Abstract
Giuliani explores the positionality of the looking subject in terms of masculinity and whiteness through the analysis of 1960s films by Roberto Rossellini (India, 1958); Pier Paolo Pasolini (La rabbia, 1963, and Appunti per un’orestiade africana, 1970); and Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi (Addio zio Tom, 1971). She situates these productions within their historical frame in order to grasp, on the one hand, post-fascist gender relations in the making and, on the other, legacies and rearticulations of colonial and postcolonial figures of race that were transnationally constructed and locally contextualised in post-war and Republican Italy.
By cine-reportage I mean a visual text where the authoriality of the director—expressed by the voice-over, the rationale behind the assemblage of visual fragments, the juxtaposition of disparate images, and/or the insertion of fictional elements—makes the film more a fictional product than a documentary. In this section, I will use the terms docufiction and cine-reportage interchangeably. I will also use the term documentary, since many of the works of docufiction under consideration are commonly classified as documentaries.
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Notes
- 1.
Giacomo Manzoli provides a key analysis of 1970s film representations of Italian masculinity “in crisis” in “Italians do it Worse: la crisi della mascolinità nella commedia erotica italiana degli anni Settanta,” Valle dell’Eden: semestrale di cinema e audiovisivi 9, no. 19 (2007). See also Elena dell’Agnese, “‘Tu vuò fa l’Americano’: la costruzione della mascolinità nella geopolitica popolare italiana,” in Mascolinità all’italiana, ed. Elena dell’Agnese and Elisabetta Ruspini (Torino: UTET, 2007), 14–27; Barbara Bracco, “Belli e fragili. Mascolinità e seduzione nel cinema italiano del secondo dopoguerra,” in dell’Agnese and Ruspini, Mascolinità all’italiana, 75–8; Catherine O’Rawe, “‘I padri e i maestri’: genre, auteurs, and absences in Italian film studies,” Italian Studies 63, no. 2 (2008), 173–94; Sergio Rigoletto, Masculinity and Italian Cinema: Sexual Politics, Social Conflict and Male Crisis in the 1970s (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014); Jaqueline Reich, Beyond the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, Masculinity, and Italian Cinema (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2014); and Natalie Fullwood, Cinema, Gender, and Everyday Space: Comedy, Italian Style (London: Palgrave, 2015). For a social analysis, see Chiara Saraceno, Mutamenti della famiglia e politiche sociali in Italia (Bologna: il Mulino, 1998); Elisabetta Ruspini, “Educare alle nuove mascolinità (gestire la parabola della virilità),” in dell’Agnese and Ruspini, Mascolinità all’italiana, 285–304; Sandro Bellassai, “L’autunno del patriarca. Insicurezze maschili nel secondo dopoguerra,” in Politica ed emozioni nella storia d’Italia dal 1848 ad oggi, ed. Penelope Morris, Francesco Ricatti, and Mark Seymour (Roma: Viella, 2012), 191–210; and Gianfranco Rebucini, “Omonormatività e omonazionalismo. Gli effetti della privatizzazione della sessualità,” in Politiche dell’orgoglio. Sessualità, soggettività e movimenti sociali, ed. Massimo Prearo (Pisa: ETS, 2015).
- 2.
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Penguin Books, 2001).
- 3.
On the link between feminist movements and 1970s erotic cinema, see in particular Rosetta Giuliani Caponetto, “Zeudi Araya, Ines Pellegrini e il cinema italiano di seduzione coloniale,” in L’Africa in Italia. Per una controstoria postcoloniale del cinema italiano, ed. Leonardo De Franceschi (Roma: Aracne, 2013), 109–23. For a discussion on the connection between feminist movements and the socio-cultural revolution they launched, and their representation in Italian “commedia dell’arte” and “commedia sexy” from the late 1950s to the 1970s, see respectively Giacomo Manzoli, “Crisi e mascheramenti della sessualità maschile nel cinema italiano degli anni Sessanta,” Cinergie, no. 5 (2014): 11–22; Rigoletto, Masculinity and Italian Cinema; and Fullwood, Cinema, Gender, 58.
