The representation of conflict in the discourse of Italian melodrama

This paper is part of an extensive study of cinematic dialogue in a variety of film genres in Italian, which aims to address the disregard for the verbal plane that characterises film theory and, particularly, genre theory. Assuming a pragmatic and functional semantic perspective, this work analyses the scripted dialogues in films against the backdrop of the literature on real life discourse. The focus of the paper is confrontational talk in Italian melodramas from early 1960s to the present. Conflict in such films is, to an extent, comparable to the cooperative sequential rebuttal of speakers’ turns that typically occurs in comedies. However, melodramas are also marked by more incisive and subtle patterns of confrontation that can be summarised as ‘disaffiliative dysfluency’. The forms of such a break in the conversational flow are discussed and illustrated with selected scenes from a number of films.