The people as tableau vivant Il Quarto Stato/Novecento

This paper aims at analyzing the presence of Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo’s famous painting Il Quarto Stato (1901) in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Novecento (1976). I will show that the movie both retains the painting’s political energy and exceeds its pictorialness, by disseminating its gestures and figures over a long range of time. Finally, I will question the very notion of “tableau vivant”, and the way it resonates with the intention of bringing the people to “life” in both works.