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The Cinema of Giorgio Mangiamele

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The Cinema of Giorgio Mangiamele WHO IS BEHIND THE CAMERA? The cinema of Giorgio Mangiamele Silvana Tuccio Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August, 2009 School of Culture and Communication The University of Melbourne Who is behind the camera? Abstract The cinema of independent film director Giorgio Mangiamele has remained in the shadows of Australian film history since the 1960s when he produced a remarkable body of films, including the feature film Clay, which was invited to the Cannes Film Festival in 1965. This thesis explores the silence that surrounds Mangiamele’s films. His oeuvre is characterised by a specific poetic vision that worked to make tangible a social reality arising out of the impact with foreignness—a foreign society, a foreign country. This thesis analyses the concept of the foreigner as a dominant feature in the development of a cinematic language, and the extent to which the foreigner as outsider intersects with the cinematic process. Each of Giorgio Mangiamele’s films depicts a sharp and sensitive picture of the dislocated figure, the foreigner apprehending the oppressive and silencing forces that surround his being whilst dealing with a new environment; at the same time the urban landscape of inner suburban Melbourne and the natural Australian landscape are recreated in the films. As well as the international recognition given to Clay, Mangiamele’s short films The Spag and Ninety-Nine Percent won Australian Film Institute awards. Giorgio Mangiamele’s films are particularly noted for their style. This thesis explores the cinematic aesthetic, visual style and language of the films. It also explores the influence of the cultural context in which the films were made and from which the film director originated. It looks at wartime Sicily, and specifically the film director’s natal city Catania; the neorealist period in post-war Rome; and the city of Melbourne to which the film director relocated in 1952. Finally, the research looks at the filmmaking experience whilst working for the Film Unit of the Papua New Guinea Government in Port Moresby. 2 Who is behind the camera? Declaration This is to certify that (i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated in the Preface, (ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, (iii) the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices 3 Who is behind the camera? Preface Editor of the book (2005) Sguardi australiani: idee, immaginari e cinema degli antipodi Genoa: Le Mani Articles published on Giorgio Mangiamele: (2009) “Giorgio Mangiamele’s The Spag” in Altreitalie 38-39, Turin: Centro Altreitalie, pp 290-300 (2005) “Giorgio Mangiamele, l’autore in/visibile” in Tuccio, Silvana (ed) Sguardi australiani; idee, immaginari e cinema degli antipodi, Genoa: Le Mani, pp 99-108 (2005) Curated a retrospective of Mangiamele’s work, including films and photographs, Mangiamele/Melbourne, Catania, Italy, April 13 (2005) “Cinema agli antipodi. Conversazione con Claudia Mangiamele” in Tuccio, Silvana (ed) Sguardi australiani; idee, immaginari e cinema degli antipodi, Genoa: Le Mani, pp 174-186 (2005) “Italo australiano, regista e ribelle” in Il Manifesto (Alias), 2 July, p 8 (2005) “Il cinema di mio padre” (miniDV 10”), screened as part of retrospective Mangiamele/Melbourne, Catania, Italy 4 Who is behind the camera? Acknowledgments I would like to thank my mother Josephine Tuccio, my brothers Antonio Tuccio, Giuseppe Tuccio and Robert Tuccio and my daughter Marcella Perrona for their patience; my father, Carmelo Tuccio, for having taken us, all that time ago, to the Metropolitan Cinema, where new releases from Italy screened. My gratitude to my supervisor Barbara Creed for believing in the research topic; Lorenzo Perrona for encouraging me to attend to writing a thesis; Claudia Mangiamele, who grew up with the films of her father; Rosemary Mangiamele for her interest; Ivano Mistretta and Sergio Zinna for collaborating on the event Mangiamele/Melbourne. My gratitude also to Nikos Papastergiadis, Jeannete Hoorn, David Bennett, Bill Kent, Tony Wilson and Sun Jung. And finally, my gratitude to Chris Ryan for having provided the cultural bridge. 