Akademik

(1939-)

   Screenwriter and director. The most prominent representative of a confrontational cinema that voiced the revolt of the immediate postwar generation against what they regarded as the moral bankruptcy of their fathers, Bellocchio graduated in philosophy from the Catholic University of Milan before moving to Rome in 1959 to study acting and directing at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. After a further year of study at the London Slade School of Art, during which he came into contact with the Angry Young Man movement, he returned to Italy to make his first feature film, I pugni in tasca (Fists in His Pocket, 1965), a provocative film in which Alessandro, a surly young epileptic, kills three members of his own family. The film outraged the Italian establishment but received a host of prizes, including a Nastro d'argento for Best Original Story, and thus established Bellocchio's reputation as an uncompromising young director. Two years later his second feature, La Cina e vicina (China Is Near, 1967), was equally provocative but more expressly political in its iconoclasm. Bellocchio subsequently joined the 1968 movement, directing two militant political documentaries, Paola (1969) and Viva il Primo Maggio rosso e proletario (Long Live Red May Day, 1969). After directing a strongly politicized production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens at the Teatro Piccolo of Milan, Bellocchio abandoned the movement but went on to make Nel nome del padre (In the Name of the Father, 1972), a fierce and full-frontal attack on the Catholic boarding school system in which he himself had spent his adolescence.

   Following Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina (Slap the Monster on Page One, 1972), a caustic critique of the conservative press that was a project he had taken over from screenwriter-director Sergio Donati, Bellocchio joined forces with Silvano Agosti and screenwriters Francesco Rulli and Sandro Petraglia to make Matti da slegare (Fit to Be Untied, 1974), a critical examination of the treatment of the mentally insane in Italy. This was followed by Marcia trionfale (Victory March, 1976), a ferocious attack on the Italian military system, before he turned to television, for which he produced an unconventional but highly praised version of Il gabbiano (The Seagull, 1977) and La macchina cinema (The Cinema Machine, 1978), a fiveepisode series on the cinema itself. He returned to the big screen with Salto nel vuoto (Leap into the Void, 1980), another study of a decadent middle-class family, and Gli occhi, la bocca (The Eyes, the Mouth, 1982), before another highly praised television adaptation, this time of Luigi Pirandello's Enrico IV(Henry IV, 1984). Again for the big screen he directed Il diavolo in corpo (The Devil in the Flesh, 1986) and La condanna (The Conviction, 1991), two highly contested films, not least for the strong influence on both of them of the controversial anti-Freudian psychoanalyst Massimo Fagioli. Il sogno della farfalla (The Butterfly's Dream, 1994), the story of an actor who recites words on stage but renounces the use of language in his everyday life, won the Silver Lion at Berlin and was followed by the polished period piece Il principe di Homburg (The Prince of Homburg, 1996) and La balia (The Nanny, 1999), loosely adapted from a short story by Pirandello. His reputation as a first-rate director was strongly revived by L'ora di religione—il sorriso di mia madre (The Religion Hour—My Mother's Smile, 2002), another pitiless family drama that received six David di Donatello nominations and the Special Mention at Cannes, and Buongiorno notte (Good Morning, Night, 2003), a deeply moving but unsentimental film about the kid-napping of Italian politician Aldo Moro. Bellocchio's most recent film is Il regista di matrimoni (The Wedding Director, 2006).

   Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema by Alberto Mira