Marco Ferreri: The task of cinema and the end of the world

Abstract

This article identifies Marco Ferreri's original contribution to cinema as a gesture aimed at exposing the 'end of the world'. This expression should be understood - aside from millenarian connotations - as a reopening of sense in excess of acquired significations. Ferreri supports this gesture through images that deliberately defy conceptual validation, so that his films often move from the meticulous description of ordinary situations to the collapse of meaningful references. In order to contextualize the framework described above, the argument traces Ferreri's trajectory back to neo-realism, highlighting elements of continuity and moments of rupture. In particular, the article highlights how Ferreri delivers the humanism expressed by neo-realism to a world without thought.