- 4.
Alessandro Pes, “La Democrazia Cristiana e la decolonizzazione mancata (1946–1950),” in Deplano and Pes , Quel che resta dell’impero, 417–38.
- 5.
Raewyn Connell and James Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” Gender & Society 19, no. 6 (2005): 829–59.
- 6.
Ben-Ghiat , Fascist Modernities, 50. On fascist realism, see also pages 76ff.
- 7.
Bertozzi, Storia del documentario italiano, 97–127.
- 8.
Gualtiero Jacopetti wrote the voice-over script for both movies.
- 9.
“By ‘mondo movies’ we mean those shockumentaries […] that scandalized and made a deep impression on Italians (but also Americans and Europeans) from the sixties onwards, depicting realities that were far removed from the Western [sic] one through disturbing and shocking images. Mysterious exoticism and violent rituals, ancestral spells and integral nudity, wild nature and tribal [sic] ceremonies constitute the fulcrum of mondo movies, which aim to explore taboos [sic] visualizing and bearing testimony to the most disconcerting events in distant continents.” Antonio Bruschini and Antonio Tentori, Nudi e crudeli. I mondo movies italiani (Milano: Bloodbuster, 2013), 17.
- 10.
John Tagg has noted the significant aspect of the use of the photographic image as a “regime of truth” in The Burden of Representation.
- 11.
Mondo candido, by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi (1974), was also part of the Mondo Cane series.
- 12.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Comizi d’amore (Italy, 1965); Pasolini “Il coito, l’aborto, la falsa tolleranza del potere, il conformismo dei progressisti” (originally published as “Sono contro l’aborto,” Corriere della sera, January 19, 1975), and “Sacer” (originally published as “Pasolini replica sull’aborto” Corriere della sera, January 30, 1975) in Scritti corsari (Milano: Garzanti, 1975), 98–109.
- 13.
Sandro Bellassai, La legge del desiderio. Il progetto Merlin e l’Italia degli anni Cinquanta (Roma: Carocci, 2006).
- 14.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Limitatezza della storia e immensità del mondo contadino” (originally published as “Lettera aperta a Italo Calvino: P.: quello che rimpiango,” Paese sera, July 8, 1974), in Pasolini, Scritti corsari, 51–5.
- 15.
La rabbia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ay4IschOBw&t=4682s; Appunti per un’orestiade africana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjcx8Mhtoxc. See Giuliani, “The White Male Gaze in Italian Cine-reportage, 1960s–1970s,” 95–113.
- 16.
Manzoli, “Crisi e mascheramenti,” 11–22.
- 17.
See Erving Goffman, Gender Advertisements (1976; repr., London: Macmillan, 1979); and Vincenza Perilli, “‘Sesso’ e ‘razza’ al muro,” 91–126.
- 18.
Tobing Rony , The Third Eye.
- 19.
Marco Dalla Gassa has noted the similarities, also in terms of style and material used (footage from documentaries, films, home movies, newsreels, animation, and interviews), in “‘Tutto il mondo è paese’. I mondo movies tra esotismi e socializzazione del piacere,” Cinergie, no. 5 (2014): 83–95.
- 20.
Bertozzi, Storia del documentario italiano, 155.
- 21.
- 22.
Luca Caminati, Roberto Rossellini documentarista. Una cultura della realtà (Roma: Carocci/MiBAC-Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, 2012), 58.
- 23.
Roberto Rossellini, “Radio-conversation for the ORTF in Paris,” in Il mio dopoguerra (Roma: Edizioni dell’Asino, 2017), 63.
- 24.
Caminati , Roberto Rossellini documentarista, 66.
- 25.
Carmelo Marabello, “Dell’attitudine etnografica di alcuni film e di alcuni cineasti italiani,” Aut Aut, no. 349 (2011): 103–27.
