A CINEMATIC, DEPICTIVE PORTRAYAL OF THE REAL: AN ANALYSIS OF NANNI MORETTI’S FICTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN
DEAR DIARY
written by Concetta Froio illustrated by Molly Scotti In Dear Diary
of skin cancer. However,
Nanni Moretti embraces
depiction of factual events,
(1993), director and writer a diaristic approach to
storytelling, and by doing so modifies the canonical style that characterized
his previous films, thereby
challenging and renovating his authorial voice. In
Dear Diary, the Italian
filmmaker chronicles an
event that draws from his private life: the discovery
though the film includes a
it should not be considered a documentary, because its intentional stylistic and narrative choices
emphasize the film’s status as fiction storytelling.
Prior to the
analysis of Dear Diary, it is crucial to investigate
some key formal choices
that Moretti adopts in his
previous six feature films. Moretti’s body of work is an “unpredictable mix of
the personal, political and the filmic.”1 However, a
“constant [is] the comically idiosyncratic, neurotic, by now one can say
‘Morettian’ egocentrism of the protagonist.”2 Though
Moretti’s previous features depict dissimilar plots and settings, this recurring
onscreen character that Moretti himself plays constructs a sense of
familiarity for frequent viewers. This common
thread persists until The Son’s Room (2001), the
last feature where Moretti plays a pivotal role. In Dear Diary and Aprile,
Moretti decides to abandon his previous onscreen
character, Michele Apicella, and instead chooses to
play the character “Nanni Moretti,” who is molded
after the director himself.
Though all the
characters Moretti plays in his past features are
named “Michele Apicella,”
1. Small, Pauline. “The Cinema of Nanni Moretti: Dreams and Diaries.” Film Criticism 30, no. 2 (05, 2006): 72-75,84. 2. Bonsaver, Guido. “The egocentric Cassandra of the left: Representations of politics in the films of Nanni Moretti.” The Italianist 211, no.1 (2001): 158183
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