‚Queer Italian Migrations╎: Tonino De Bernardi╎s Rosatigre (Tiger
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JICMS 6 (1) pp. 15–32 Intellect Limited 2018 Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies Volume 6 Number 1 © 2018 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jicms.6.1.15_1 Oliver Brett University of Leicester ‘Queer Italian migrations’: Tonino De Bernardi’s Rosatigre (Tiger Rose) (2000) and the reconfiguring of Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli, terra di Dio (Stromboli, Land of God) (1950) Abstract Keywords The documentary film focusing on queer identities in post-Millennial Italy reveals queer interesting key features, including the often intense collaboration of filmmakers and migration their subjects, the hybridity of genre and interrogation of those representations and documentary identities being explored, and the increased agency and performance of participants. gender While, respectively, requiring further research, these features reflect what appears sexuality to be a propensity towards the ‘intertextual’. I approach this aspect here through intertextuality Tonino De Bernardi’s sensory challenging ‘docu-fiction’ film Rosatigre (Tiger Rose) Roberto Rossellini in 2000, which exploits, alongside the more general conventions of cinema, Roberto Tonino De Bernardi Rossellini’s Stromboli, terra di Dio (Stromboli, Land of God) in 1950. Positioned 15 01_JICMS 6.1_Brett_15-32.indd 15 11/14/17 10:15 AM Oliver Brett 1. For further details see: in relation to a corpus of other texts, I consider how these two films explore the issue http://www.cinemagay. it/index.asp. Accessed of ‘migration’ beyond fixed categories. In talking of queers who migrate but also of 27 March 2016. queering migration, an interconnection of various narratives can be seen to broaden our understanding of the migrant figure in the Italian context. Introduction ‘Internal migration’ associated with the ‘economic miracle’ of 1950s’ and 1960s’ Italy remains an important feature of the country’s history. As people largely from the south moved to cities in the north due to industrial and urban expansion, there was a shift in the everyday from a traditional agricultural and religious focus to one of consumerism (Duggan 2007: 557). The period has been scrutinized through film, examples of which can be seen in commedia all’italiana (comedy Italian style) and Luchino Visconti’s Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers) ([1960] 2008). Restivo’s work on the ‘bandit film’ is particularly insightful in that it draws attention to the role of filmmakers in responding to the major socio-historical changes of the period and to the influ- ence of globalizing forces on their construction of the bandit figure. Despite attempts by these filmmakers to re-awaken this character as the ‘nostalgic ideal’, as a representation of pure individual self-fulfilment, they inadvertently sided with ‘progress’ by ultimately shaping the bandit’s demise (Restivo 1995: 30–31, 39–40). In constructing their representations in this way, filmmakers were forced to confront their role within the strategy of re-organization of a rapidly evolving society (Restivo 1995), the notion of ‘strategy’ here point- ing out the subterfuge of hegemonic discourse in moulding individuals and pockets of resistance into an assimilated centre. Discourse on ‘migration’ in Italy, whether referring to internal and/or external movement, has continued to be shaped in universal terms – the general assumption being that as long as migrants are undifferentiated (‘invisible’), social cohesion appears to remain intact (Ambrosini 2013: 175). The issue of ‘queer migration’, which speaks of queering migration and not just of queers who migrate, seeks to challenge this discourse and is taken up here within the context of documentary cinematic representations. Since the turn of the new millennium, the concept of the ‘universal’ in Italy – underpinned by ideals concerning the ‘family’ and nation, for example – has been progressively questioned through queer documentary film. This reflects a shift from the ‘abstract’ to the ‘particular’ in represent- ing queer identities and the increased agency afforded by media in its vari- ous formats (Manalansan IV 2006: 229). As Angelone and Clò highlight, less concern for an ‘objective’ stance proposing an untainted ‘reality’ has led to ‘new and unprecedented “visions” of both Italy and Italians, often extend- ing beyond geographic borders’ (2011: 84). Testimony to this scrutiny and diversity is the cinemagay.it website, a resource that, among other activities, lists Italian and foreign queer films according to various categories and sub- categories.1 A review of the ‘documentary’ section alone indicates that ‘queer migration’ forms a significant part of the stories represented. ‘Documentary’ is described as ‘[exhibiting] permeable borders and a chameleon-like appear- ance’ (Nichols 2010: 33), which points to its ability to criss-cross filmic cate- gorizations such that more hybrid forms of representation are produced. The indefiniteness and heterogeneity that may come out of a deployment of ‘documentary’, particularly when