Searching for Truth: Constructing a Collective Memory of Aldo Moro in Italian Cinema

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  • March 20, 2019
Creator
  • Gilliom, Katherine
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Romance Studies
Abstract
  • This dissertation will address Aldo Moro’s presence in film and the changing manifestations of the politician in film throughout the years. I will argue that through film a comprehensive collective memory can be formed from examining what is known of the statesman, before and after his death, helping to ease the continuing sense of guilt felt by the Italian people in regards to his tragic end. In the first chapter of my dissertation I will discuss the concept of martyrdom in two films that depict Aldo Moro before his death; Elio Petri’s Todo Modo (1976) and Marco Tulio Giordana’s Romanzo di una strage (2012). Although two totally different films, historically and stylistically, both films portray a devoutly Catholic Moro and a rhetoric dealing with political martyrdom. In the second chapter of my dissertation I will address the conspiracy theories surrounding Aldo Moro’s death depicted in the films Il caso Moro (Ferrara 1986) and Piazza delle cinque lune (Martinelli 2003). Both films present their retellings of the Moro affair as revelations of the truth, focusing on the possible involvement of the Italian government, as well as the United States, in Moro’s death. The third chapter of my dissertation will focus on the role of Aldo Moro as a cultural symbol in films dealing with other historic events. The two films I will discuss are Michele Placido’s Romanzo criminale (2005) and Paolo Sorrentino’s Il divo (2008). The final chapter of my dissertation will address the use of the oneiric in Marco Bellocchio’s 2003 film Buongiorno, notte. I will employ ideas from psychoanalysis in my analysis of Buongiorno, notte, due to the importance of dreams and imagining in the film. By analyzing the entire cannon of films that involve Aldo Moro, this project aims to create a “total picture” of how Moro is viewed before and after his kidnapping and death.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Escolar, Marisa
  • Chambless, Amy
  • Luisetti, Federico
  • Amago, Samuel
  • Rao, Ennio
Degree
  • Doctor of Philosophy
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2016
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