The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo

OCCUPATION AND TORTURE

What a film! As fresh today as it was when it was made in the 60s. And with just as many lessons for us all to learn from it and the events it reconstructs. Unfortunately, sometimes, some of us read from it lessons that are a little out of whack! Consider the November, 18, 2001 piece in the LA Times entitled "The Movie that got it Right". That piece quotes the Rand Corporation's Bruce Hoffman as saying that "The Battle of Algiers is the best film there is [on terrorism]". Hoffman goes on to say that "the main message of the film is that without intelligence and information, you can't effectively combat terrorism." Is that in fact the message of the film? Or is it a case here of the dominant's discourse (the fear of the loss of power over others) veiling the other discourses (freedom, the struggle against colonialism, independence, self-determination). It's rather handy to forget that the Algerians were fighting for control of their own land and their lives against an invading power and to regard them as terrorists. Maybe Hoffman is referring to intelligence gathering and information on the part of the Algerians?

And then, in Entertainment magazine, in 2003, reviewing the new release of the Battle of Algiers DVD set, the reviewer OG (Original Gangster?) tells us that the film "Pontecorvo's raw, seismic vision of a Marxist uprising was all but unprecedented in its firebrand atmosphere of documentary realism." I don't really remember anyone in the film spouting Marxism...unless every single freedom and liberation movement can be called Marxist. Could it just be that Algerians were tired of having the French run their country for them? Does every uprising against a colonial, imperialist or any other imposed power have to be Marxist or fundamentalist in some way?

In any case, this film is very current for a variety of reasons. Consider the Colonel's press conference and the discussion of the use of torture in order to achieve his ends (see clip above).

Here are three films you might watch along these lines that look at a similar phenomenon from a different point of view...


One of the most influential films in the history of political cinema, Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers focuses on the events of 1957, a key year in Algeria's struggle for independence from France. Shot in the streets of Algiers in documentary style, the film vividly re-creates the tumultuous Algerian uprising against the occupying French. The violence soon escalates on both sides in this war drama that's astonishingly relevant today.



Director:

Gillo Pontecorvo
Cast:
Brahim Haggiag Jean Martin
Yacef Saadi Samia Kerbash
Ugo Paletti Fusia El Kader






Filipino-American Adam (Ian Gamazon) comes face to face with contemporary geopolitical realities when he returns to his homeland to attend his father's funeral. Barely off the plane, Adam receives a chilling phone call saying Muslim terrorists have abducted and will kill his mother and sister if he doesn't comply with the radicals' demands. As the stakes grow exponentially, Adam must confront impossible choices in this fast-paced indie thriller.

Rated NR Not rated. This movie has not been rated by the MPAA.
Length:
80 minutes

Director:
Neill Dela Llana
Ian Gamazon

Cast:
Ian Gamazon Dominique Gonzalez
Jeffrey Lagda




Hany Abu-Assad's disturbing yet moving tale finds two men at a critical juncture in their lives. They've been drafted as suicide bombers in an upcoming assignment in Tel Aviv. Granted a night to spend with their families, they go home but are unable to say goodbye for fear of tipping their hand. But perhaps it isn't time for farewells yet as the two become separated during the mission and must decide on their own whether to continue or bail out.
Rated PG-13 For mature thematic material and brief strong language
Length:
90 minutes
Director:
Hany Abu-Assad

Cast:
Kais Nashef Ali Suliman
Lubna Azabal Amer Hlehel
Hiam Abbass Ashraf Barhom
Mohammad Bustami





After he's mistakenly arrested on suspicion of terrorism, Hassan (Ayad Akhtar), a Pakistani student, is so angry and offended that he joins the ranks of a New York-based terrorist cell that's planning an attack. But keeping his new life secret from his former best friend, Sayeed -- who's living the American Dream in New Jersey -- proves difficult, especially after Hassan falls in love with Sayeed's sister (Nandana Sen).

