Im Not Scared by Niccolò Ammaniti Essay -- Gabriele Salvatores Film

Niccolà ² Ammaniti's novel and Gabriele Salvatores' homonymous film "I'm Not Scared" have had their share of popularity in North America if not by gaining a conspicuous readership/spectatorship by travelling into the publicity-wagon of international distributors.1 The formula adopted by both writer and filmmaker appealed to investors as a marketable recipe and yet it failed to magnetize the scattered reader/viewer beyond a short flight-of-entertainment.2 The elements at play in the novel and film are quite remarkable for their traditionally universal appeal.3 The fates of two adolescents, one jailed the other unwilling jailer, intersect and are soon bound together in a struggle for survival at the hands of unsuspecting enemies. The filmmaker's aim was to adopt a child's unadulterated point of view in referential opposition to the surrounding adult world. Given the suspenseful plot and the exploration of the young protagonists' fears at coping with a habitat they must disavow, such an aim and narrative scheme were expected to gather much attention.4 The pre-teens Michele, the novel's principal hero, and Filippo the kidnapped child are ultimately elevated from a pit of dirt and fear, the antechamber of death, chiefly by their own heroic praxis. Yet the problematic lack of any meaningful degree of depth in the novel and film seems to lie precisely with its overly schematic construction, tailored to safely weather the otherwise unpredict able market. The proscription from any domain of memorable works may be due to a major problem both in the novel and film: the ambiguous point of view adopted. The novel is geared for a transposition to the screen. It is no coincidence that the film was scripted by Niccolà ² Ammaniti, who adapted ... ...Little Boy, Don't Look Down". 6 In the novel it is told that the story of Lazarus is learned at school from the schoolteacher, Signorina Destani, p. 83. 7 In fact the entire novel is set in the first person with Michele's voice assuming the narration in the initial race held with his neighboring peers. The incipit reads: "I was just about to overtake Salvatore when I heard my sister scream." 8 207. 9 Compare pages 155-157, 201-203 of the book with the same scenes in the film. 10 The effects of a filmic memory on the written word have been reason for study/confession of contemporary novelists. See Cohen, Keith, ed. Writing in a Film Age: Essays by Contemporary Novelists. 11 See Paul Ginsborg's A History of Contemporary Italy, 383-405. 12 In the film the date 1978 appears superimposed in the opening sequence. 13 Quoted by Frank Bruni.