Looking at history in Giuliano Montaldo's <i>Gli occhiali d'oro</i>

Abstract

This article analyses Giuliano Montaldo's 1987 film adaptation of Giorgio Bassani's Gli occhiali d'oro. It discusses the director's choice to move the events to 1938 (when the bulk of the racial laws was made public), to strengthen the character of the narrator (Davide Lattes in the film), and to make him protagonist of his own ill-fated love story – a love story which parallels the novel's relationship between Dr. Athos Fadigati and Eraldo Deliliers. The article further argues, however, that Montaldo's portrayal of the episodes of discrimination, his description of the solidarity between Davide and Fadigati, and his characterization of other minor characters, did not result in a condemnation of the crimes committed during the Fascist era against homosexuals and Jews, but instead reflected Italy's uneasy conscience with regard to its responsibility in their persecution.