Rated R For violent images, some language and nudity
Length:
93 minutes

Director:
Joseph Castelo

Cast:
Ayad Akhtar Firdous Bamji
Nandana Sen Sarita Choudhury
Charles Daniel Sandoval Varun Sriram
Anjeli Chapman John Ventimiglia
Mike McGlone Aasif Mandvi

Interview with Beth Accomando on KPBS

My Brother is an only Child

San Diego Italian Film Festival

The 2010 Italian Film Festival in San Diego runs from October 22nd to Nov. 5 ... check films etc. at www.sandiegoitalianfilmfestival.com

LADRI DI BICICLETTE Vittorio De Sica

HERE IS THE STILL THAT I WILL ASK YOU TO WRITE ABOUT FOR TUESDAY'S QUIZ...
HAVE A GOOD LOOK...THINK ABOUT WHAT IT REPRESENTS AND MEANS...SHORT QUIZ 15 MIN. BE CLEAR, CONCISE, DIRECT...ADDRESS THE PHOTO AND THE FILM IT IS TAKEN FROM...GIVE THE CONTEXT WITHIN NEOREALISM AND MAYBE RELATE IT TO WHAT DE SICA AND ZAVATTINI HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE ROLE OF CINEMA (see Bondanella)...

Rocco and his Brothers: 3 Moments

Nadia tells Rocco that she has spent time in prison and he tells her that back home he has friends who have stood up for themselves, people who have occupied land and have been imprisoned for it. Rocco tells the story in a very matter-of-fact way, as if it were an everyday occurrence, a simple fact of life in the South...a hint of the situation that has come to be known as The Southern Question (See translation of Antonio Gramsci's The Southern Question, Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2006)

After winning a big fight, Rocco celebrates with his family...they now live up a few stories...they started out in a basement and have moved up in the world. The brothers take turns in toasting their success...however Vincenzo can only come up with some lame rhyme...Ciro demontrates that he has forgotten his language, the language of their land and so it is left up to Rocco, again, to make a meaninful statement. Again, his references are to their land, their traditions, the struggle of their people in the South...and he makes a reference to Luca's future visit to the South where he will act as a bridge between the old ways and the new, tradition and innovation, subservience and freedom...Luca is, in terms of the Southern Question, the intellectual who embodies the progress of the workers and the integrations of a proletarian body with the soul of a peasant...

Luca and Ciro meet to talk about Simone having been taken away by the police...and the rest of the family...Ciro now represents the working class, the industrial worker...a step up on the social evolutionary scale...he will impart the politicized lessons onto Luca...Luca will in turn integrate those lessons and the others learned from his life in the North to the lessons regarding the South that he hears mostly around the house. Luca will possibly be the Gramscian "organic intellectual" who will go back South at some point and organize his constituency into a viable bloc of "active" individuals (intellectuals).

ROME, OPEN CITY by Roberto Rossellini

Excerpts from “A Few Words about Neo-realism”
by Roberto Rossellini

[…] Neo-realism is the greatest possible curiosity about individuals: a need, appropriate to modern man, to speak of things as they are, to be aware of reality, in an absolutely concrete manner, conforming to that typically contemporary interest in statistical and scientific results; a sincere need, as well, to see men with humility, as they are, without resorting to stratagems in order to invent the extraordinary; to be aware of being able to arrive at the extraordinary through inquiry itself; a reality, whatever it is, in order to attain an understanding of things. To give anything its true value means to have understood its authentic and universal meaning.

[…] The subject of neo-realist film is the world; not story or narrative. It contains no preconceived thesis, because ideas are born in the film from the subject. It has no affinity with the superfluous and the merely spectacular, which it refuses, but is attracted to the concrete. It does not remain on the surface, but seeks out the most subtle aspects of the soul. It refuses recipes and formulas in its search for the motivating forces in each of us. Briefly, neo-realism poses problems for us and for itself in an attempt to make people think.

[…] Anyway, it cannot be doubted that I began by putting the accent on the collective above all. It was the war itself which motivated me; war and resistance are collective actions by definition.




TERMS AND PARAMETERS

Rossellini's Roma, citta' aperta represents one of the first expressions of what came to be labeled "neo-realism".
Though not all prints of the film carry this, some display the following narrative at the beginning of the film
projected over scenes of Rome, the eternal city, and symbols of Christianity

"While the Nazis held Rome in their iron grip after the summer of 1943, a group of Italian film-makers were planning underground a motion-picture record of the terrors inflicted on their compatriots in the declared “open city”. Working behind barred doors, in cellars and attics, in ravines and hills outside Rome, they prepared their scenario.
The day the Allied Armies marched in, the producers and actors went ahead using equipment much of which had been
stolen from the Germans at the cost of Italian lives. Without studio lights, with electricity often unobtainable, and
restricted to old scraps of film, they completed Open City, the 1st post-war Italian picture. Except for a handful
of principals, the cast consists of ordinary Roman citizens picked off the streets and the scenes were filmed at the
exact location of the particular incidents."

