Comedy Neapolitan style: The cinema of Massimo Troisi

Neapolitan actor and director Massimo Troisi left behind an impressive body of work before his untimely death. Troisi’s final performance in Michael Radford’s Il Postino/The Postman (1994) was internationally acclaimed and earned him a Best Actor nomination at the 1996 Academy Awards. Still, Troisi’s films have received almost no attention from American film scholars and academics. The following article is thus an attempt to revive Troisi’s place in film history. Tracing the numerous influences presented in his films – from Commedia dell’Arte to the impact of Neapolitan actors Totò and Eduardo De Filippo – the article first contextualizes Troisi’s abundant, idiosyncratic use of dialect and gesture. This is followed by an examination of the impact of commedia all’italiana on the ideological orientation expressed by Troisi’s films. Ultimately, the concept of the comic ‘mask’ is used to define the uniquely Neapolitan, self-conscious personality Troisi crafted for his work as an actor and director.