Great DirectorsFilm Studies 120

NANNI MORETTI

Nanni Moretti is referred to as "the Italian Woody Allen“ for many of his films are personal, introspective and infused with self-deprecating wit.

NANNI MORETTI

1. Io Sono un Autarchico - I am Self Sufficient (1976)

2. Ecce Bombo (1978)3. Sogni d‘Oro – Sweet Dreams (1981)4. Bianca (1984)5. La Messa e’ Finita – Mass Is Over (1985)6. Palombella Rossa – Red Wood Pigeon

(1989)7. Caro Diario – Dear Diary (1994)8. Aprile - April (1998)9. La Stanza del Figlio -The Son's Room (2001)10. Il Caimano – The Caiman (2006)

NANNI MORETTI

Moretti has clearly demonstrated his Leftist political view with films such as I am Self-Sufficient, Ecce Bombo, Sweet Dreams, Red Wood Pigeon, April and The Caiman: “The characters, the political-sociological

ambience and style in Io Sono un Autarchio are constants in all my films. I've always told the kind of stories I wanted, the way I wanted, because it was the only thing that made sense.”

NANNI MORETTI: Social-Historical Context

Io Sono un Autarchio (1976) and Ecce Bombo (1978) were shot during the period that the Christian Democrat politician Aldo Moro was kidnapped and killed by the Red Brigades.

NANNI MORETTI: Social-Historical Context

NANNI MORETTI

Between 2002 and 2005 Moretti decided to step back from filmmaking to throw his energies into a grass-roots Leftist political movement opposed to Berlusconi: The Girotondo per la Democrazia = a form

of protest organized by Italian citizens against the Berlusconi government’s antidemocratic acts and the incapacity of the parliamentary opposition to face the antidemocratic direction that Italy was taking.

NANNI MORETTI

The Girotondo per la Democrazia had the purpose to protect democracy symbolically by surrounding the buildings representing democracy: Organized in 2002, the first girotondo was

a success: 4.5000 people joined the protest by linking their hands around the court. Soon girotondi became really popular and spread around Italy as a way of civil mobilization.

NANNI MORETTI

The Girotondo per la Democrazia’s success was due to the fact that: Nanni Moretti joined the protest. the Girotondo did not represent any

political parties, rather only people who wanted to defend Italian democracy.

NANNI MORETTI

Nanni Moretti joined the Girotondo per la Democrazia protest.

NANNI MORETTI

The effects of the Girotondo were positive and helped democracy concretely: the Girotondo made the Left

understand that it would be supported by most Italians.

the president of Republic took the Girotondo protests into consideration by reprimanding the government, and by not signing two Parliament bills.

NANNI MORETTI

The effects of the Girotondo were positive and helped democracy concretely: Given the manipulation of the media

operated by the government, the Girotondo per la Democrazia movement provided Italian citizens with alternative information =>it organized initiatives on political issues (e.g. concerts, cabaret, theatre performance, books launches).

NANNI MORETTI

Nanni Moretti The Caiman(2006)

NANNI MORETTI

Moretti’s The Caiman (2006) is a movie which: Satirizes current Italian Prime

Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Explores the personal and

professional crisis of Bruno, an Italian filmmaker who is going through divorce.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

Silvio Berlusconi is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Italy, a position he has held on three separate occasions: 1994-1995 2001-2006 2008-today

He is the leader of the People of Freedom political movement, a centre-right party he founded in 2009.

Berlusconi is also a successful entrepreneur.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

As Italy’s Prime Minister, Berlusconi’s political powers are: the nomination of a list of cabinet

ministers to be appointed by the President of the Republic.

the countersigning of all legislative instruments having the force of law that are signed by the President of the Republic.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

Berlusconi’s political rise was rapid and surrounded by controversy. As Berlusconi said it clearly to his associates, he

entered politics to save his companies from bankruptcy and himself from convictions.

Berlusconi's supporters hailed him as the "new man“ => an outsider who was going to bring a new efficiency to the public bureaucracy and reform the state from top to bottom.

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

The Caiman steers away from presenting Silvio Berlusconi as an absurd figure of fun: Moretti argues:"Italian voters on the Left

insist on his comic dimension. I wasn't interested in that at all. There were all these emailed jokes about him. I never sent one and I never received one. He has to be taken seriously. This person can be very dangerous for Italy. He is still dangerous."

SILVIO BERLUSCONI

NANNI MORETTI

The Caiman is not entirely about Berlusconi. Its central character is Bruno Bonomo (played by Silvio Orlando), a luckless producer of low-budget B-movies. Separated but not yet divorced from his wife

Paola, Bruno is known in the local industry as the maker of hopelessly bad action-adventure movies with titles such as Cataracts, Mocassin Assassins and Maciste versus Freud.

NANNI MORETTI

As his production company heads toward bankruptcy, Bruno meets a young director, Teresa, who hands him a script and urges him to produce it. He thinks it is a thriller, but then discovers that it’s about Berlusconi, for whom he once voted. After viewing footage of Berlusconi in the

European Parliament likening a German social democrat to a concentration camp guard (kapo), Bruno is enraged and decides to throw himself into Teresa’s movie project.

NANNI MORETTI

Bruno begins visualizing some of the future film’s scenes and some of the better-known aspects of Berlusconi’s criminal career and his rise to political power: A younger Berlusconi is shown as a Milan

property developer with secret Swiss bank accounts, the recipient of Mafia funds and the dispenser of political bribes.

NANNI MORETTI

However, finance and casting pose innumerable problems as executive producers and actors, who either support the Berlusconi regime or are afraid to challenge it, refuse to get involved.

Bruno’s has just enough money to film one day in the life of Berlusconi: A dramatized trial of Berlusconi (played by

Moretti), during which he is found guilty of bribery and corruption.

NANNI MORETTI

The movie caused a political storm when it opened in Italy (two weeks before the general election that Berlusconi narrowly lost to Romano Prodi): Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and its political allies

denounced the movie as an “ugly film” and claimed that its final sequence was “the quintessence of envious malice, resentment and hatred”.

NANNI MORETTI

Moretti points to the fact that Berlusconi owns three private TV channels in Italy, which adhere closely to his political beliefs: "We still don't have laws on conflicts of interest

and anti-trust; Italy is the only country where something like that is possible. … It's really serious what he did, because he made his voters feel that they had been not beaten but robbed, and that's something that stays in people's minds. These things are symbolic, because he's leaving so many ruins.”

NANNI MORETTI

The most important creative elements for Moretti are: 1. To act not only a character, but

himself as a persona.

2. To tell about his own environment, whether political, generational or social.

3. To poke fun at himself and his world.

NANNI MORETTI La Stanza del Figlio (2001)

NANNI MORETTI Caro Diario (1994)

NANNI MORETTI

Released in 1994, Caro Diario is the film for which Moretti won the best director prize at Cannes. The movie is divided into in three chapters, which are shot in different styles: 1. It has Moretti riding around Rome on a Vespa.2. It was shot in the Aeolian islands (Sicily).3. It ironically chronicles one year of mistaken

doctors' diagnoses of Moretti’s tumor (the chemo session is real). Moretti: “I didn't feel anxious about reliving this experience - I was just a director shooting a movie.”