This intro to the film gives a brief definition of the scope, technique and rhetoric that guided the production.

Rossellini's own definition of Neo-realism was:

"an interior state, a way of feeling, a humble representation of the world, an act of courage that aspires to accept man
as he is" ... which can be read as a commitment to the immediate socio-political situation in which he lived and functioned...the end of Fascism.

Neo-realism, as a filmic technique/style that proposed to represent "a slice of life" set in the present, also included in
its arsenal some of the following...on location shooting, use of non-actors, emphasis on popular speech, the rejection of contrived or elaborate plots, frequent improvisation, objective camera...

Useful terms associated with neo-realism:

realism, naturalism, verismo, Italian Socialist Party (PSI), Italian Communist Party (PCI), Christian Democrats (DC), Benito Mussolini, March on Rome, Antonio Gramsci, LUCE (L'Unione Cinematografica Educativa), CSC (Centro Sperimentale Cinematografico), CLN (Committee for National Liberation). history from below.

ITALIAN NEOREALISM AND GLOBAL CINEMA

Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema
Edited by Laura E. Ruberto and Kristi M. Wilson
Contemporary Approaches to Film and Television Series

Contributors: David Anshen, Moinak Biswas, Natalia Sui-hung Chan, Tomas Crowder-Taraborrelli, Jaimey Fisher, Rachel Gabara, Millicent Marcus, Antonio Napolitano, Laura E. Ruberto, Thomas Stubblefield, Antonio Traverso, Lubica Ucník, Pasquale Verdicchio, and Kristi M. Wilson.

Despite its lack of organization and relatively short lifespan, the Italian neorealist movement deeply influenced directors and film traditions around the world. This collection examines the impact of Italian neorealism beyond the period of 1945–1952, the years conventionally connected to the movement, and beyond the postwar Italian film industry where the movement originated.

Providing a refreshing aesthetic and ideological contrast to mainstream Hollywood films, neorealist filmmakers demonstrated not only how an engaging narrative technique could be brought to bear upon social issues, but how cinema could shape and redefine national identity. The fourteen essays in Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema consider films from Italy, India, Brazil, Africa, the Czech Republic, postwar Germany, Hong Kong, the United States, and Great Britain. Each essay explores neorealism’s complex relationship to a different national film tradition, style, or historical period, illustrating the profound impact of neorealism and the ways that it continues to complicate the relationship between ideas of nation, national cinema, and national identity.

The Conformist: Giulia and Anna Dance

A beautiful scene in a wonderful film. This dance scene brings together a number of the motifs that are braided together to make the film and that also reflect the editing that makes the whole thing work. The two couples suggest Marcello's continued discomfort and impression that homosexuality hounds his existence. The professor and Marcello at the table are contrasted by Oliver and Hardy as an odd couple. And the dancers that will eventually envelop the foursome to make Marcello clearly uncomfortable is also an indication of his psychological sense of imprisonment and more directly and literally the entrapment he feels at wanting to be "normal" like everyone else but not fitting in...no matter what normal might happen to be at any one time.

Pink Floyd-Antonioni

Prompt...Battle of Algiers

Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers uses many devices of Neorealist film-making to address issues beyond the purvue of Neorealism. While the latter sought to address issues pertaining to the film-makers’ “present”, Pontecorvo’s reach extends beyond to connect with his potential audience’s “historical frames of understanding”. Explain how these “frames” are represented within the film for an audience that does not necessarily identify directly with the events of the Algerian Liberation; and also explain how the film illustrates the concept of “history from below”.

Battle of Algiers trailer

FIDES, the bike in Bicycle Thieves

The story is simple. An unemployed man in post-war Italy is lucky enough to get an offer of work but he needs a bicycle. He has one but it sits in a pawn hall because he and his family needed the money. He is desperate and has not idea of how to get around the problem. His wife though is not taken aback. She comes up with a plan...to pawn off the sheets off of their beds and with that money pay off the debt on the bike. Plain enough...this scene is merely a recounting of that brief episode. Not the most important in the film. However, since De Sica loves to set things spinning by attaching events to a small insignificant object by making it the center of a conflict, the bike's insignificance is paramount...as is that of the sheets...in fact both are very important...what I love in this scene is how two insignificant objects cross paths and are found in a container that holds an apparently infinite number of similarly insignificant objects...
by the way...the make of the bike is Fides...a faithful piece of insignificance!?