filtered through a queer optic, suggests a 16 Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies www.intellectbooks.com 17 01_JICMS 6.1_Brett_15-32.indd 16 11/14/17 10:15 AM ‘Queer Italian migrations’ strategy of dis-organization rather than re-organization. Here, I would like to 2. Synopsis of Rossellini’s Stromboli, terra di open up discussions on how ‘queer migration’ is represented in contemporary Dio (Stromboli, Land Italian documentary cinema and how this influences our understanding of of God) (1950): Denied migration in broader terms. a visa to Argentina, Lithuanian refugee The main focus of this article is Tonino De Bernardi’s docu-fiction film Karin (Ingrid Bergman), Rosatigre (2000), the story of ‘transvestite’ prostitute, Antonello (played by the who has been held in now well-known Filippo Timi), who is divided between life in the north and a displaced persons camp in Italy at the the south of Italy, essentially between an adopted Turin and his hometown end of the Second of Naples. The film strongly references Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli ([1950] World War, goes for the second best option 2015), drawing parallels with the themes of inclusion and exclusion, emplace- of marrying Antonio ment and displacement, and real and fictional worlds.2 De Bernardi acknowl- (Mario Vitale), who edges the key influence of Rossellini’s work for him (personal communication), offers a life full of ‘promise’ on the island which calls for a closer consideration of how this may shape ‘queer migration’ of Stromboli. Upon in Rosatigre. arrival there, Karin’s Rosatigre can be positioned within a broader body of work dealing with ‘otherness’ makes her incompatible ‘queer migration’ and the ‘intertextual’. Consider, for example, Gustav Hofer with the well-settled and Luca Ragazzi’s road trip film Italy: Love it or leave it (2011), Pietro Marcello’s islanders who force her to consider ways interlinking films Il passaggio della linea (Crossing the Line) (2007) and La bocca of leaving what is, for del lupo (The Wolf’s Mouth) (2009) and Alberto Vendemmiati’s transgender film her, imprisonment and La persona De Leo N. (The Person De Leo N.) (2005). These films have been absolute desolation. The iconic, much responsive to a range of migratory issues such as the exodus of disillusioned debated, final scene urban queer Italians to Berlin, the social malaise of large metropolitan areas sees the pregnant to which many migrants are drawn, the in/visibility of those migrating from Karin’s failed attempt to traverse the volcano the south to the north (or from what can be perceived as the periphery to in desperation to reach the centre) and the complexities associated with transgender articulations of the port that will allow her to leave the island ‘place’ (Di Feliciantonio and Gadelha 2016; Ambrosini 2013; Brown 2001: 196). (Aprà 2003: 8–12). They have also tapped into a range of filmic, literary and theatrical references, such as the social enquiry of Pasolini’s Comizi d’amore (Love Meetings) ([1964] 2007), the verismo of Zena Remigio’s La bocca del lupo ([1892] 1980), the comedy, music and ballet of Molière’s Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (described by Livingston as ‘therapeutic’ [1979: 677]) and the gender fluidity of iconic figures such as Marlene Dietrich. These queer texts offer an invaluable critique of the socio-political land- scape of Italian culture and society, and articulate alternative migratory stories driven by issues of gender, sex and sexuality and not solely by economic or historical–structural approaches. They also run counter to Barattoni’s pessi- mism of, first, the quality of contemporary Italian cinema, which, he argues, does not generally have the ability to ‘take a hard look at Italy’ or to engage a distracted audience, and, second, the political apathy of a disengaged Italian population complicit in maintaining corporate competitiveness and domi- nance (2014: 238–46). With this in mind, it is worth reflecting upon calls by O’Leary and O’Rawe for the ‘exclusive canonical club’ of Italian cinema studies to be challenged in its privileging of neorealism and in its contempt for genre forms and those audiences who enjoy a more popular cinema (2011: 117). They propose instead a ‘[disestablished]’ and more ‘unitary’ and non-hierarchi- cal approach to the study of Italian film (2011). I would argue that the queer texts to which I refer interrogate the ‘canon’ not only by challenging notions of value as associated with truth, reality and aesthetics but also, borrowing from Browne and her work on queer geographies, by problematizing the ‘very idea (and ideal) of inclusion itself’ (2006: 888). Moreover, this ‘inclusion’ should not simply be assumed as the accommodation of difference in universal terms (which comprises hetero-normativity and homo-normativity) (2006). 16 Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies www.intellectbooks.com 17 01_JICMS 6.1_Brett_15-32.indd 17 11/14/17 10:15 AM Oliver Brett ‘Queer migration’ and documentary cinema The ‘push and pull’ of ‘queer migration’ is primarily the result of queer identity and not economic or historical–structural influences.