Italy Meets Africa : Colonial Discourses in Italian Cinema.
Title:
Italy Meets Africa : Colonial Discourses in Italian Cinema.
Author:
Di Carmine, Roberta.
ISBN:
9781453907788
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (156 pages)
Series:
Framing Film ; v.10
Framing Film
Contents:
Contents -- Acknowledgments vii -- Chapter One. Introduction: 1861-2011- Nationalist Values in Italian Cinema 1 -- Italian Colonial Cinema: Its Origins and Characteristics 4 -- The Italian Empire in Africa 10 -- Ideological Controversies in Italian Colonial Films 12 -- Historical Relationships between Italy and Africa 14 -- The "Myth" of Africa in Italian Colonial Cinema 17 -- Notes 19 -- Chapter Two. Screening Colonialism in Libya: Mario Camerini and Kif Tebbi (1928) 23 -- History and Cinema: Italian Colonial Cinema in Libya 23 -- Political and Social Consequences of the Italian Occupation 30 -- Kif Tebbi: Luciano Zuccoli's Romanzo Africano 33 -- Kif Tebbi: Mario Camerini's Film 34 -- On the Cinematic Adaptation of the Novel 36 -- Mario Camerini and Kif Tebbi Today 40 -- Notes4̈2 -- Chapter Three. The Good Italian Soldier in Squadrone bianco (White Squadron, 1936) 47 -- Italian Cinema in the 1930s 47 -- Squadrone bianco 49 -- Love and Patriotism 51 -- Colonial and Fascist Ideologies in Genina's Film 56 -- Notes 57 -- Chapter Four. Italian Cinema in the Zululand: Siliva Zulu (1927) 60 -- Screening Race during Fascism 60 -- The Making of Siliva Zulu 64 -- Attilio Gatti and the Italian Film Industry 67 -- Siliva Zulu: An African (melo)drama 70 -- Cinematic Representations of African Femininity and Masculinity 73 -- On Gramsci and Italian Colonial Cinema 80 -- Film History and Italian Culture 82 -- The Multiple Versions of Siliva Zulu 83 -- Notes 86 -- Chapter Five. Historical Past in Contemporary Italian Cinematic Culture 95 -- Past and Present: Africa in Italy 95 -- Immigration and the "Other" in Italian Society 97 -- The Immigrant in Bernardo Bertolucci's L'assedio (Besieged) 102 -- Black Italians in Cristina Comencini's Bianco e Nero 110 -- A Comparison: L'assedio and Bianco e Nero 113 -- On Cinema and the Italian Colonial Heritage 117.
Notes 119 -- Chapter Six. Conclusion: Colonial Discourses Today- Africa Occupies Italy 124 -- Notes 128 -- Bibliography 131 -- Index 143.
Abstract:
Over the past few decades, Italian colonial cinema has proved to be a compelling area to explore artistic productions born during the colonial and fascist periods whose unique ideology shifted from propaganda to fiction. The films produced during the Italian colonial intervention in Africa, which lasted roughly seventy-five years, reflect cinema's recollection of political beliefs and its aesthetic attention to colonialism while exposing its ideological contradictions. Italian colonial films mirror imperial ideology influenced by a racial hierarchy that was acted upon during the colonization of Africa. This study on images of Italian and African identities displayed in these films today invites viewers to reflect on racially constructed images that speak of justice and loyalty, values that reflect nationalist and patriotic ideals defining but also confining the identities of both Africans and Italians. The films analyzed in this book include Attilio Gatti's Siliva Zulu (1927); Mario Camerini's Kif tebbi (1928); Augusto Genina's Squadrone bianco (1936). To conclude this journey through colonial discourses in Italian cinema, two examples of contemporary cinema given by Bernardo Bertolucci in L'assedio (1998) and Cristina Comencini in Bianco e Nero (2007) expand the study from colonial national and cultural identity to interracial relationships in today's multiethnic Italy. The representations of African and Italian identities found in these two contemporary films grow into compelling visual documents of a historical connection that does not seem to move forward from its colonial mentality. These films' analyses are helpful tools for understanding the growing racial intolerance which has been troubling Italian society in the past decade. The need remains crucial to explain the racial component of the relationship between Italy and Africa by looking
at the imagery of national and cultural identity found in the films shot in Africa during the Italian expansionist intervention in the 1920s and 1930s.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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