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IntroductIon

this special issue of Quaderni d’italianistica originates from an idea that has been accompanying me for some years. In my research and teaching experience in Italian cinema I could not help noticing how many children appear as protagonists or major characters in contemporary movies, but also in famous films of the past. From the best known, and awarded movies like Cinema paradiso and La vita è bella , to comencini’s Incompreso and other masterpieces, to the classics of neorealism Roma città aperta, Ladri di biciclette , Sciuscià, Germania anno zero . Italian cinema has dealt extensive - ly with the theme of childhood, although none of these films are made for a child audience. I found this prevalence of the cinematic child in the Italian screen intriguing, particularly for its sustained presence in contem - porary Italian cinema. Where does this interest for childhood come from? one can speculate that it may be due to the ability of children to speak to a universal audience, or to speak to adults who identify more easily with youth. Perhaps so many children appear in Italian movies because of the Peter Pan syndrome that afflicts many Italian adults, who remain eternal children. oddly enough, during the Fascist era, when family and offspring were at the center of Mussolini campaign of population growth, Italian cinema did not show many children at all. I find valid Vicky Lebeau’s remarks who, in her book Childhood and Cinema, considers the child as “a privileged subject of fellow-feeling” (19) and sees in cinema the “capacity to deliver a child’s point of view” (20) because in cinema it is possible to see through the eye of a child. Lebeau mentions carol reed’s Fallen Idol (1948), a film that makes an effort to see through the eyes of a child. I’d like to contend that in Italian cinema this effort begins with de Sica’s I bambini ci guardano (1943), a film that intro - duces the “sguardo bambino” and predates Fallen Idol . thanks to the col - laboration of de Sica and cesare Zavattini, Italian cinema enters the realm of childhood. From this defining moment onwards, children become so important to our national film tradition that they will never abandon it. the idea of childhood as locus of revolutionary innocence (“innocenza riv - oluzionaria”) comes to de Sica from cesare Zavattini, since in all of his work there is “a disposition to look at children as privileged interlocutors and as models” (Parigi, 94). de Sica derived from Zavattini the dual per - spective on children, as the weakest links of the social fabric and as free spirits, who stare directly and provocatively because their gaze is still not structured by society and culture.

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PATRIZIA BETTELLA

despite such a sustained presence of children in Italian cinema, schol - arly activity on this theme has began only in recent years. La meglio gioven - tù a multi-authored volume on cinema of the new millenium (Edited by Vito Zagarrio, 2006) deals with youth in Italian film, but it is not specifi - cally on young children. Giovanna de Luca ( Il punto di vista dell’infanzia nel cinema italiano e francese, 2009) finds it suitable to investigate this themes in twentieth-century Italian and French film and also sets impor - tant boundaries between the child and adolescent. In film studies we see recently a flourishing of volumes on children in cinema; beside Vicky Lebeau’s book, Karen Lury’s The Child in Film (2010) and the collection of essays Lost and Othered Children in Contemporary Cinema (edited by debbie olson and Andrew Scahill, 2012) deal with the cinematic child, but barely touch upon Italian cinema. After organizing various sessions on children in Italian cinema at conferences in Italy and north America, I have gathered here the articles of some fine scholars who have accepted to contribute their stimulating essays for publication. this volume of courses only begins to address the vastness of the topic, and does not intend to be exhaustive or complete, it is hopefully the beginning of a tradition. the collection is organized chronologically and opens with Patrizia Bettella’s article on children in fascist regime cinema, or the lack thereof. After a sustained presence in silent movies children almost vanish in Fascist cinema—dominated by the light comedies of the white telephones. this scarcity of children clashes with the regime promotion of large families, birth increase and valorization of motherhood. children begin to reappear in the melodramas of the early Forties mainly as a complement for the fig - ure of the mother, depicted in sentimental stories about single parenthood, illegitimate children, hard negotiations between traditional motherhood and self-realization. Piero Ballerini’s film La Fuggitiva (1941) offers an interesting and problematic story of mother/child relation, where, in absence of the biological mother, we see the glorification of the maternal surrogate, a woman who is a paragon of sacrifice and self-abnegation. La Fuggitiva is also a film where a child actress takes a prominent role. In this sentimental drama the little girl suffers for and rebels against the loneliness and neglect derived from the lack of a loving family setting and of the mother. the film stages the crisis of the patriarchal family and the suffer - ing of the child in ways that anticipate de Sica’s I bambini ci guardano . Meris nicoletto’s essay looks at female adultery, a taboo theme for cen - sors and Fascist propaganda, and its consequences on children. In Eugenio de Liguoro’s Piccola mia and Francesco Pasinetti’s Il canale degli angeli , films of the mid-thirties, the hot topic of extramarital affair is condoned