5 Who is behind the camera? TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: In/visible filmmaker 7 Chapter 1: The landscape of voyage Beginnings 18 Catania 22 Neorealism 27 Sicily 33 Melbourne 36 Chapter 2: Foreignness in The Spag (1962) The Spag’s foreigner 42 The Bicycle Thief (1948) and The Spag (1962) 53 Chapter 3: Short film vision 1958-1963 Family 65 Language 76 Struggle 79 Chapter Four: The foreignness of Giorgio Mangiamele 87 Chapter Five: On Clay (1965) The Australian landscape of Clay 103 The making of Clay 117 Chapter Six: Filming in Papua New Guinea 1979–1982 129 Chapter Seven: Mistaken feature films Il contratto (1953) 149 Beyond Reason (1970) 163 Chapter Eight: Foreignness in photography 173 Conclusion 194 Bibliography 207 Appendix 222 6 Who is behind the camera? Introduction: In/visible filmmaker What then are the implications if non-Anglo-Celts wish to participate in selecting the words, which, according to Barthes, consolidate social meaning? What kind of signification is non-Anglo-Celtic writing permitted within Australia? The swift answer is that such writing is invisible in literary and cultural histories and is usually received as sociology (the ‘migrant problem’ leading inevitably to the migrant as problem) or as oral history (authentic first hand accounts from marginal groups). (Gunew, 1990: 73) The cinema of independent film director Giorgio Mangiamele has remained in the shadows of Australian film history since the 1960s when he produced a remarkable body of films. His oeuvre is characterized by a specific poetic vision that worked to make tangible a social reality arising out of the impact with foreignness—a foreign society, a foreign country. Giorgio Mangiamele’s filmmaking experience might be considered problematic because, as Sneja Gunew elucidates, the films were written outside the parameters set by the dominant culture (which in Australia is of British descent and commonly referred to as Anglo-Celtic), and furthermore, working alone (and under the designation migrant, reserved for the person of southern European origin), the sense of legitimacy, and in consequence visibility, became a problem. What should have been the development of an aesthetic language became a marginalised language—though not being the language of marginalisation. In the endeavour to complete his cinematic productions and despite the pressure towards silence, he worked to make his voice heard. As Gunew writes, referring to writing: …the immigrant’s speech (rather than writing) is solicited and the more disordered it is the more authentic it supposedly sounds. In those terms immigrant or non-Anglo-Celtic writing is valued precisely in so far as it is inscribed with the marks of linguistic naivety and (even) incompetence: broken language being symptomatic of subjects not yet assimilated (rendered the same) or ‘naturalized’. (Gunew, 1990: 74) 7 Who is behind the camera? In 1970, Giorgio Mangiamele shot the last film he was to make in Australia, Beyond Reason. In 1979 he moved to Papua New Guinea to work for the Information Office of the Government of Papua New Guinea. He directed several films for the Government of Papua New Guinea, including: Papua New Guinea Joins the Silk World (1979), The Living Museum (1980), The Caring Crocodile (1981) and Sapos (1982).1 This period represented a prolific time for Giorgio Mangiamele working in a country relatively close to Australia, and marks his status as a filmmaker whose significance transcends national borders.2 However, in Australia from the early seventies onwards, marginalisation had become a reality. (“In their very being those new Australians represented boundaries, or margins, those marginal voices which bordered the known country and were themselves hybrids comprising both the known and the unknown.”) (Gunew, 1990: 111) In the 1960s in Melbourne Giorgio Mangiamele was known and esteemed within the film community and his films won awards.3 He worked to stimulate a local film industry, alongside important figures including Tim Burstall and Phillip Adams. Despite this, his career was not able to take off. In the 1970s, with the establishment of funding bodies, aimed at invigorating the film industry in Australia, a new generation of filmmakers became active, including Phillip Noyce, Fred Schepisi, Gillian Armstrong, George Miller, Peter Weir and Tim Burstall. Giorgio Mangiamele, instead, was neither able to gain access to nor deal with the bureaucracy of film industry funding. The resources to produce the films he wished to make, in order to continue his career as a film director, were unavailable. In this situation, the name of Giorgio Mangiamele is not only excluded from the list of filmmakers producing films, but abruptly he became a figure without status.4 In the 1970s the wider cultural reality had already begun to assume a heterogeneous appearance through the presence of a multitude of cultural origins 1These films were deposited in the National Film and Sound Archives in May 2002. Copyright regarding the films remains with the Government of Papua New Guinea. 2In the book Cinema & Nation (Hjort and Mackenzie (eds) 2000) the notion of national cinema is debated and theorized. Mangiamele’s very presence in Australia was both a challenge to the notion of national cinema and contemporaneously widened the concept of what is Australian cinema and who are its film directors. 3At the Australian Film Awards in the respective years, The Spag (1962) and Ninety-Nine Percent (1963) were awarded an Honourable Mention, and Clay (1965) won the Silver Award, the Silver Medallion and the Kodak Silver Trophy 4See Chapter Four on the dynamics of Giorgio Mangiamele’s endeavour to be recognized as a filmmaker in the Australian film industry in the 1970s.
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