New Criterion Release of Bicycle Thieves

Criterion is releasing a new copy of Vittorio De Sica's LADRI DI BICICLETTE with a proper translation of its title to BICYCLE THIEVES...

CINEMA PARADISO by Giuseppe Tornatore

I guess everyone thought Italian cinema had died or withered away after neo-realism and the commedia all'italiana period. Well, in fact it kept going,kept producing a lot of good film. It just didn't travel well...or maybe it didn't meet the requirements/expectations of what North American distributors thought American audiences would want to see of Italy. Or, Italians themselves just did not do a great job of promotion. Cinema Paradiso is a film I love and hate...because it serves up a lot of the usual stereotypical imagery (and that's what I believe made it an AA winner) but it also does a great job in doing so...the film is in fact very good in proposing aspects of disfunctional narrativity, such as Italians might have suffered in the post-war period. It puts into question the life of the main protagonist Toto`(a life of escape and success)...and the choices he made by seeing life through a dirty lens of sorts...It is only at the end of the film, after he has reluctantly come to face what he has not wanted to re-view for decades, that he finally opens his eyes. The aid to his newfound vision is nothing less that what had been/has been hidden from the eyes of the population at large...the possibility of love, human relationships, sensuality, laughter. The clip above closes the film...it plays the censored clips that Salvatore is able to view only after his mentor, Alfredo's, death. This short sequence is what defines for me the meaning of the whole film...what brings me to love it after hating it...the clips are representative of what is missing in life, what is censored...what is stored away as a missing memory or residual meaning. It is what appears to be superfluous as sin for the meaning of the movies that were viewed in that little theatre...in fact they are particularly important elements of resistance to what would impose a culture of fear and suspicion... What is recuperated, the gift that Alfredo kept for Salvatore just in case he might not find it out on his own, in his own life, which he did not, when we open our eyes and minds and resume a relationship with the world that is fresh and unhampered by normative and directive aspects of dominant/centralized/consumeristic culture, is the presence of humanity and the opportunity to adjust the narrative of our lives.


p. verdicchio

VITO AND THE OTHERS a film by Antonio Capuano

The narrative structure of Capuano’s film Vito e gli altri is reflective of the disjunction of the subjects within their existential and social space. The children populating this film are constantly depicted as peripheral not only to conventional institutions such as the family, school, etc. but also to elements that possibly most accurately define their existence. For example, television is overwhelmingly present in this film and the distance between the children’s lives and behaviour could not be more different from TV’s depictions of idealized childhood steeped in consumerism. Yet that is the normative representation that the children are most drawn toward. Contrast the children in this film to those in classic neorealist films such as ROME, OPEN CITY or Bruno in BICYCLE THIEVES...they come closer to the ones we come to know in PAISA`... the adults in Vito don't fare too well. They are cast in quite awful roles as preoccupied by nothing but power (over children) and guided themselves by a feverish sort of consumerism that is isolating and empty even more than we might imagine. There are no role models for the children at all, and education comes to carry negative connotations that are related to imposition, competition and the inability to teach without violence.

Some Notes on CIAO, PROFESSORE a film by Lina Wertmuller

To read this film in its proper context one must first of all consider the book of essays “Io speriamo che me la cavo” from which it was drawn.
Finally, this allegorical tale of a still divided nation, appears to be rather cynical and pessimistic about the possibility of ever approaching a homogeneous national culture and function for its citizens.

Ciao functions as a greeting of both meeting and farewell. As such it could also be read in the film for its final use when the teacher is transferred back to his Northern Italian town. I do not want to diminish the positive aspects of the situation that the film represents; it is hard to summarize however as to which is the greater impact, that of the teacher on the children or of the children on the teacher. We may even regard this as a balance learning experience. One slight difference is however that the children’s learning experience does not appear to improve the position in any way. The teacher’s gain is that he may now feel quite satisfied with himself for having experienced and tolerated the Southern Question. Aside from that, he returns North and out of reach for his short visit to have been that significant.

One of the first instances of crossed signals in the teacher/student communication is the reading of the earring. Coming from a supposedly more progressive and less conservative North, it would make sense that the teacher should have known about men wearing earrings and as a result not have been so surprised. Another term of distance is the surprise at the working life of children. The film plays it for its cutsey effect; it’s so cute to see t he little girl washing dishes and telling the teacher that she is the one t hat runs the household and “please turn off the milk and pour it in the baby bottle.”

