The author discusses the role of historians, particularly those who study early modern history, in contemporary politics. She mentions their expertise in factual analysis and scope, the examples of mermaids and the Italian heretic Menocchio as evidence of belief in facts, and the need to find a cons...
A real-life story of Domenico Scandella, a 16th-century miller, receives the big screen (and fiction filmmaking) treatment from the Italian director, Alberto Fasulo. Despite the centuries of history, the story of Menocchio (the name under which Scandella was also known) remains topical for current times. The illiterate miller spreads very enlightened and progressive thoughts in the times when the Catholic Church needs to tighten its grip during the Protestant reform movement. He offers a different outlook on the world and life outside the totalitarian shadow of the Church and its obscurantism. Soon labeled as a heretic, Menocchio, a man of principles, withstands imprisonment, trials and the menace of being burned at the stake, refusing to bow down to imposed dogmas. In the period drama, Fasulo opts for a high number of face close-ups and compositions of talking heads, eventually invoking a form of a medieval documentary rather than a conventional fiction filmmaking. Fausulo translates a mans struggle against the domineering and controlling power structure as a human story and not an aggrandizing myth despite the parallels between the biblical story of David and Goliath. Menocchios triumph turns out to be much bitter compared to David although the name of unknown miller made it into the historic books.
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