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THEMATIC ACCENTS AND SEMIOTIC CONTEXTS IN MODERN ITALIAN CINEMA // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2017. Issue 2 (12). P. 109-124

In this article the current situation and future possibilities of a modern Italian cinema are considered. In the term of “modern” we understand the relatively short period from 90th of the XX century till present days. Chronological coordinates are fixed, and we can talk about tendencies of revival of the Italian cinema as an art and as a communicative system which has its own canon and lexicon. The semiotic polyphony of visual imprints of events, persons, objects, and words can be profaned and facilitated taking into account the modern “mass consumer”. Therefore, we are talking about cinema in terms of loss, cheapness of the plan. We think that today we have a case of cinema directors successful works in which semiotics saturation of a cinema language allows speak about them in a high art category. The accent is emphasized on actual thematic preferences of a modern Italian cinema in this article. In each theme we illustrate almost each example of the last decade of the XX century and the beginning of XXI century. In our opinion, now the cinema directors tries to come into contact with the audience, counting on cultural unity with public, mutual knowledge of cultural codes, language of metaphors, symbols, and hints. Considering the major thematic directions of a modern Italian cinema, we can talk about two general tendencies, quite characteristic in general for the world cinematographic. First, it’s an attempt to save all considerable and talented issues that was already accumulated. Secondly, it’s an attempt to show that there are themes that request new approaches and a great courage from the art directors.

Keywords: semiotics of cinema, cultural contexts, Italian cinema, history of cinema, language of cinema, Christian Metz, Yury Lotman