‘Il prigioniero’ è una serie televisiva britannica del 1967 di genere fantapolitico, dai marcati temi surreali, orwelliani e kafkiani. Grazie ai dialoghi misurati e molto ‘britannici’, si presta bene a chi vuole mettersi alla prova con un ascolto relativamente facile da seguire. La presentazione qui sotto serve sia come brano di lettura e comprensione, sia per anticipare un po’ la trama per chi si sarà incuriosito al punto di volere vedere la serie su YouTube al link fornito in fondo all’articolo.
The Prisoner is a British television series created by Patrick McGoohan, who portrays Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who is kidnapped and imprisoned in a mysterious seaside village after resigning from his position. The series contain elements of science fiction, psychological drama, and spy fiction.
A single series of 17 episodes was filmed between September 1966 and January 1968, with exterior filming taking place in the Welsh seaside village of Portmeirion. Although the show was sold as a thriller, its surreal and Kafkaesque setting and its reflection of the 1960s counterculture have had a big influence on popular culture and have generated a cult following.
The series follows Number Six, an unnamed British intelligence agent who, after angrily resigning from his government job, prepares to go on a trip. While packing his bags, he is rendered unconscious by knockout gas in his home in Westminster.
On waking, he finds himself in a re-creation of the interior of his home, located in a mysterious coastal community known to its residents as ‘the Village’. The Village is surrounded by mountains on three sides and the sea on the other.
The man gradually gets to know the residents of the Village, hundreds of people from all areas of life and cultures, all apparently living their lives peacefully and enjoyably. They do not have names, but numbers which give no clue as to their status within the Village. Most of them are prisoners, but some are guards, so the prisoners don’t know who they can and cannot trust. The protagonist is given the Number Six, but he refuses to accept it: “I am not a number! I am a free man!”
Although the residents can move freely about the Village, they are constantly under the surveillance of numerous high-tech monitoring systems and cannot leave. Security forces, including a balloon-shaped automaton called Rover, recapture or kill those who attempt to escape.
Number Six is a particularly important target of the constantly changing Number Two, the Village administrator, who acts as an agent for the unseen Number One. Number Two uses techniques such as hallucinogenic drugs, identity theft, mind control, dream manipulation and forms of social indoctrination and physical coercion in an attempt to make Number Six reveal why he resigned from his position. Number Two is a different person in each episode, part of a plan to disorient Number Six, but sometimes the change seems to be the result of failure.
Number Six, distrustful of everyone in the Village, refuses to co-operate or give any answers. He fights, usually alone, with various objectives, such as understanding for which side of the Iron Curtain the Village is working, refusing to accept its imposed authority, making his own plans for escape, learning all he can about the Village, and subverting its operation.
An important theme of the series is the conflict between individualism (Number Six) and collectivism (the Village). According to McGoohan, the series aimed to demonstrate a balance between the two ideologies.
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