While indeed child labour should be discouraged, it is also true that some families would not be able to subsist were it not for the work of the children. And, if there is an element of cuteness in the little girl homemaker, the reality is that her statement is far from a joke and she is not playing house. She runs the house and cares for the other children. It is here that the imposition of school butts heads with the realities of life. School for some of these children represents a luxury that they can ill afford, and the invasion of their social space by this outsider who has a very focused belief regarding what the life of children should be is indicative of a blind application of a moral ground and a set of beliefs that is foreign to the immediate situation. The imposition of the teacher’s system of beliefs can only cause an irritated rebellion by the children, one that they nevertheless give in to even if slightly, for play is of course more delightful than play. Yet, where the teacher might succeed in altering their life styles, he will ultimately fail since there is no support system provided for those who stop working in order to go to school. What will replace their work as a way of making a living and keeping food on the table? This is not the teacher’s problem as we see since he returns home at the end of the film.

Another disturbing representation is that of the young woman employed by the teacher’s landlords. Her image as a vuloptuous young nubile woman heightens the sense of abuse and manipulation suffered by these children. It is implied, with a glance, with a word here and there, that she may provide either the landlord or the teacher with pleasures more than just household services. Her image is so close to that stereotype of neapolitan woman so well portrayed by Sophia Loren in the 50s and repeated in Il Postino more recently. It is an image that reduces mediterranean feminine strength and beauty to nothing more than the vuloptuousness of a body to be desired, but without any real attribute beyond that. What this tends to do is to transform the whole of mediterranean culture into an empty shell of shallow appearance and little substance.

Una giornata particolare

A very special film about a very special day. As Hitler arrives in Rome to meet with Mussolini, a defeated housewife and an ex-radio announcer who is being removed to internal exile for being homosexual (and thereby unsuitable to represent the voice of Fascist masculinity) come together for a few hours that will change their lives. Ettore Scola casts Matroianni and Loren against character and delves into the narrow spaces of day to day life under Fascism. The actors, the architecture, the apparently simple structure of the film, and the incisive use of sound to emphasize the oppressive omnipresence of Fascism go to make this film a classic. Scola's film brings History and history face to face both to testify about a past moment of Italian hisotry and to suggest that contemporary viewers consider how we might allow Power to insinuate itself into, and control, our lives. Unfortunately, even though a restored version was re-released in 2005, and the film was the subject of a conference and a book, it remains hard to find on VHS or DVD. What is around is of poor quality and usually dubbed. There seems to be no version in Italian with English subtitles. I found a DVD of good quality in Italy, in Italian with Greek subtitles. While it is unfortunate that most versions are English dubbed, I believe that it is the actors themselves dubbing their own voices.

Special Day's director, Ettore Scola, much like De Sica before him, isolates what might be considered to be insignificant, mundane moments and lives to make his point in this film. Comment on how Scola represents Fascism as an ideology that insinuates itself into everyday lives, even ones removed from its main events. And, reflect on how the staging of A Special Day contrasts History to story (or "history from below"). Two pages due on Tuesday May 23rd.

TARANTELLA

Tarantella



with Mira Sorvino, Rose Gregorio, and Matthew Lillard.
Dir. Helen De Michiel. Written by Richard Hoblock and Helen De Michiel.

