Introduction: Italian Masculinity and Melodrama

Abstract

Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s 2012 Cesare deve morire/Caesar Must Die documents a performance of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar by the annual theater laboratory of the high-security section of Rome’s Rebibbia prison. Beginning with a sequence of the production’s final moments, the film then flashes back to when the actors—men who are serving sentences for organized crime and murder—audition. For their auditions, the men must recite their name, place of birth, paternity, and city of residence, but according to two different scenarios. First, they are to imagine that they are at a border crossing and in the process of leaving their wives. The director explains, “You would like to say good-bye to her, to cry with her. But you have to give us your personal information.”¹ He continues: “The second time, the same situation, but this time, we force you to give us your details. So, the first time you are crying, the second time you are angry.”