Life like a dream

The aim is not so much to faithfully reproduce Boccaccio’s work, it is rather to interpret in a contemporary spirit those novellas of the XIV century. Ciappelletto thus looses that malefic aura that characterises him in the Decameron and in the film becomes a man oppressed, manipulated by the bourgeoisie, with connotations that recall another film by Paolini, the Accattone, played, as for Ciappelletto, by the actor Sergio Citti. To Giotto’s pupil, interpreted by the director himself, is given the difficult task of facing the complex theme of the representation of life, through dreams and by means of the arts.

In the epilogue to the film, so as to celebrate the fresco he was creating, the painter addresses his workers and makes an emblematic and demystificating comment: “Perché realizzare un'opera, quando è così bello sognarla soltanto?” or “why create a work of art when it is so beautiful just to dream it?”. The question together asks about the aim of the figurative arts and the value of the art of cinema. Within this polemic a role of prime importance is given to Giotto’s pupil’s dream. The symbol used is that of the Day of Judgement, illustrated through “pictures” inspired to pictorial iconography of the XIV century. Between the image of paradise and hell, the final triumph is for the Madonna with Child, a part played by Silvana Mangano. This feminine divinity expropriates the podium from God, traditionally at the heart of the Trinity, according to Giotto’s model as seen in the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua. This change of roles contributes to the exaltation of the myth of maternity and fecundity, celebrated, at a worldly level, in the scenes of sex in the film, judged to be too much by a part of the censuring body.