist’s family has lived for decades. Finally, Skola’s What Time Is It? (1989) develops the findings from his previous films, but unlike them, it does not present a group portrait in an interior setting against the backdrop of the 20th century but a dialogue between two characters — father and son — taking place during a city walk on a single day. However, this chamber family chronicle is also imbued with reflections on the relationship between an “ordinary” man and the time of big history.