E RIDENDO L’UCCISE: LA DISARMONIA RINASCIMENTALE LETTA DA VANCINI

Abstract

Florestano Vancini’s last film, E ridendo l’uccise (2005), concerns an episode
of Renaissance Ferrara, namely, the family feud within the Este court at the
beginning of the sixteenth century, recounted from the point of view of the
humble. A comparison with Vancini’s earlier historical works indicates a
deepening pessimism on the part of the director. Previously, Vancini
displayed the subaltern as defeated in his or her opposition to power, along
with a character who assumed the role of ‘organic intellectual’; in E ridendo
l’uccise the organic intellectual is locked away in an ivory tower, and in the
subaltern Vancini no longer sees an oppositional force: in their relationship to
power these characters have become what Agamben calls homo sacer.