Modernizing Italian Migration Cinema: Film Auteurs and the Economic Boom

MODERNIZING ITALIAN MIGRATION CINEMA: FILM AUTEURS AND THE ECONOMIC BOOM ALBERTO ZAMBENEDETTI At the cusp of the economic boom that restructured Italian economy in the late 1950s and early 1960s, a handful of Italian directors, who were recog- nized by critics and audiences alike at some point in their careers as auteurs, made films concerning Italians emigrating or migrating internally. Thanks to the status that was granted to these directors, their films received a host of critical attention in monographic volumes and histories of Italian cinema, but rarely have they been considered together, as a result of a general preoccupation that captured the imagination of new filmmakers and veterans alike. This chapter will analyze four films that inve- stigate the relationship between mobility and modernization in the wake of the relatively abrupt transition from post-war to the economic boom: I magliari (The Magliari Francesco Rosi, 1959), Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers Luchino Visconti, 1960), La ragazza in vetrina (Girl in the Window Luciano Emmer, 1961), and I fidanzati (The Fiances Ermanno Olmi, 1963). In the mid 1950s, a new understanding of film art came to the fore, famously spearheaded by a group of intellectuals gravitating around the French magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. They called it la politique des auteurs, or auteur theory, as Andrew Sarris dubbed it for the English- speaking world in his canonical article “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962.” The main tenet of auteur theory was the re-evaluation of the figure of the director, who these critics argued could be elevated from craftsman to author status. As a consequence, the films of a certain auteur could be studied not only individually, in relation to their genre, or the canon, but also as part of an artist’s oeuvre, as one brushstroke on the larger canvas of their career. Before André Bazin and the Cahiers critics he inspired engaged with their work, Roberto Rossellini, Luchino Visconti, and Vitto- Copyright © 2013. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. All rights reserved. Scholars Publishing. © 2013. Cambridge Copyright rio De Sica already enjoyed the status of founding fathers of neorealism and that of film artists all around. The next generation of filmmakers, including Francesco Rosi and Ermanno Olmi, achieved such status after auteur theory became a consolidated approach in film scholarship in the Schrader, Sabine, and Daniel Winkler. The Cinemas of Italian Migration, edited by Sabine Schrader, and Daniel Winkler, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, . Created from uwm on 2017-02-23 09:15:52. 108 Modernizing Italian Migration Cinema early 1960s. While not discarding the apparent vale of auteur theory, this chapter will also engage with the larger structures that inform the four films in question, such as national film history, genre conventions, and political climate. This approach stems from a belief that when reflecting on a specific kind of film, such as a film about migration, it is fundamental to take into account not only the individual choices made by screenwriters and directors in presenting the material, but it is also crucial to understand the artistic and socioeconomic climate in Italian history. Film critic Francesco Bolzoni writes that il 1959 è, per il cinema italiano, l’anno del revival dei “grandi temi”: la resistenza e la seconda guerra mondiale. […] Rosi, da parte sua, non guarda indietro. Vuole vedere chiaro in una situazione difficile: l’emigrazione.1 (Bolzoni 1986, 54) Bolzoni rightly identifies a trend that involved many filmmakers who felt that comedy and pepla had strayed too far away from neorealism’s lesson, which understood Italian film primarily as a socially and politically engaged cinema. Francesco Rosi’s I magliari certainly is about the present and, more specifically, about the state of Italian migration to Northern European countries in 1959. However, it is also a reflection on the past, as it capitalizes on the figure of the emigrant as it is constructed in films such as Il cammino della speranza (The Road to Hope Pietro Germi, 1950) and Napoletani a Milano (Neapolitans in Milan Eduardo De Filippo, 1953) as well as a forecast of Italians’ future mobility, which will take them to increasingly exotic destinations and faraway lands. Almost every story about migration is a story of individuals on the margins of society. However, the most common narrative trajectory is one that depicts the efforts undertaken by the characters in order to move from the margins to the centre, to assimilate, to climb the social ladder, or to gain wealth and respectability. I magliari focuses on characters that, because of the illegal nature of their activities, must remain on the fringes of society, even if their financial gains accumulate. The film tells the story of Mario (Renato Salvatori), an Italian worker in Germany who gets involved with a group of scam artists. Their chieftain, Totonno (Alberto Sordi), is the epitome of this marginality: as film historian Sandro Zam- betti puts it, “Totonno è […] lo stare ai margini della legalità senza rispet- tarla e ai margini dell’illegalità senza rischiare troppo”2 (Zambetti 1976, Copyright © 2013. