Padre Padrone
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Che cosa fischi? Perché non picchi? E picchia! Picchia!" "What are you whistling? Why don't you hit me? Hit! Hit!" --the father to his son in Padre Padrone'. |
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Padre padrone (Father and Master) (1977) is an Italian film directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. The Tavianis used both professional and non-professional actors from the Sardinian countryside.
The film depicts a Sardinian shepherd who is terrorized by his domineering father and tries to escape by educating himself. He eventually becomes a celebrated linguist. The drama is based on an autobiographical book of the same title by Gavino Ledda.
Plot
The film opens in a documentary style at the elementary school in Siligo, where six-year-old Gavino (Saverio Marconi) is attending. His tyrannical peasant father (Omero Antonutti) barges in and announces to the teacher and the students that Gavino must leave school and tend to the family sheep. Under his father's watchful eyes and the victim of his sadistic behavior, Gavino spends the next fourteen years tending sheep in the Sardinian mountains. There, he begins to discover "things" for himself and rebels against his father.
Gavino is rescued from his family and isolation when he is called for military service. During his time with the army, he learns about electronics, the Italian language, and classical music, yearning all the while for a university education.
When Gavino returns home, he declares to his father that he will attend university. His father is against this and tells him that he will throw him out of the family home. They have a nasty fight, but Gavino eventually attends university and emerges as a brilliant student. He becomes a linguist, specializing in the origins of the Sardinian language.
The film ends again in a documentary style as Gavino Ledda himself explains why he wrote his book and what Sardinian children may expect as inhabitants of a rural area with close ties to the land.
Cast
- Omero Antonutti as Efisio
- Saverio Marconi as Gavino
- Marcella Michelangeli as Mother
- Fabrizio Forte as Young Gavino
- Nanni Moretti as Cesare
- Gavino Ledda as Himself
Music
- Johann Strauss II: Overture from Die Fledermaus (accordion/radio scene)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Concerto
- Trink, trink, Brüderlein trink (German Volksmusik)
