Mapping Italian Women's Filmmaking: Urban Space in the Cinema of the New Millennium
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 10-2014 Mapping Italian Women's Filmmaking: Urban Space In The Cinema Of The New Millennium Laura Di Bianco Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/345 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] MAPPING ITALIAN WOMEN’S FILMMAKING: URBAN SPACE IN THE CINEMA OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM by LAURA DI BIANCO A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 ii © 2014 LAURA DI BIANCO All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Dr. Giancarlo Lombardi, Chair of Examining Committee Dr. Giancarlo Lombardi, Executive Officer August 21, 2014 Dr. Giancarlo Lombardi Dr. Monica Calabritto Dr. Paolo Fasoli Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv ABSTRACT MAPPING ITALIAN WOMEN’S FILMMAKING: URBAN SPACE IN THE CINEMA OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM by Laura Di Bianco Advisor: Professor Giancarlo Lombardi My dissertation lies at the intersection of Italian studies, film studies, women’s studies, and urban studies. Applying gender studies and feminist theoretical perspectives, I trace a thematic map of contemporary Italian women’s cinema (2000–2012) that investigates female subjectivity in urban contexts. Examining the works of the filmmakers Marina Spada, Francesca Comencini, Wilma Labate, Roberta Torre, and Alice Rohrwacher, I identify a common tendency to treat locations like characters, apply similar modalities of incorporating city-views into the narration, and recurrently construct parallels between physical journeys through cities and inner journeys of the self. As a prism through which to look at contemporary Italian society, the city articulates themes such as women’s alienation and social invisibility, the challenge of reconciling motherhood and paid work, the debasement of the female body, and the role of institutions such as the Church and the family. The most prominent visual leitmotif in this cinematic production is that of the wandering woman contemplating the cityscape. What does walking signify in these works? During the women’s liberation movement of the late sixties and seventies, the appropriation of public space was a form of resistance to patriarchal confinement of women to domestic spaces. The act of female ‘streetwalking,’ typically associated with prostitution, was re- v configured as an act of self-liberation. Through a close reading of the films, I argue that female flânerie, in all the articulations it takes in each film, represents an act of emancipation, an act of introspection, and a search for position in society. Furthermore, the image of the woman contemplating the city signifies, for filmmakers who struggle to appropriate the medium of film and carve a space in a male-dominated industry, an assertion of authorship. By identifying these female authorial voices and a common aesthetic project, my dissertation aims to address the knowledge gap about women’s artistic expression while leading to a more complex understanding of Italian contemporary cinema. vi AKNOWLEDGEMENTS While I am grateful to many for their support and assistance in the writing of this dissertation, I offer deep, special thanks to my advisor, Giancarlo Lombardi. Not only has he been a dedicated mentor, but he became a personal advocate during challenging times, always inspiring me to move forward with excellence. His seminars on film proved essential for my development as a scholar, and also, as an educator. Whatever knowledge and experience I brought with me, Giancarlo taught me the craft of teaching, of communicating to colleagues, to students, and to the world of scholars and scholarship. I am grateful for his enthusiastic support of my research project, for his insightful and timely feedback, and for affording me the chance to publish an extract of my dissertation. Above all, I thank him for his dear advice and encouragement to persevere. Additionally, I want to thank the other members of the committee, Paolo Fasoli and Monica Calabritto, for their attentive reading of my dissertation and for their guidance since I began teaching at Hunter College. I am particularly grateful to them for giving me the opportunity to teach the class “Women in the City,” which has been important for articulating the basis of my research, and for choosing me as a writing fellow at the department of Romance Languages in the academic year 2011–2012. I am exceptionally grateful to Aine O’Healy, whose work as a feminist film scholar set a paradigm for my research