- 26.
Caminati , Roberto Rossellini documentarista, 58.
- 27.
Roberto Rossellini, Il mio metodo. Scritti e interviste, ed. Adriano Aprà (Venezia: Marsilio, 1987), 169.
- 28.
Rossellini , Il mio metodo, 185.
- 29.
Isabella Pezzini, Asia teatro dell’immaginario. Viaggi letterari, avventure, gusto e divulgazione fra Ottocento e Novecento, in Oriente: storie di viaggiatori italiani (Milano: Nuovo Banco Ambrosiano, 1985), 245, quoted in Caminati , Roberto Rossellini documentarista, 76.
- 30.
Luca Caminati, Orientalismo eretico. Pier Paolo Pasolini e il cinema del Terzo Mondo (Milano: Bruno Mondadori, 2007), 3.
- 31.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Una lettera sgradevole” (originally published in Il Tempo, Letter no. 36, September 3, 1968) and “Lettera al Presidente del Consiglio” (originally published in Il Tempo, Letter no. 37, September 3, 1968), in Pasolini, Il caos (Milano: Garzanti, 2015), 25–6, 36.
- 32.
Gaia Giuliani, Beyond Curiosity. James Mill e la nascita del governo coloniale britannico in India (Roma: Aracne, 2008).
- 33.
Caminati , Orientalismo eretico, 21; Mary L. Pratt , Imperial Eye: Travel Writing and Transculturation (New York: Routledge, 1992).
- 34.
On Pasolini’s pan-southern attitude/ideology, see Marabello, “Dell’attitudine etnografica.” Pasolini’s quote is from Paolo Castaldini, “Razionalità e metafora: conversazione con Pier Paolo Pasolini,” Filmcritica, no. 174 (1967): 33, quoted in Caminati , Orientalismo eretico, 31.
- 35.
- 36.
Caminati , Orientalismo eretico, 68–79.
- 37.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBZRTEj-uks. Post-ban edited version (1972). Tatiana Petrovich Njegosh has noted that: “The film is available in different versions, both in Italian and in English. The original version of 118 minutes was pulled from distribution over plagiarism allegations by Rimini public prosecutor Giuseppe Scarpa; the film was re-edited (1972, 136 minutes) and its title changed to Zio Tom: this is the version including archive footage to which I refer in my analysis. The edited version was released in English with a slightly shorter running time (123 minutes) and the title Goodbye Uncle Tom. For sources and further details see Wikipedia.it under Addio Zio Tom. Finally, […] the film is sometimes referred to as Farewell Uncle Tom (e.g., on several posters for the US market), and it is not clear whether it is a liberal translation of the Italian title or a reference to the English version.” Petrovich Njegosh , “Il meticciato nell’italia contemporanea,” 161.
- 38.
On this point, I disagree with a few critics who see Jacopetti’s work as a critique to overwhelming global capitalism and colonialism. See Maurizio Fogliato and Fabio Francione, Jacopetti files: biografia di un genere cinematografico italiano (Milano and Udine: Mimesis, 2016), 26.
- 39.
“Scontri a Bologna per un film razzista,” L’Unità, October 10, 1971, 6; “Assolti i dimostranti contro Addio zio Tom,” La Stampa, December 15, 1971, 7; both quoted in “Il meticciato nell’italia contemporanea,” 161.
- 40.
My analysis owes much to Petrovich Njegosh and her brilliant contextualisation of Addio zio Tom and to the graphic novel La schiava by Alberto del Mestre et al. (Milano: Ediperiodici, 1983–1987), whose main character, Zeudia, was inspired by the Eritrean actress Zeudi Araya. See “Il meticciato nell’italia contemporanea,” 153–63.
- 41.
Alberto Moravia, L’Espresso April 15, 1966, and Ugo Casiraghi, L’Unità, April 3, 1962, quoted in Fogliato and Francione , Jacopetti files, 33–5 and 46–9.
