From Father to Son: Adolescence and the Relationship Between Fathers and Sons Seen Through Two Generations of Italian Film Directors

Abstract

From the end of the Second World War until now, several movies on the world of adolescence have represented the complexity of adolescence, focusing on sociocultural developments and inter- and intrapsychic changes. Due to the great amount and variety of movies about adolescence, it is very difficult to offer a complete and exhausting overview. In this paper, the authors have, therefore, focused their attention on the works of two Italian film director generations that have faced such a complex subject, that of childhood and adolescence, through different levels of depth and language: Luigi Comencini (1916) and his daughters, Cristina (1953) and Francesca (1961), and Dino Risi (1916) and his sons, Claudio (1948) and Marco (1951). The works of the fathers represent the evolution of the Italian neo-realism of the period following the war towards comedy, endowed with dramatic elements, a fecund, rich, intense, and creative moment of Italian cinema. The following generation tries to distinguish itself in a period of hardship for the Italian cinema that offers little variety of successful authors. Risi's sons and Comencini's daughters seem to concentrate on a personal research, between the continuation of their fathers' works and the emancipation. This foreshorted view of Italian movies offers a starting point for a discussion about historical evolutions, intergenerational relations, transgenerational transitions, and peculiarities of the above-mentioned film directors.