The title of this film will immediately cause some
viewers to bristle at the hinted nostalgia, at the distant
custom that apparently has no connection to Italian
Americans in the 1990s. Nevertheless, with the title you
begin to feel the strains of the music, the dance, the trance,
the rhythms. But what is it all about? Mira Sorvino
before Mighty Aphrodite. Italian American film before,
after, and during identity crisis.
Tarantella is a film about an Italian American woman
photographer, Diana Di Sorella (Sorvino). Her mother’s
death sends her back to her childhood home, where she has
to deal with the memory of her mother, and embark on
an exploration of the effects of her death. Having grown
distant from her family and culture, Diana returns to her
mother’s house to take care of the funeral arrangements, and to sell the house
and belongings. Her return to the old neighborhood is for Diana a confrontation with
all the things she had left behind, discounted, and tried to forget. She arrives still
despising her background, which she will slowly begin to reassess through the help of
Pina (played by Rose Gregorio), her mother’s neighbor and confidant. Pina
introduces Diana to her mother’s hidden history via a “libro della casa” that holds
scraps and pieces of her history from before her migration from Sicily to the U.S. Pina
offers to become Diana’s comare and guide in her voyage through her mother’s story
and possibly to herself. Through this process of associations, Pina and Diana’s
mother, Pina and Diana, and eventually Diana and her mother, the last name Di
Sorella takes on the added meaning of sisterhood. It will be this sisterhood to provide
Diana with the tools for a fuller understanding of herself and her background.
As the film opens we meet Diana the photographer intent at work
photographing the intricate patterns created by contemporary architecture.
Reflections, stark architectural and color contrasts, geometric oppositions, and the
like, are the subjects of Diana’s photographs. No people. In fact, when three little
girls ask her to take their picture she tells them to leave her alone, “can’t you see I’m
trying to work.” This opening sequence is all important in establishing Diana’s
difficulty in dealing with people and situations that appear to be less than organized,
symmetrical, and controlled. Her apartment reflects this condition. Everything neat.
Nothing out of place. Everything geometrically placed to complement everything else.
Everything organized to contrast a life and culture she deems chaotic. But what Diane
has in fact created for herself is a dead living space where order and the lack of
intimacy reign supreme. Diana’s boyfriend, Matt, is similarly positioned as a
supporting character in this facade. When Diana arrives home after her shoot, Matt
greets her unemotionally. When she asks what’s up, he plainly states “your mother’s
dead,” no emotion, no comforting comment or physical contact. He is, in effect, a part
of the predictable furniture.
While Diana is obviously shocked at the news, her reaction to it quickly shifts to
a consideration of the situation and the danger it represents in that it may pull her
back into an orbit of influence that she does not long to re-enter. In pulling a black
dress from her closet, she asks Matt “is it Italian enough?” Of course, posed to her
boyfriend, the question is rhetorical, expressive of the stereotypical image that a
black-dress conveys, one that is associated with Italians in the popular imagination.
What is more important is that the question demonstrates Diana’s distance from her
culture and her own misunderstanding of the meaning and value of mourning: “Do I
shroud myself in mourning for the rest of my life?” With this statement Diana defines
her mother’s death as an imposition and influence that, in her eyes, defies even the
finality of death.
Whether an imposition or a catalyst, her mother’s death causes Diana to have to
face her past, her neighborhood, her heritage, and herself. The first glimpse we get of
Diana’s old neighborhood is in fact during her mother’s funereal procession. The
faces and places she had escaped are now staring back at her as the procession
weaves its way through the neighborhood. Diana’s sense of distance and non
-belonging is palpable. When she visits a neighborhood caffè-bar, Diana’s
conversation with the bar-tender, whom she appears to know, is about the
neighborhood. While the man is rather glad to say that the neighborhood hasn’t
changed much, and that “consistency is a good thing,” the camera tracks around the
shop shows only men playing cards and having fun. As this first image of Italian
maschilist culture sinks in. Diana’s sense of it is also stated in her answer to the bar-
tender: “As long as you fit in.” In the tally that the viewer must begin to take in this film
