Revolutionary Desire in Italian Cinema

The book examines the way in which, in being constantly committed to Italian social reality, Italian cinema has also expressed a stinging critical sense and a desire for revolt against the status quo and the dominant ideological order. By taking as case studies Bernardo Bertolucci's Prima della rivoluzione, Marco Bellocchio's I pugni in tasca, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Porcile and Nanni Moretti's Ecce Bombo and La messa è finita, the book relies on socio-historiographical theories through which, in line with the tradition of Italian film studies, it discusses how plot and characters of the films create a sense of revolt against the social order and its dominant values, such as family, religion and bourgeois ethics. On the other hand, by relying on Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek's (and more in particular on a Julia Kristeva's study on revolt), together with psychoanalytical film theories and feminist film theories, the book elaborates an examination of the films' critical sense as a desire for what is not included and represented in the order of Italian society the films refer to. The argument is that, despite on the narrative level the sense of revolt fails and the rebellious attempt is defeated - so reinforcing the dominant discourse and favouring the status quo - a desire for revolt is articulated aesthetically in the filmic image and through either death drive or the feminine other. Death drive and the feminine other differently configure a desire to resist, disrupt and change the socio-cultural and moral order represented. By looking at the way in which the four filmmakers' counter-ideology is expressed and configured in the content and filmic form as a representation of political and psychological instances, an original, illuminating, fascinating and exemplary concept of revolt in film is eventually achieved.