This essay considers the films of Dino Risi from 1953 to the end of the 1970s, correlating his works with the economic, culture and social changes affecting Italy in the period. From the methodological point of view, the essay uses a multidisciplinary approach to combine film analysis with close examination of data on cinema use. It also makes use of sociological and psychoanalytical tools: Risi’s films are reread in terms of their capacity to interpret the audience’s transformations, in constant evolution at the time. Risi’s early works (such as ‘Paradise for Three Hours’, 1953) focus on the working class, but as time goes on he moves towards an examination first of the lower middle class (protagonist of the 1950s’ Titanus saga) and then on the upper middle class (at the heart of the fully-realized commedia all’italiana), recording Italy’s anthropological transformations at the time, changes in the social system and the progressive weakening of the connection between individual and society, social classes and the State and between the community and institutions. Various recurring topoi of Risi’s (dancing a s a metaphor for social relationships; the choice of ‘losers’ as preferred protagonists) are examined as common themes running through his production, which is also characterized by certain stylistic constants: a geometrical use of images; a rhythmic dynamism marking the space (visual and chromatic) and time of the representation, and the use of narration in constant tension. Finally, a common metalinguistic thread running through Risi’s cinema is traced. From Buio in sala (1950) to Il Viale della Speranza (1953); from Un amore a Roma (1960), to the ‘Presa dalla vita’ episode from I mostri (1963); from Il Gaucho (1964) to The career of a Chambermaid (1975); and finally I’m Photogenic (1980), Dino Risi places cinema at the heart of his thinking, questioning its terrible and magnificent power of illusion.
