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ISCHIA the Island of Cinematography Caramiello Sasso

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ISCHIA the Island of Cinematography Caramiello Sasso LUIGI CARAMIELLO AND MARIANNA SASSO ISCHIA: the island of cinematography A sociological study of its development 1 To my dear father, who successfully passed on to me and my sister a profound and sentimental love for Ischia, his beloved native island. It is thanks to him that we are proud of our Ischitan culture and Neapolitan heritage. Anna G. Di Meglio Luigi Caramiello is credited with authoring the Introduction, The Conclusion and Chapters 1,2,4. Marianna Sasso is credited with authoring Chapters 3 and 5. ISBN: 979-86-484-2813-3 ©2020 by Luigi Caramiello and Marianna Sasso All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Luigi Caramiello and Marianna Sasso. 2 Table of contents Introduction Chapter I. Ischia’s Social Imaginary 1.1 A “Discovered” Island 1.2 Pithecusa’s Past 1.3 The Indigenous Look 1.4 The Island’s Location Chapter II: The Age of the First Movie Theatre. The Island during the Period of Italian Unification. 2.1 "Cinema Unione": The Dreams of the Ischitans 2.2 The Problem of Monoculture: The Ischitan Vine Variety 2.3 Customs and Traditions: The ‘Carusiello’ Ballad 2.4 "Merecoppe": Memories of Everyday Life 2.5 Lacco Ameno: Fishing and Crafts 2.6 The Terracotta Fishermen 2.7 The Opening of the Theatres: The Islanders Go to the Movies Chapter III: Crews arrive on the Island. Directors and actors come to Ischia 3.1 Dreams of Motion-Picture Films 3.2 The Neorealist island 3.3 The Caribbean Gulf: The Island of the Pirates 3.3.1 Dispersed Films 3.4 The Island of Horrors 3.5 The Island of Crime Drama: The Mongibello by Patricia Highsmith 3.6 Blockbuster Ischia: "Cleopatra" 3.7 The Island is Promoted 3.7.1 The Adventures of Cineriz 3.7.2 When When Will You Come…To Ischia? 3.7.3 A Footnote on Sound. Ischia and Songs. 3.8 The Supermarket Island 3 Chapter IV. The Take-Off Begins. Industrialists and Intellectuals: An Identical Love. 4.1 The Strategies of Innovation 4.1.1 The Dilemmas of Modernization: Identity and Nostalgia 4.2 Underdevelopment and Arcadia: Visconti’s Poetry and Rizzoli’s Plans 4.3 The Island of Il Gattopardo: Luchino Visconti 4.4 Rizzoli’s Plans 4.5 The Passion of a Self-Made Man 4.5.1 The Knight Commander Remembered by Great Writers 4.5.2 A Trusted Technician: Stories Told by a Foreman Chapter 5: The New Presence of Cinema in Ischia 5.1 The Spotlights Turn on Again 5.2 Epomeo: Ciak is Filmed 5.3 Festivals Return to Ischia 5.4 The Foreign Film Festival 5.5 Ischia Global & Music Film Festival 5.5.1 The Testimony of the President of the Accademia Internazionale Arte-Ischia CONCLUSIONS BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES CONSULTED WEBSITES FILMOGRAPHY THE ANGELO RIZZOLI AWARD FOR CINEMATOGRAPHERS 4 In this beautiful book about Ischia and its development within the tourism industry, Caramiello and Sasso examine the way in which the world of cinematography caused and sustained the green island’s transformation from a rural and impoverished area to one that is modern and touristic. It is about a historic and sociological sequence of events that was probably never investigated before with such care to an abundance of details. The movie industry is indeed at the core of the transformation; not only did it help in garnering remarkable moments on the island but also in being the bearer of an entrepreneurial culture that up to that time was unknown to Ischia and the rest of Southern Italy. Caramiello and Sasso’s book is therefore not one of the typical local “biographies” of which our country is rich. Instead, it is something very different and more. It is a study of social changes and, in particular, of the social, economic and cultural factors that can set off the development and modernization of a community. It is what one generally calls “a case study”, a study that aims to understand the dynamics of the transformation of a specific social environment, namely the causes that are at the base of the stagnation or of the progress of a community, of the immobilism or of the vitality of a social community. Gerardo Ragone 5 Introduction This work proposes to offer a clear and comprehensible research study aimed at explaining the interest for cinematography on the island of Ischia as well as ancient Pithecusa’s inhabitants’ reaction to the film industry’s impact on the social, cultural and economic dimensions of the island. Ischia expresses an “island-type” of dimension that is quite characteristic not only because its economy was never based on the fishing industry (a characteristic that is common to other Southern islands), but because of the nature of its inhabitants’ daily life. Traditionally agriculturists (at least up to the time that tourism exploded on the island), these inhabitants always lived