Good Morning, Night
Marco Bellocchio
Italy | 2003 | 106 min
Language : Italian
Subtitles : French, English
In 1978, the murder of Aldo Moro—the figure behind the “historical compromise” between the Communists and the Christian Democrats—was a traumatic yet formative event for the Italian left. Bellocchio’s use of fiction, interwoven with striking archival images, provides an understanding of the terrorists’ internal conflict, between ideological purity and the ethics of action. A dazzling work.
In Spring 1978, the long detention and then murder of Aldo Moro – the figure behind the “historical compromise” between the Communists and the Christian Democrats – was a traumatic yet formative event for the Italian left. Undertaken by the far-left terrorist group, the Red Brigades, this action is symptomatic of the dilemma of militant theory, between the ethics of action and ideological purity. The ideas are embodied using the vehicle of fiction, turning into images the defeat of an inflexible solipsism faced with the movement of revolutionary action. With this historic huis clos finished in 2003, Marco Bellocchio was able to create a counter-view to the televisual brouhaha that was the sole source of news over the fifty days of the kidnapping – a documentation without substance, based on nothing, producing only commentary – by focusing on the personal and day-to-day lives of the terrorists. Buongiorno, notte draws a line from the historical interpretation to the critical examination of the images of its time. Restless and searing, it is one of the auteur’s great films.
Pierre Guidez