, we find ourselves accumulating a series of images and signifying elements th
at stress and emphasize common-places about Italians: maschilism, oppressive family
situations, etc. We are asked to look beyond these through a process of discovery
that begins with Diana’s exploration of her mother’s diary, a tale that narrates her own
mother’s defiance of male rule and tradition.
As viewers, we have already been initiated by the film’s title into a particular
cultural dimension. And, as we might have questioned the value of citing the
tarantella, we must now extend our inquiry to include Diana’s search. The question
we must ask is not whether or not these remote customs are useful to us today, but
how they might be useful. The death of Diana’s mother acts as an initiation into her
culture through an important ritual that she undertakes even against her
misunderstanding of it: mourning. For those interested in following up the various
manifestations of this custom in southern Italy and elsewhere, the work of Ernesto De
Martino and Luigi Lombardi Satriani will be of interest.
The black dress and mourning and the men-only public place are only a few of
the stereotypes in which Diana herself participates. When she returns to her mother’s
empty house she makes espresso and plays opera records. What these innocent and
almost automatic actions reveal for us is that the line between stereotype and
ritualistic or customary behavior is a thin one, as is the one between a culture one
wishes to shed and the culture that has been made impalpable. Within the context of
Tarantella the elements of mourning that are played out are of course removed from a
more formal ritual. Even so, Pina’s help, and the recuperation of history through her
mother’s diary, are important elements of mourning and confirmation of self-worth.
The process of mourning is instigated by the recognition and the emphasis of a
loss of presence. The concept and practice of mourning is equally applicable to
emigration (remember le vedove bianche, and the celebration of emigration as a
death), and to the loss of one’ s culture, as it is to the death of an individual. The
death of a loved-one, a parent, and possibly the only link to one’s past is
representative of the onset of a crisis which undermines not only day to day life, but
also the order of relations. The tie between people and things (property) is an
important part of mourning in cultures where the transmittance of goods from the
household in not a given. In peasant culture, the loss of the head of the family was
also taken to represent the loss of land, therefore the “presenza smarrita” (lost
presence) refers both to the dead individual and to the landless children (“figli
sterrati”). Lombardi Satriani observes that “without roots and without future prospects
the lost presence will find, in the processes of refoundation and reintegration, the
possibility of a new domesticity, of a new land. It will be a case of reinventing the
world” (207).
Tarantella is as much about mourning the loss of the daughter as it is of the
mother. Through the course of the film, with the aid of Pina, Diana acquires the power
to look beyond the surface of things. The tarantella is usually associated with happy
-go-lucky and gregarious southern Italians. As Diana and Pina walk along the streets
of the neighborhood they see a woman dance the tarantella accompanied by a guitar,
mandolin, and accordion trio. “Talk about ethnic! I remember that from weddings way
back. A bunch of old ladies jumping around in black. Isn’t it about dancing out
poison, from spider bites or something?” observes Diana, making the only
associations she knows of for the dance. Pina clarifies with “it’s an old tradition,
especially for us. The music and dancing were supposed to cure the poison.
Physical release of the pain inside. The tarantella is very powerful.” As the dancer
approaches them, Pina, protective of the dance’s powers, says to her “Go away!
That’s not the way it’s supposed to be! Tarantella is not like that."
The reclamation of the function and power of the tarantella illustrates precisely
the process of reinvention in which Diana must partake. Her condition is not
uncommon and it is not only an Italian phenomenon. Rather, it is a symptom of
displacement and a feeling of cultural incongruence that, as this film suggests, can be
at least in-part be overcome by tapping into the past. When she volunteers to become
Diana’s comare, she tells the younger woman, who doesn’t see the need for Pina’s
help, that it’s good to be independent, but “be like that by knowing who you are not by
being afraid.” The result will be a world of Diana’s own making well beyond the
artificial one previously known by her, because it will be informed by history.