in a particularly beautiful environment which was at the same time unstable, precarious, dangerous; a land undergoing continual changes and movements due to its volcanic nature. It is known that the charm of the people, like that of the places, often gets overlooked by logical analyses and is almost never ascribable solely to rational assessments. It is for this reason that the enchanting beaches, the picturesque corners, and the impressive sea crevices alone do not do the island justice when describing its charm. Probably the distinctiveness of this place was created by a magical combination between environment and social system. It’s a bit the way Truman Capote wrote: Living on an island is after all like living in a still ship at sea, perennially anchored (Cf. Di Costanzo, 2000, p.203) and to succeed at making this very idea of isolation the reason for growth is undoubtedly valuable, although primordial. Going beyond one’s limits and “evading” from one’s physical confines and from those of one’s own mentality and culture are catalysts at the base of 6 every developing civilization. Societies construct and cement their identity through the social imaginary. Myths and fairy tales have a common “explanation” that sometimes is dragged right into the contemporary world (Cf. Campbell, 2007). Short stories and legends, some which share an origin too, often express identical meanings; present in every population, in some way they reflect history (Cf., Braudel, 1987; Rossi Doria, 1990; Toynbee, 2003). All of this aside, particular environmental phenomena tied to volcanism were unexplainable in the minds of the island’s first inhabitants; this ensured that fantastic tales would develop about the island, about its form, about the geographical location of its sites. Tales that were more captivating and appealing than those of other places, fascinating to the point that their memory would be rooted in the extraordinary Homeric tales. The legendary fabrications and narrations that followed, as well as their widespread historical diffusion, contributed quite a bit to making Ischia one of the most visited islands of the Mediterranean. Throughout the centuries, a rich realm of wonder formed gradually. It was a dimension of the memory, a place in one’s soul if you will, that favoured inspiration in every type of artist. It was inevitable that the new mythology of “technological images” would also attract Ischia. The character of media science in modern times and the advent of communication sciences (Cf., Morcellini, Fatelli, 1995) maintain a fundamental tie with the history of cinema and its evolution. We will see that even the green island and its characteristic development must have contracted their conspicuous debt with the world of celluloid. In 1936, teams of technicians and artists landed on the green island to shoot their first films. The positive 7 attitude of the people in response to this was immediately noticed. Many island inhabitants were involved in various productions, not only as suppliers and producers of goods and services but also as people offering a personal artistic contribution as extras. A bit for necessity’s sake and a bit for fun, the local community became detached from its old habits and ancestral traditional rituals and instead suddenly became projected amongst the infinite games of the new “factory of dreams”. It was in this fashion that even Ischia made its entrance into the modern world. It entered via the main door, in the mass sanctuary that was the most exclusive one of contemporary mythology: the movies. The binomial “Cinema-Ischia” was born this way; it was a term that witnessed the greater splendours during the years of the island’s “boom” such as the temple of high-society and the international Jet-Set. In other words, it was the era of Angelo Rizzoli, Luchino Visconti, Liz Taylor, Richard Burton, Burt Lancaster, Romy Schneider and many other “protagonists” of the “Ischitan scene” of the postwar period of World War II (these were just a few amongst the most famous ones). The research agenda's development is based on several directives: -to understand how the island became a filming location (or rather, an appropriate and effective setting for the production of the most diverse cinematographic products) and in what way this "promotional" mechanism, activated at various levels, formed a determining, propellant factor in the development and "modernization" process of this emblematic Southern reality. 8 -to understand--through the analysis of various cinematographic products realized over the years--to what degree the movie industry represented the island's reality, how the island was promoted through cinematographic productions of Cineriz and others, and whether or not Ischia's territory was only used in a "technical" sense, easily providing a setting with marvellous views.
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