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    Published: 2022-12-31
    No. 9 (2022)

    Sins in Italian According to Federico Fellini. Roman Triptych of Perdition and Vanishing Holiness

    Iwona Kolasińska-Pasterczyk
    Załącznik Kulturoznawczy
    Section: Artykuły
    https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2022.9.18

    Abstract

    The text concerns the informal Roman triptych by Federico Fellini: Sweet Life (1960), The Temptation of Dr. Antonio (an episode from the film Boccaccio 70, 1962) and Rome (1972), which is a reverse of the “trilogy of redemption” of 1954–1957. Three of Fellini`s films (visions of Rome and its inhabitants) were treated as counterparts of the panels of painting triptychs, thus making up a whole that can be read both diachronically and synchronously. Read simultaneously, they form the Roman triptych of perdition diagnosing the disappearance of holiness. As in the painting triptychs, where the side panels are somewhat similar to each other and the central composition is a certain contrast to them (not denoting distinctiveness), in Sweet Life and Rome Fellini gave collective portraits (in the first only the social elite, in the second populus romanus), and in The Temptation of Dr. Antonio – a portrait of an individual (but still average Italian). The emphasis was placed on how, in each of the installments of the Roman triptych, Fellini diagnoses the condition of a culture that is declining (as a result of “sins in Italian”). The triptych is tied together the theme of corruption and the disappearance of holiness. Sweet Life is decadence (affecting the elite), Temptation… is a fight against one`s own demons (individuals), and Rome is a prophecy of the apocalypse. The interpretation was focused on how Fellini in these three films shows the desacralization of the world.

    Keywords:

    Federico Fellini, Sweet Life, The Temptation of Dr. Antonio, Rome, the triptych of perdition, the disappearance of holiness, desacralization, ugliness as an esthetic category, apocalypse

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    Kolasińska-Pasterczyk, I. (2022). Sins in Italian According to Federico Fellini. Roman Triptych of Perdition and Vanishing Holiness. Załącznik Kulturoznawczy, (9), 341–379. https://doi.org/10.21697/zk.2022.9.18

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