COMUNICAZIONI SOCIALI - 2007 - 1. Vite esemplari. Le storie biografiche per la letteratura, il cinema, la televisione

In our disquisition about literary autobiographical narration, we begin with the figures of three founders: St. Augustine, Michel de Montaigne and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who contributed to the creation of a new narrative genre and still influence the forms of meditation and self narration. Firstly, we will try to define this genre analyzing the various interpretations given to it by these three authors. Then we will review the theories proposed by the modern age on self narration and on the analysis of the autobiographical matter: its moral, psychological and anthropological implications, both for the author and for the reader.

Once recognized the minimum identifying feature of the biographical movie in the fact that the protagonist is built imitating the existing person after whom he is named, we propose a new interpretation. In the autobiographical movie, the dramaturgic structure expresses a judgment of redemption or damnation on the protagonist’s way of life. Such an interpretation is supported by the analysis of the narrative structures of some biographical movies in the history of cinema, which are successful from a commercial and critical point of view (Butch Cassidy [1969], Amadeus [1984], Out of Africa [1985], Schindler’s List [1993], Erin Brockovich [2000]). For this research we referred to the narratologic analysis instruments specified by the main theoreticians of cinematographic dramaturgy (Robert McKee, John Truby) and by some scholars. They agree, from different perspectives that all axiological aspects are relevant for the interpretation of a text.

The aim of this article is to enucleate the staging criteria for the figure and life of Christ. For this reason it studies the relation between the sources, which are the Gospels and dramaturgy. Clearly, the conclusion is that, a particular dramaturgy innerves Christ’s own life and mission. This idea is expressed in the actor’s hermeneutical hypothesis of God and in the director’s idea of Reign. Therefore, the article analyzes three couples of movies: 1) The King of Kings and Jesus of Nazareth, representing a too divine portrait of Christ; 2) Jesus Christ Superstar and The Last Temptation of Christ, representing a too human portrait of Christ; 3) The Gospel According to St. Matthew and The Passion of the Christ, representing a divine-human portrait of Christ. The final consideration is that no film has yet portrayed the figure of Christ in all its depth, while the hermeneutical hypothesis proposed in the beginning might open new possibilities of dramatization.

The meeting-interview with Robert Harris, English novelist, author of a number of best sellers many of which have been transposed into successful films, offers the occasion to reflect on the singular profession of ghostwriter, that is to say the author of on-commission biographies of famous personages. Starting from the analysis of the genesis of the author’s last novel, whose protagonist is a ghost writer, the essay analyzes the writing techniques used in the attempt to build a biography through a third party, emphasizing the positive features of the object, thanks to rhetorical artifices of many kinds. The careful analysis of the novel theme and of its references (real persons and events) gives the opportunity to consider the risks and consequences of a mediatized society. It also retraces the professional path of Harris, who was the author of his novel and now is also involved in the adaptation of this novel for the screen.