At Palazzo Braschi the cynical, disenchanted and ironic Rome of Ettore Scola

A welcoming yet disenchanted city, more indifferent than intolerant, indolent but wise because it has been accustomed, since ancient times, to opening its doors to immigrants and foreigners from all over the world. Like many “foreigners”, the Irpinian Ettore Scola he understood Roma better and more than the Romans themselves.

In the cinema of schoolthe Capital of Italy it is never a simple background, but “a pulsating protagonist, a crucial narrative element, an ideal habitat for that human comedy masterfully staged by the director, film after film, with a gaze full of irony, but always indulgent and, ultimately, optimistic”.

The exhibition at Palazzo Braschi

This is the distinctive feature that the visitor can observe “Ettore Scola. We never left each other”the exhibition that celebrates the creative and human legacy of the great director ten years after his death, promoted byDepartment of Culture of Rome Capitaledited by Silvia Scola e Alexander Nicosiacreated by COR Create Organize Realize with the organizational support of Zètema Culture Projectand that from May 2nd to September 13th it can be visited at Braschi Palace.

Man and education

The exhibition is divided into three thematic sections that retrace his life and work: the man, training in the neighborhood Esquilinemeetings with Steno, Federico Fellini e Alberto Sordihis extraordinary career as a screenwriter and iconic films like “The Overtaking” e “The Monsters”.

The artist and the intellectual

The artist, the designer, the author, the registered journalist in 1953 (the proof is in the publicist card displayed), the drawings, the sketches, the copies of the magazine “Marc’Aurelio”all elements that return the image of a complete intellectual.

Rome in Scola’s cinema

And then, the heart of the exhibition is dedicated to the special relationship that the director cultivated with Capital: in his films Roma it becomes “a living space in which individual and collective stories intertwine, a mirror of the transformations of Italy from the post-war period to the present day. From the suburbs to the bourgeois terraces, the places become scenarios of encounters, conflicts and memories”.

Civil commitment

“The work of school ranges across neighborhoods and social segments, without discounts and a sensitivity that always revealed exceptional political vigor, anchored to democratic principles and social justice; but even away from the camera, Scola transferred this ability to be at the heart of society into generous public activity, in schools, in squares, alongside girls and boys, which is why it was also necessary to pay homage to Scola on the tenth anniversary of his death”, declared the mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri.

The city has been the focus of almost all of his films; from “We loved each other so much” a “Dirty and evil uglies”yes “Drama of jealousy” a “The terrace”, “A special day”, “People of Rome”, “Dinner”, “Novel of a poor young man”and again, in many other cinematic stories Roma it was the mirror of Italy with its social, cultural and political transformations that followed one another through the post-war period, the economic boom, the protest, the years of political violence.

And so are the places where the personal stories of the inhabitants of the city are set Eternal Cityof the poor and the rich, of the bourgeois and the sub-proletarians, of the intellectuals and the bourgeois, become in sixty years of poetics of Ettore Scola the places of meetings, feelings and solitudes, from the Rome of the marble workers and florists of Piazzale del Verano to that of the attics of the ParioliScola’s characters merge into a single story, cynical, ironic, disenchanted.

Silvia Scola’s story

“Despite the fact that in the end he was very saddened, especially by the state of our country, the need to make fun of everything, even himself, never abandoned him. And we hope he can do it even now, seeing his wishes totally disregarded, with this new great event about him: an exhibition curated by Alexander Nicosia and by me, assisted by his daughter Federica Nicosia and my son Marco Scola Di Mambrowho for ten years has preserved and looked after all the personal and professional objects of the master, his grandfather”, he declared Silvia Scola: “an exhibition which, as you will see, intends to tell the story of Ettore Scola in his versatility: the man, the artist, the designer, the screenwriter, the director, the naturalized Roman from Treviso – a son faithful to his adopted city for his entire life”.

The look of Alessandro Nicosia

Another of the curators, Alexander Nicosiaadded: “Scola was an author capable of observing the human being with a free, acute and profoundly participatory gaze, restoring in his films a vivid fresco of the relationships, social transformations and feelings that pass through our time. The exhibition itinerary aims to tell this richness, putting the artistic and more intimate dimensions into dialogue, and dedicating particular attention to the relationship with Romaa city that represented an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him. A Rome told without filters, in its authenticity and its historical stratifications, starting from the Second World War”.