Bibliography:

de Martino, Ernesto. Morte e pianto rituale: dal lamento funebre antico al pianto di
Maria. Torino: Universale scientifica Boringhieri, 123/124, 1975.

Lombardi Satriani, Luigi M. e Meligrana, Mariano. Il ponte di San Giacomo. Palermo:
Sellerio, 1989.

BIG NIGHT

Big Night with Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Ian Holm, Isabella Rossellini.
Directed by Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott.

The release of this film was preceded by a great deal of discussion and hype
surrounding the issue of representation. Big Night has been hailed as the film to finally
rescue Italian American identity from the clutches of its usual mold, that of the Mafioso,
the hunk, the dumb Dago, Guinea, Wop.
Big Night is a story about two restauranteur brothers, Primo and Secondo, who are
at the end of their wits and financial rope, and must find a way to rescue their restaurant.
Primo, the chef, is discouraged to the point that he is seriously considering his uncle’s
offer to join him at his restaurant in Rome. Secondo, more the entrepreneur, is not ready
to give in and is in search of alternatives. In dress, manner, and aspirations Secondo is
shown to be the more modern, more American, more flexible, more apt to take chances, of
the two, and out to become something other than what he is. Primo is reserved, careful
about trying new things, less adaptable, and satisfied with his position. Both brothers are
honest and hard-working individuals unwilling to compromise their art for material gain.
Their nemesis is Pascal, owner of the nearby restaurant by the same name. They, who
serve genuine and carefully prepared Italian dishes, are crying for business. Pascal,
whose restaurant serves second-rate fare that fulfills lowly stereotypic expectations, offers
spaghetti and meatballs and the like, has overflowing business every night.
In an apparent moment of altruism, Pascal gives Secondo a glint of hope. He tells
Secondo that his friend Louis Prima will be coming to town and that, instead of having
him dine at his place he will make it so Primo will dine at their restaurant. This should
work to give the place a reputation that will attract hordes of customers. Secondo accepts,
without telling Primo of the agreement with Pascal, knowing that Primo would not accept.
And so begin the preparations for the “big night.” It is through the process of collecting the
materials for this special dinner, which will center around the production of a timpano
(timballo), a dish that acquires its own cultural 15 minutes of fame as a result of the film,
that we get a little insight into the lives of Primo and Secondo.
Both brothers have women they like. Primo likes the local florist, but is too shy to
even invite her to the dinner. Secondo has a tall, red-haired girlfriend to whom he is
reluctant to commit: “Is this your fiance?” asks Pascal “No, no” answers Secondo
hesitantly. Secondo is also unfaithful. He is in fact having an affair with Pascal’s
companion, Gabriella (played by Isabella Rossellini). Primo is absorbed by the business
of the dinner and by a more realistic take on it. He calls his uncle in Italy to see if his offer
is still standing, just in case. Secondo, on the other hand, is very optimistic about the
future that this dinner will bring. On his way to buy certain ingredients he stops by
Gabriella’s apartment, and he takes time to test-drive a Cadillac (an act that implies his
optimism and blind faith in the promises of others).
On the night of the dinner, with the food nearing readiness, and the waiting getting
to be too much, it all must begin without Louis Prima. As the night progresses it becomes
clear that Prima will not show. Eventually Gabriella lets it be known that it was all a
jealous ruse on Pascal’s part to sink the brothers even deeper into debt and eliminate the
competition. Pascal’s false friendship blinded Secondo and, when Primo finds out what
has gone on, he and Secondo argue bitterly and lay bare their differences. Trust has been
broken between the two brothers and it will be hard to mend. But there is nothing stronger
than family ties (at list in the realm of Italian American values and imaginary), which
guarantees that the brothers will somewhere, somehow reconnect.
There is no better place for a reconciliation that the kitchen itself. As morning
breaks, the film closes with perhaps its best scene. Secondo walks into the kitchen to
make a frittata, which he cuts into three parts when it’s done. To this he adds bread and
he and the waiter begin to eat. As Primo walks in Secondo hands him the third piece. The
waiter leaves the kitchen and the two brothers are left alone in silence. Primo and Secondo
eat side by side. As they sit there Secondo reaches across and lays his free arm across his
brother’s shoulders. Primo, encouraged by this act of affection, reciprocates and the film
closes with the two brothers still eating, but in a distant embrace.


This film has been heralded as the long-awaited piece that would rescue Italian Americans
from the quagmire of negative typification. While I will not argue with the
touching story of these two brothers and their immigrant experience, the fact is that it’s
not so much that this film resists negative stereotypes through the presentation of
alternative, but that it looks the other way. Or, at least, it asks us to look the other way.
If we take the topic that most irks Italian Americans in film, the Mafia, its non-presence in the
environment in which the film takes place should send up signals. And, if we don’t want
to make a direct link between the restaurant and entertainment business and the Mafia, then
we must view Pascal as a representative of a certain “modo di fare” that is mafioso. Pascal
wields a certain amount of power through which he is able to give favours, and to renege
on his favour if he likes. His position, but most importantly the Pilaggi brothers non
-status, emphasizes Pascal’s territorial one-upmanship. Pascal also has standing as an
immigrant of previous arrival to Primo and Secondo’s, and therefore is to be reckoned
with as the more “furbo” and Americanized businessman.
Beyond this, and if we want to discard any allusion at the Mafia all-together, we
must face some other realities. Are Italian Americans only upset by Mafia
characterizations? Womanizing and adultery, a very common stereotype in the depiction of
Italians, doesn’t seem to upset Italian Americans. It’s never come up in a discussion of
this or any other film that I can remember as a typification that should be fought against.
Lying, cheating, and conniving also seem to be absent from the list of things to be guarded
against. All we seem to hear is that thank God, finally a film in which there is no Mafia.
Well, what about the things I noted above? They are all present in Big Night, yet no one
has commented on them. Or are we still so insecure as to have to put on show that Italian
American men are so virile that womanizing and adultery are acceptable because they are in
our nature. And are lying and cheatin acceptable because of our philosophy of “‘ca
nisciun’è fesso!” that leads to underhanded ways of dealing with others?

LUCE

Mussolini's creation, the LUCE Institute, is today the repository of an important archive of Italian culture and cinematographic images. Visit the archive at
www.archivioluce.com