The Historical Drama on Italian TV: the Example of Gli anni spezzati
Abstract
Contemporary Italian history is one of the most important sources of inspiration for the recent Italian TV series production, with a particular attention devoted to the 1970s. The aim of this paper is to analyse one specific and controversial case: the TV series Gli anni spezzati. It tells the story of the policeman Luigi Calabresi, of the judges Mario Sossi and Francesco Coco and of the engineer Giorgio Venuti. By analysing the series from a semiotic and narratological perspective, the article argues that Gli anni spezzati puts forward a vision of History and of the 1970s as marked by the crisis of the father, whose figure is embodied by the four protagonists. The series shapesm and realises in the epilogue, a desire for the return of the father in order to close a historical period marked by disorder and pain. This hypothesis will be supported by an analysis of the academic literature on the representation of the 1970s in the Italian context. The article contends for an overcoming of the Oedipal interpretation that has been so far predominant in the analysis of the representations of the so-called anni di piombo (years of lead).
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