“ROMA(nzo) criminale” : Portrayals of Rome in Third-millennium Crime Genre Screenwriting

Abstract | Abstract

In recent years, the city of Rome continues to be ‘read’ by Italian cinema as a privileged habitat for the setting of crime narratives. Some emblematic examples are such recent Italian films as Suburra (Id., Stefano Sollima, 2015), Lo chiamavano Jeeg Robot (They Call Me Jeeg, Gabriele Mainetti, 2015), Non essere cattivo (Don’t Be Bad, Claudio Caligari, 2015) and Dogman (Id., Matteo Garrone, 2018), which offer the opportunity to explore the creative processes behind the adaptation of successful cross over into television crime narratives and trans/cross-mediated crime narratives such as adaptations, since they are stories and creative processes that transcend the borders between countries and media.

My contribution seeks to engage with scholarly debates about Italian crime narratives, investigating how the case study of the representation of “criminal Rome” provides its own individual contribution to the distinct imagery of contemporary Italian noir.