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. All rights reserved. Scholars Publishing. © 2013. Cambridge Copyright 26). The magliari’s relative affluence is not an unproblematic narrative of success nor is it the fruit of hard and honest labour and national solidarity. Rather, it is predicated on the accentuation of the negative qualities attrib- Schrader, Sabine, and Daniel Winkler. The Cinemas of Italian Migration, edited by Sabine Schrader, and Daniel Winkler, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, . Created from uwm on 2017-02-23 09:15:52. Alberto Zambenedetti 109 uted to the Neapolitans in Napoletani a Milano; it is arte d’arrangiarsi mixed with international criminal activities. The originality of Rosi’s approach to the material stems from this point: In I magliari, he combined what is essentially a social issue (emigration and the sense of bereavement felt by the unemployed worker abroad) with a story of organized crime. What makes this melange possible is the encounter of the naive protagonist Mario and the cunning Totonno; these characters are imbued with different values and, as Alberto Cattini notes, different genre conventions are attached to them. Mario is associated with melodrama and populismo,3 whereas Totonno’s scenes alternate between comedy and gangster motifs (Cecchi D’Amico, Patroni Griffi, and Rosi 2001, 8). I magliari is focalized through Mario. It begins with a nod to the sentimentalism that characterizes him; before the opening credits we see Mario’s feet as he walks over a work of public art that maps out Hanover’s distance to other major European cities. When his feet reach Rome (“Rom,” which is 1200 kilometers away), he kneels down and caresses the silver letters inlayed in the pavement. Mario’s nostalgia for the motherland is quickly reinforced by his choice of food: disgusted by the smell of sausages sold at a food stand, he enters La Bella Napoli, an Italian restaurant, where he is welcomed with hostility by the staff. Totonno intervenes and invites Mario to his table, where he is enjoying spaghetti and wine in the company of other Italian men. The film clarifies that this is not a narrative of the Southern Question. When Mario tells his dinner companions that he is from Grosseto, Vincenzo (Nino Vingelli), shoulders toward the camera, remarks “Qui c’è tutta l’Italia rappresentata. O’ toscano, o’ rumano, e o’ napuletano!”4 From this moment on, I magliari’s narration proceeds by juxtaposing two discourses: Mario’s innocence versus Totonno’s cunning, the honest migrant versus the fraudster expa- triate, legality versus illegality, melodrama versus dark comedy, populismo versus crime brutality. However, this initial dichotomy is progress- ively complicated: Mario starts off as a defeated man of solid principles, but the more he mingles with the magliari, the more he abandons his lofty ideals. Only the grand gesture of quitting the gang and the woman he loves—the boss’ wife, played by Belinda Lee—can ultimately redeem him. Mario’s worldview is informed by ideas of lawfulness and morality that are geographically bound: if Italy represents illegality and swindling, Copyright © 2013. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. All rights reserved. Scholars Publishing. © 2013. Cambridge Copyright Germany must represent legality and honest work. Realizing that Totonno’s activity is a fraudulent one throws a wrench in his dichotomous system: the magliaro casts a dark shadow on Mario’s idea that migrating to Germany represents the opportunity for him to earn his living without Schrader, Sabine, and Daniel Winkler. The Cinemas of Italian Migration, edited by Sabine Schrader, and Daniel Winkler, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, . Created from uwm on 2017-02-23 09:15:52. 110 Modernizing Italian Migration Cinema having to step out of the legal bounds of society. Before meeting Totonno, Mario had already failed in his project of moving from the margin to the centre of society: a righteous worker who lost his job, Mario is about to leave Germany and return home, accepting defeat. From a storytelling point of view, Totonno hijacks Mario’s character arc. Totonno does not allow him to be sanctimonious and to write, for himself, a narrative of martyrdom, according to which he left Italy and endured terrible suffering and deprivation in order to make an honest living. Totonno, unlike Mario, does not have an arc. He is a linear character, and as such he stays true to himself and his values throughout the film. In fact as far as emigrants are concerned, Totonno is the evolution of the species. He uses the narrative of the poor Italian emigrant who is underpaid and exploited to his own advantage.

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