Old Age and Italian (Film) Comedy: Why Cry When You Can Laugh?

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article contributes to an understudied topic in Italian film studies: representations of older people in contemporary comedies. After contextualising Italian cinema’s enduring tendency to employ laughter to cope with tragedy, I cast a spotlight on three of the few Italian film comedies that address the topics of old age and ageing in sustained, purposeful, and original ways. Beginning with an analysis of Fantozzi va in pensione (Neri Parenti, 1988) as a kind of precursor to more recent features, I examine the interconnected themes of work, retirement, intergenerational conflict, and death. Close readings of Metti la nonna in freezer (Giancarlo Fontana and Giuseppe Stasi, 2018) and Buoni a nulla (Gianni Di Gregorio, 2014) follow. These comedies recycle tropes addressed in Fantozzi va in pensione. Yet, when interpreted in the context of contemporary Italy, the latter two films are also innovative in their grotesque depiction of older persons as ‘human capital’.