Since I've Known art this cell has become a prision

"Contradiction and ambiguity are of course at the heart of all of the Taviani's best work and Caesar Must Die is no exception, right down to the film's final line. As Neapolitan actor/inmate Cosimo Rega returns to his cell, he slowly scans the four walls before turning directly to camera. "Since I've known art", he says, "this cell has become a prision." The Tavianis were initially unsure about including the line, which came from Rega himself (now an author as well as an actor). "It seemed so powerful and such a perfect summation of the film that we wondered whether it was too perfect, or even maybe too didactic - something we've always tried to avoid," says Vittorio. " In the end, we agreed that it was more ambiguous than didactic - it leaves audiences with a question rather than an easy answer: does art provide salvation or suffering? On the one hand, you could really feel that Rega had reached a certain complexity of thought. But the line is also terribly bittersweet: here is a man who, through his crimes and consequences of these crimes, has always lived under a cloud. After his encounter with art, the clouds seem to have parted. But in the end, he's still incarcerated and unlikely to ever experience the outside world again."

 

in Sight & Sound, March 2013, Vol. 23, Issue 3, p. 37.

 

 

 

César Deve Morrer, Paolo e Vittorio Taviani, 2012