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INTRODUCTION

only because of the final change of mind in the female protagonists, who return to the their role as matres familiae . Pasinetti’s film foreshadows the story of de Sica’s I bambini ci guardano. While here the child manages to act as saviour of his parents’ marriage, this is no longer possible in de Sica’s film, because the family is no longer strong. Pricò’s gaze is clear and dis - passionate but he cannot call his father to his responsibility as pater famil - ias nor force his mother to give up her love affair. the trauma of his moth - er’s departure and his father’s suicide make of Pricò an adult, who chooses to stay in the boarding school rather than join his mother, his pain is too strong to forgive a woman who hurt his deepest feelings. cristina Jandelli’s essay investigates, from a philological-historical viewpoint, the different versions of texts by cesare Zavattini that will later become the subject of ’s Bellissima (1951), with Anna Magnani. In a crucial decade for Italian cinema, the early Forties and Fifties of the twentieth century, the variants show that the changes in the scenarios reflect deep historical, political and cultural changes. From Fascist cinecittà, animated by its stars, swept away by the second world war, to the change of gender of the two protagonists—first a father and son, then a mother willing to use her daughter to fulfill her dream of suc - cess—Jandelli illustrates how the variants of the subject give a perspective still valid for today’s society, where life becomes a show. the volume takes a turn toward theory and provides a fascinating dis - cussion about the effect of cinema on children. Federico Pierotti charts the pedagogical debate on cinema in Italy in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. the emotional and affective impact of cinematic images on chil - dren was considered an obstacle to the didactic purpose of film. others viewed this effect as a springboard for a new educational format. Pierotti also looks at the problem of the comprehension of narrative and linguistic structures in relation to the intellective development of the young viewer. the national debate shows a very receptive ground for methodological the - ories, which coincides with the birth of filmology. We then chronologically move to , considered “padre dei bambini” in Italian cinema. Giovanna de Luca notes that comencini devotes thirteen films to childhood, which provide an overview of the socio-historical evolution of Italy from post second-world war years to the 1990s. de Luca analyzes some of comencini’s exemplary films, such as La finestra sul luna park , Pinocchio and Voltati Eugenio , and finds in them some of the recurring themes of comencini’s discourse on childhood: the child’s dependence on the adult, his desire of autonomy, and the explo - ration of the father/son relationship.

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Gaetana Marrone offers a close reading of ’s Tre fratelli (1981), a film dealing with the troubled years when the nation’s ideological fabric began to disintegrate. rosi captures the fear of a nation on the verge of collapse, producing a film of high emotional impact. Tre fratelli is the story of three brothers returning to their childhood village in Puglia for the funer - al of their mother. the brothers provide a cross-section of contemporary Italian society: raffaele, a judge living in fear of a terrorist assassination; rocco, an idealistic teacher in naples; nicola, a factory worker and labor organizer in turin. the brothers’ distance from their cultural roots creates a disaffected young generation, which reflects Italy’s dysfunctional situation at the time. the judge’s teen-age son Giorgio and rocco’s institutionalized minors embody the youths’ problems. nicola’s eight-year-old daughter Marta is the only one to provide a solution of regeneration. the little girl is like a magical presence, “she gives life to a historical present in which the human soul contains the seeds of the future.” Mary Ann Mcdonald carolan focuses on childhood in the cinematic corpus of . She analyzes La stanza del figlio/The Son’s Room (2001), a movie which shows the effects of a child’s death on the protago - nist and his family. this film, that was released after Aprile/April (1998), tells the story of the birth of Pietro, Moretti’s son, and of the Italian elec - toral campaign in 1996. the arrival of a biological son followed by the death of a fictional one in Moretti’s corpus suggests larger implications for the parent-child relationship in Italy. Moretti also provides a commentary on the relationship between different generations of Italian directors. In examining Caro diario/Dear Diary (1994) carolan finds insight into the director’s relationship to other artists and implications for the future of Italian filmmaking. Millicent Marcus examines Giorgio diritti’s film L’uomo che verrà (2010) and sees in it the figure of the child as “custode della memoria futu - ra.” In this film about the massacre of Marzabotto the child is again an eight-year-old girl, and serves as the vehicle of the gaze on violence. By choosing Martina, a peasant child, as “the focalizer of the Marzabotto mas - sacre,” diritti creates a new historiography. Martina’s determination to save her newborn brother, and her breaking of the silence that lasted for the entire film, show her will to bear witness to the horror, and to give her brother, the new Man, the ability to redeem the course of events. the volume ends with Beatrice Barbalato’s article on Ascanio celestini’s La pecora nera (2010). In celestini children have an unclear identity that expands and transmigrates, they have a fluid, nomadic view of the world. In Pecora nera the de-subjectivation of the protagonist nicola

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INTRODUCTION

is meaningful because he lives in a psychiatric ward, so he is a psychiatric migrant. For Barbalato celestini effects a dispossession of identity, which is a factor for a new dialogue and exchange. the child status, that appears in virtually all of celestini’s works, does not reflect anagrafic age, rather it is one way of being and observing the surrounding world. this special issue provides breath and variety and shows a multiplicity of perspectives on childhood in Italian cinema, it is a volume that paves the way for a broad area of investigation and promises to lead to more scho - larly work in the future. For the realization of this editorial project my thanks go, firstly to all the contributors, for their collaboration and dili - gence, and to my co-editor Gianni cicali for his continued support.

University of Alberta

Works cited

de Luca, Giovanna. Il punto di vista dell’infanzia nel cinema italiano e francese: rivi - sioni . naples: Liguori, 2009. Lebeau, Vicky. Childhood and Cinema. London: reaktion Books, 2008. Lury, Karen. The Child in Film. Tears, Fears and Fairy Tales . new Brunswick n.J. : rutgers university Press, 2010. olson debbie c., Andrew Scahill Editors. Lost and Othered Children in Contemporary Cinema . 2012. Lanham Md, Lexington Books: 2012. Parigi, Stefania. “I bambini di de Sica” Sciuscià. Letture, documenti, testimonianze . Lino Miccichè Editor. turin: Lindau, 1996. 87-95. Zagarrio, Vito. La meglio gioventù . Nuovo cinema italiano 2000-2006 . Venice: Marsilio, 2006.

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