Fransesco Rosi: an Auteur? the Cinema of Francesco Rosi
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FRANCESCO ROSI: AN AUTEUR? the cinema of Francesco Rosi Thesis supervised by Anna Laura Lepschy and submitted at University College London in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Ph.D by MARY PATRICIA WOOD May 1994 ProQuest Number: 10018659 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10018659 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 11 ABSTRACT Auteurist approaches developed in the 1950s studied films as a means of personal expression, valuing those directors who could bring an individual quality to their films as ’auteurs’. More recent theories of subjectivity and textuality have displaced the centrality of the director as author of meanings in the film texts, but have had difficulty in explaining the continued importance accorded to directors in interviews and writing about their films. The interaction of directorial intention, film industry, and the use of other media to communicate the director’s ideas to audiences is an area of continued theoretical concern. It is the aim of this work firstly to examine how Francesco Rosi has managed to constitute himself as an ’auteur’ within the institutional structures of the Italian film industry, and the constraints which these impose. Between 1958 and today Rosi has made fifteen films, the majority of which to a greater or lesser extent engage with the reality of contemporary Italy. He works within the mainstream of the Italian film industry. His work can, however, be located within that narrow band of 1 - 2% of films produced each season which can be designated ’art’ or ’quality’ cinema, as opposed to more or less formulaic genre products. This study aims to show that the institutional structures of the Italian film - and latterly media industries have a primary influence both on the particular narrative patterns Rosi has at his disposal, and on the particular types of films which Rosi as director is financed to make. Ill Secondly, I examine elements of Rosi’s films which mark him out as an ’auteur’. Through close textual analysis, I identify recurring visual, rhetorical and narrative choices which can be shown to signal the presence of the ’auteur’ , Rosi, in the film texts, and to constitute his style. IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I should like to acknowledge the support and constructive criticism received from Professor Anna Laura Lepschy and Dr Robert Lumley of University College London and Christopher Wagstaff of the University of Reading. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Ulrike Sieglohr of the University of Stafford shire, Dr Lesley Caldwell of the University of Greenwich and my colleague (until recently) at the British Film Institute, Jim Cook. Thanks are also due to Liz-Anne Bawden and James Leahy who supervised the early stages of this project and who arranged for films to be viewed through the Slade School of Fine Art. I am grateful to the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies of Birkbeck College London for allowing me two periods of study leave, and for making a grant from departmental research funds towards the cost of viewing films in Rome. Much inspiration was received from the comments and responses of Extra-Mural students on courses on Italian cinema which I co-taught (with Dr Robert Murphy in 1985 and Dr Lesley Caldwell in 1990) at the British Film Institute. I should also like to thank Gillian Hartnoll and the British Film Institute library, and the viewing service of the Cineteca Nazionale in Rome. The media researcher, Ginny Heath, obtained a copy of Diario Napelatano for me. Shannon Campbell and Paola Polselli helped by their interest and assisted in obtaining articles and videotapes. I owe much to Francesca Bossi Galiatsatos for her friendship and hospi tality, Francesco Rosi for his unfailing courtesy, and Donald Wood for his encouragement. GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations have been used in the transcription of screenplays:- bkview backview bw black and white cu close-up ecu extreme close-up eha extreme high angle els extreme long shot ext exterior 1st f irst ha high angle hs head and shoulders int interior 1 left la low angle Ig large Ih left-hand 1 s long shot mcu medium close-up ms medium shot pa plan américain pov point-of-view r right rh right-hand rs reverse shot V very wa wide angle VI TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract i i Acknowledgements ................................. iv Glossary of Abbreviations ......................... v Introduction ....................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: Francesco Rosi in the context of the Italian film industry .......................... 45 PART 1 : How the Italian film industry works 4 5 PART 2: Rosi’s career in context ............. 