Review article
The Italian South in History, Culture and on Film
Etami Borjan
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb
Abstract
The Italian South has been represented through the stereotypes of violence, economic underdevelopment, age-old traditions, isolation and poverty. Over the decades cinema has played a pivotal role in creating and promoting an exotic image of the South. The notion of the domestic Other coming from the Italian South, is still discussed in Italian politics, sociology, cinema and media. However, neo-colonial representation of the South has changed in the last two decades; new, young and local filmmakers have started addressing present socio-political situation in Southern regions from a different perspective. The essay explores how and why the forceful rhetoric of North versus South has taken hold in Italy and how the notion of margin or cultural border, as the South is usually referred to, has been created and perpetuated in politics, anthropology, literature and cinema. The article is divided in three parts: the first part is a historical overview of discursive mechanisms used in politics, history and anthropology; the second part presents the most prominent post-war documentaries on the South inspired by the research of the Italian ethnologist Ernesto De Martino; the third part focuses on the representation of the Italian South in Italian feature films from the 1950s up to the present day. Through the analysis of the selected films the author outlines the main tendencies in the representation of the South on screen.
Keywords
Southern Question; the Italian South on screen; magic; Christianity and paganism; ethnographic film; Mafia on screen
Hrčak ID:
191609
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2017.
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