project on Italian women filmmakers. I thank her for having generously accepted to read my dissertation and for providing attentive and precise feedback, which will be essential for the future development of this study. vii I am also grateful to David Forgacs for letting me participate in his seminars at La Casa Italiana at New York University, particularly his class “Italian Film and Urban Space,” during which he engaged me in stimulating theoretical readings and discussions that helped develop my writing process. I also thank him for the research job he provided for his book Italian Margins, which contributed to financially supporting my own research. I would like to acknowledge Elisabetta Bruscolini, Natalia Rolla, Viridiana Rotondi, and Lisa Sacchi, my former colleagues at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, for easing my research at the Cineteca Nazionale. I thank all the filmmakers: Francesca Comencini, Wilma Labate, Paola Randi, Alice Rohrwacher, Marina Spada, and Roberta Torre for the interviews they granted, permission to use stills from their films, and for providing non-commercial copies of their works with English subtitles, which enabled me to show their films to my students at Hunter College. My gratitude goes especially to Marina Spada for engaging in long, insightful discussions about her films, for sharing with me her fascinating set journals, and for accepting my invitation to visit CUNY and present her work to my professors and fellow graduate students. I would also like to thank a group of friends, fellow graduate students, and colleagues who helped me over the years and contributed, in one way or another, to the completion of this work. I am particularly grateful to my friend Rainer J. Hanshe for his editing work and for his thoughtful comments on the different drafts of my dissertation, as well as to my friends Anita Pinzi, Marisa Giorgi, Charlotte Lucy Latham, Julia Heim, Erica Moretti, Gabriella Bellorio, and Marco Gualtieri. viii I thank my family for having sustained my choice of pursuing a doctoral degree in the United States and for helping me financially during the spring of 2013, which enabled me to devote full time and energy to my dissertation. Lastly, I am immensely grateful to my loving boyfriend Jamal Rayyis for his patience and meticulous editing work, for his unwavering support, and for encouraging me to work with joy. I could not have done this without you. Thank you, Jamal. ix A mio padre Per aspera ad astra x TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract v Acknowledgments vii Dedication x List of Illustrations xiii Introduction: Mapping Italian Women’s Filmmaking: The Issue of Invisibility 1 Chapter 1: The Rise of Cinematic Flâneuses: Mobile Female Gazes Over the City 1.1 Drawing a Thematic Map: Urban Narratives by Italian Women Filmmakers 18 1.2 Baudelaire’s Flânerie: The Poet Stroller and The Ridiculous Streetwalker 25 1.3 Benjamin Flânerie: The Flâneur Consumer and the Prostitute “Seller and Sold in One” 31 1.4 Wolff and Pollock: The Feminist Debate on Flânerie 35 1.5 Imaginary Flânerie: Shoppers, Moviegoers and Movie-viewers 39 Chapter 2: Women in the Deserted City: Urban Space in Marina Spada’s Cinema 2.1 Marina Spada: Milan, Women and Poetry 45 2.2. Forza cani and Poesia che mi guardi: Poems on the City’s Walls 47 2.3 Come l’ombra and Il mio domani: Women in the Landscape 58 Chapter 3: Women Outside the Polis: Francesca Comencini’s Cinema 3.1 Francesca Comencini: Urban Filmmaker 83 3.2 Mothers in the City: Mi piace lavorare—Mobbing and Lo spazio bianco. 86 3.3. Traffic of Women: A casa nostra and Un giorno speciale 102 Chapter 4: Urban Coming of Age Stories: Domenica, I baci mai dati, and Corpo celeste xi 4.1 Children’s Gaze on the City 119 4.2 Wilma Labate’s Domenica: The Female Street Urchin 121 4.3 Roberta Torre’s I baci mai dati: Manuela in the New Town 131 4.4 Alice Rohrwacher’s Corpo celeste: Marta in the Dump-City 144 Conclusions 160 Notes Toward a Wider Map of Women’s Filmmaking 164 Appendix: Female Authorial Voices 1. A Conversation with Marina Spada 171 2. A Conversation with Francesca Comencini 183 3. A Conversation with Wilma Labate 190 4. A Conversation with Paola Randi 198 5. A Conversation with Alice Rohrwacher 210 Filmography 217 Bibliography 221 xii List of Illustrations Figure 1.1. Anita Kravos in Come l’ombra, 2006 23 Figure 1.2. Claudia Gerini in Il mio domani, 2011 23 Figure 1.3. Margherita Buy in Lo spazio bianco, 2009 24 Figure 1.4. Yle Vianelle in Corpo celeste, 2011 24 Figure 2.1. Poesia che mi guardi. Marina Spada’s set journal, 2009 55 Figure 2.2. Poesia che mi guardi.