70 Phase 1: Neorealism and after ......... 70 Phase 2: Starting out .................. 87 Phase 3: After the re v o l u t i o n 97 Phase 4: Losing the war with television ........................ 114 Phase 5: To sup with the Devil ........ 125 Phase 6: Restricted opportunities ..... 132 Conclusion .............................. 142 CHAPTER 2: The Cinema of Francesco Rosi: 1958-1990 168 CHAPTER 3: Establishing authority ............. 232 1. The justification of realism as a mode of film practice and the role of the intellectual in Italian culture ....... 233 2. The documentary mode ...................... 242 3. Conclusion ................ 290 CHAPTER 4: The ideological world of Rosi’s films 2 98 1. Political power: legal and illegal ...... 300 2. Gender ideology ...... 333 3. The theme of the Mezzogiorno ........ 344 Conclusion .................... 354 CHAPTER 5: Melodrama, excess and the creation of cinematic space 3 64 PART 1: Communicative and uncommunicative space 3 70 PART 2: The creation of social space ....... 3 90 PART 3: The architectural shot: space as sign 40 5 PART 4 : Excess ............................. 408 Conclusion ............................... 415 vil CONCLUSION 415 APPENDIX ONE. Interview with Francesco Rosi 28 July 1985 ...................... 446 APPENDIX TWO. Interview with Francesco Rosi 26 February 1987 ................... 462 APPENDIX THREE,, Interview with Francesco Rosi 1 June 1987 .... .................. 472 APPENDIX FOUR. Rosi and his collaborators ........ 489 1. Screenwriters ................. 489 2. Directors of Photography ...... 496 3. Editors ....................... 500 4. Music .......................... 502 5. Production designer ........... 503 6. Producers and production houses 504 7. Conclusion .................... 507 FILMOGRAPHY 513 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 517 VI 1 1 A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know. Diane Arbus, 1923-1971 La tendenza del mondo occidentale, europeo in particolare, è quella di esorcizzare il male proiettandolo su etnie e su comporta- menti diversi dai nostri. Ma se vogliamo combattere la mafia, non dobbiamo trasformarla in un mostro né pensare che sia una piovra o un cancro. Dobbiamo pensare che ci rassomiglia. Giovanni Falcone, 1939-1992 INTRODUCTION The impetus for this research project was the experience of pleasure. In 1977 I discovered the work of Leonardo Sciascia via the outline of an Extra-Mural course on recent Italian literature and my curiosity was sufficiently aroused to start on an erratic programme of reading his books. That summer the National Film Theatre offered a screening of Cadaveri eccellenti, based on Sciascia's II contesto, as part of a season devoted to Francesco Rosi, a complete retrospective of his work to date. Rosi’s work intrigued me on many levels - its visual beauty, its invitations to become involved in the solving of puzzles, its seriousness and political agenda, and, not least, its Italianness. I proceeded to discover Rosi and formulated this research proposal for University College London. From the very beginning, however, the way Francesco Rosi was spoken and written of, the way his work was considered in the public arena, such as the National Film Theatre, was at odds with theoretical considerations of the role of the director, or author. Film theory has had, and continues to have, difficulties in coming to terms with the idea of a person as the author of a text or texts. On the other hand, film critics and those who market films appear to have no difficulty in attributing the creative impulse behind a film to its director. In the late 1970s Bill Nichols suggested that the whole question of authorship was "less resolved than repressed^", but the fact that the subject continues to occupy such a large amount of space in anthologies and text books on cinema indicates that 2 the suppression is ineffective, and that it remains a question with which we still have to come to terms. Francesco Rosi started his career in the Italian film industry as Assistant Director to Luchino Visconti on La terra trema and made his début as a director with La sfida in 1958. His reputation was established with Salvatore Giuliano in 1962 and, despite criticism, he is one of the few directors currently operating in Italy who still engages with contemporary social issues. In choosing to consider Francesco Rosi as the 'author' of his films, we must examine the idea of the author in its historical, critical and industrial context. The changing role of the author is emblematic of the swings and roundabouts of critical fashion. It is not the purpose of this work to catalogue the detailed shifts of emphasis in the study of authorship. This study will, therefore, begin by examining the advantages and disadvantages of some of the theoretical models of the main developments in auteur study.