A Revolutionary Copywriter: Franco Fortini and his relations to Film

This essay examines Franco Fortini’s multifaceted relationship with cinema, focusing on his work as screenwriter and copywriter. Through an analysis of his collaborations on militant documentaries such as All’armi siam fascisti!, La statua di Stalin, and Scioperi a Torino, as well as his later encounter with Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet in Fortini/Cani, the essay suggests that film constituted a privileged terrain for Fortini’s reflection on language, history, and ideology. Central to this investigation is the figure of the “revolutionary copywriter,” through which Fortini rethought the role of the intellectual under advanced capitalism and the growing influence of the cultural industry. Drawing on his experience at Olivetti and his engagement with Marxist debates on labour and emerging information technologies, the essay reconstructs Fortini’s attempt to mobilize the critical and revolutionary capacities of language within industrial and audiovisual production.