This research analyses the memories of characters from 38 scripts, whose films were released in cinemas during the 2015-2017 film season and received state funding. By analysing the dialogues and flashback scenes that express the memories of the fictional characters in these works, the following questions were answered: What aspects of memory are brought to light? What idea of society, what social and civic values, what power relations are conveyed by these works? These questions can be answered by analysing memory, since memory reflects a collective vision of present values. The words and themes that scriptwriters assign to their characters to recall the past represent what is saved from oblivion, what is most important for the present. The research is framed within the Digital Humanities. The original contribution of my research can be seen in three different aspects: in the choice to focus the analysis exclusively on screenplays, studied as autonomous literary texts, in the choice to analyse memory through a semantic analysis of the memories of fictional characters, and finally in the use of a methodology based mainly on remote reading, carried out with the help of textual analysis software. In this study, the scripts, before being subjected to empirical analysis, are presented and placed in the institutional and political context in which they were produced and financed. The political situation of the period is briefly outlined, and then the directors, scriptwriters and general structure of the scripts are introduced in more detail, with reference to the narratological categories of time, space, protagonists and themes. The empirical research is carried out using textual analysis software, which isolates, measures, quantifies and relates a combination of semantic and lexical features of dialogues about the past and flashback scenes. The generated data is also interpreted using a close reading of the text. The results obtained offer a picture of a society projected towards the new in terms of values, but anchored in tradition in terms of themes and stereotypical power relations. This aspect was particularly evident in the analysis of the relationship between language and gender.
Permanent link to this resource: https://doi.org/10.24384/4417-n640
Tega, Giovanna
Supervisors: Treveri Gennari, Daniela; Dibeltulo, Silvia
Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment
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