- 42.
Gambetti quoted in Fogliato and Francione , Jacopetti files, 125–36.
- 43.
For an insight into Jacopetti’s sex scandals and sentence for statutory rape and sex with minors, see Stefano Loparco, Gualtiero Jacopetti. Graffi sul mondo (Piombino: Il foglio, 2014).
- 44.
On this issue, see also Gaia Giuliani, “Mediterraneità e bianchezza. Il razzismo italiano tra fascismo e articolazioni contemporanee (1861–2015),” in Petrovich Njegosh, “La ‘realtà’ trasnazionale della razza,” 167–82; and Giuliani, “Bella e abbronzata,” 46–60.
- 45.
See also Zygmunt Barański, “Pasolini : Culture, Croce, Gramsci,” in Culture and Conflict in Postwar Italy, ed. Zygmunt Barański and Robert Lumley (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990), 150.
- 46.
This perspective was also shared by Ernesto de Martino and, more recently, Carlo Levi. Forgacs, Italy’s Margins: Social Exclusion and Nation Formation since 1861 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 141–3; Forgacs, “The Communist Party and Culture,” in Barański and Lumley, Culture and Conflict in Postwar Italy, 97–113; and Catherine O’Rawe, “‘I padri e i maestri’” provide critiques of the condescending attitude of the Italian Communist Party and neorealist cinema towards “popular culture.” See also Shelleen Greene on the “tension between [colonial] nostalgia and the desire to be free of the fantasies structuring colonial relations” that she believes to be at the heart of Pasolini’s work, especially Il fiore delle Mille e una notte (1974): Greene, Equivocal Subjects: Between Italy and Africa: Construction of Racial and National identity in The Italian Cinema (New York: Continuum, 2014), 238.
- 47.
Internal abjection needs to be read from the positioning of the subject who embodies it, at the convergence of lines of gender, race, class, non-disability, and geographical origin. See Gaia Giuliani, “Introduzione,” in Il colore della nazione, 1–16; and Giuliani, “Bella e abbronzata. Visualizzare la razza nella televisione italiana 1978–1989,” 46–60.
- 48.
Forgacs focuses specifically on selected examples of marginality from Italian Unification to the present day in Italy’s Margins.
- 49.
Sergio Bontempelli, “L’invenzione degli zingari. La questione rom tra antiziganismo, razzismo ed etnicizzazione,” in Petrovich Njegosh , “La ‘realtà’ transnazionale della razza,” 43–56; and Leonardo Piasere, L’antitziganismo (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2015).
- 50.
Roberto Derobertis notes that the bourgeoisie’s “gaze toward the South and margins” in 1950s–1970s central and northern Italy represented a post-colonial legacy. Derobertis, “Southerners, Migrants, Colonized: A postcolonial perspective on Carlo Levi’s Cristo si è fermato a Eboli and Southern Italy today,” in Lombardi-Diop and Romeo, Postcolonial Italy, 157–74.
- 51.
Labanca , Oltremare, 438, 457, was the first to identify this line; Petrovich Njegosh , in “Il meticciato nell’italia contemporanea,” 151–3, examines its role in visual texts from the 1970s and 1980s. See Franco Fortini, Dieci inverni: 1947–1957: contributi ad un discorso socialista (Bari: De Donato, 1972), 157, for a discussion of populism as the “weak point of neorealism” and its various strands.
- 52.
Rosetta Giuliani Caponetto, referencing Fatimah Rony Toning’s The Third Eye in “Zeudi Araya, Ines Pellegrini,” 109–23 and 110 in particular.
- 53.
See, for instance, literary works by Toni Morrison; and Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks.
- 54.
hooks , “Eating the Other,” 21–40.
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Giuliani, G. (2019). The White Male Gaze in Italian Cine-reportage, Mondo Movie, and Soft-porn, 1960s–1970s. In: Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy. Mapping Global Racisms. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50917-8_4
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