Regionalism and Representation
University of Warwick
04.26.2013
The Sardinia case:
issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic
representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
1900s  1990s
Hetero-representation
• literary mediation
• crystallized stereotypes
• mythical vision of the island
SARDINIAN CINEMA
1990s  today
Self-representation
• first-hand experience
• critical awareness
• interpretation of modernity
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Grazia Deledda
Nobel Prize in Literature, 1926
• sensational dramas
• world suspended in time
• adverse fortune
Cenere (Ash)
Febo Mari, 1916
Starring Eleonora Duse
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Cenere: Sardinian environments reproduced in the Apuan Alps and in studio
At the foot of the
Gennargentu
mountains
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
La Grazia (The Grace)
Aldo De Benedetti, 1929
Sardinian environments reproduced in the
mountains of Central Italy and in studio
Georges Sadoul
Cenere:
Sardinian
landscape is the
main character of
the drama
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
12 films based on the works of Grazia Deledda
Proibito (Forbidden)
Mario Monicelli, 1954
• western genre style
• enforced exotic appeal
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Exotism depriving Sardinia of its true identity:
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2+5 Missione Hydra,
Pietro Francisci,
1966
wild-west scenary
unexplored tropical islands
futuristic worlds
deserted wastelands
Signor Robinson, Sergio Corbucci, 1976
Deguejo, Giuseppe Vari, 1966
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Sardinian cinema 1900/1990
Common traits influenced by Deledda’s work:
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melodramas out of time
ancestral world
passionate loves
sinful vision of religion
inescapable fate
outlaws
shepherds
women in black
nuraghe
Nuraghe:
typical Sardinian
tower-like
architectures
dated back to the
19th century B.C.
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Banditi a Orgosolo (Bandits of Orgosolo)
Vittorio De Seta, 1961
“Time is measured according to seasonal
migrations, the search for grazing and water.
The soul of these people is still primitive. What is
right to their law, it’s not in the modern world.
The only things that matter to them are family and
community bonds.
Everything else is incomprehensible and hostile;
even the State, embodied in the police and the
prisons.
Out of modernity, they only know rifles.
The rifle is used to hunt, to defend oneself and also
to attack. They can become outlaws over night,
without realising it”
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Martin Scorsese
Bandits of Orgosolo:
“reveals an archaic and
uncontaminated world, in
which people speak an
ancient dialect, living
according to traditional
rules”
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Socio-political and cultural shift in Italy at the beginning of the 1990s:
• “mani pulite” and end of the
Italian first republic
• neo-television
• emergence of young native
authors in Sardinia
New Sardinian cinema:
shows the real
Sardinian world from an
internal perspective
SELF-REPRESENTATION
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
Sardinian language as prominent identity-related theme due to:
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Sardinian is a neo-Latin language
1997: law for the preservation of linguistic minority
rehabilitation through mass media
integration within school curricula
spreading in literary production
Use of Sardinian language at the cinema:
• refashioning of the local language
• multiple registers and geographical variations
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick
New Sardinian cinema:
• presence of an industrial and
post-industrial economy
• agropastoral economy
• rise of the multicultural
urban environments
• urban sub-proletariat
• bourgeois upper-middle class
Jimmy della
Collina,
Enrico Pau,
2006
Tajabone,
Salvatore Mereu,
2009
Dimmi che
destino avrò,
Peter Marcias,
2012
Bellas Mariposas, Salvatore Mereu, 2012
The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an island
Antioco Floris, University of Cagliari
Ivan Girina, University of Warwick