Fairy Tale Elements and Motifs in the Films of Matteo Garrone

In modern Italian cinema, Matteo Garrone has established himself as a fabulist thanks to two recent films - adaptations of fairy tales by Giambattista Basile and Carlo Collodi. According to the author, the fables are present in all his films. This research is an attempt to verify this statement by analyzing the film adaptations such as “Tale of Tales” and “Pinocchio” and identifying the main motives. Furthermore, other films of Garrone were considered, including his films about mafia, such as " The Embalmer", "Gomorrah", "Dogman", as well as the films "First Love" and "Reality". By means of the combination of semiotic analysis of cinema, motif analysis and transmedial narratology, we identified the features of the director's stylistic code and found overlapping motives and images. The analysis allows us to conclude that Matteo Garrone's cinema is characterized by universal motives more than fairy-tale ones. The findings of this interdisciplinary study may be useful for the further research on the stylistic features of Italian film directors and directors who screen fairy-tale works.