Fabio Rossi
Università di Messina
([email protected])
Erasmus IP: IRIC
L’immagine riflessa, l’immagine costruita
La Sicilia nei media
Elementi di storia del cinema
internazionale
Bondanella, Peter 2004:
Hollywood Italians. Dagos, Palookas,
Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos.
New York etc.: Continuum
The Black Hand: True Story of a Recent
Occurrence in the Italian Quarter
of New York, 1906, Wallace McCutcheon
Casella, Paola 1998: Hollywood Italian.
Gli italiani nell’America di celluloide,
Milano: Baldini & Castoldi
“American movies which portray Italian community,
or describe Italian characters, are so numerous
that they form an individual cinematographic
genre” (Casella 1998:15)
“The Italian character in the yankee cinema is still
quite often connected to the ‘four Ms’ stereotype:
Mafia, Mother, Maccheroni and Mandolin”
(Casella 1998:15)
“The Hollywood Italian gesticulates crazily and
speaks loudly, adores pasta and his mother,
maltreats all other women and he is genetically in
tune; if he is not a criminal himself, he has at least
some relatives inside the Mafia; he cries very often
and is racist, vulgar, tasteless in dressing, irascible
and violent” (Casella 1998: 15)
Pippa Passes; or, The Song of Conscience,
1909, David W. Griffith
The Italian, 1915, Thomas H. Ince and C. Gardner
Sullivan
My Cousin, 1918, Edward José
Cobra, 1925, Joseph Henabery
Little Caesar, 1931,
Mervyn LeRoy
Scarface,
Shame of a Nation,
1932, Howard Hawks
Goodfellas, 1990,
Martin Scorsese
“To me, being a
gangster was better
than being president of
the United States”
Cry of the City, 1948, Robert Siodmark
Bondanella, Peter 2004:
Hollywood Italians. Dagos, Palookas,
Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos.
New York etc.: Continuum
• WOPS - DAGOES - GUINEAS
• PALOOKAS
• ROMEO or GUIDO
• FAMILY and EVERYDAY LIFE
• PARODY OF THE MAFIA
Prizzi’s Honor, 1985,
John Huston
The Sopranos, 1999-,
TV serial created by
David Chase
The Godfather, 1972,
Francis Ford Coppola
The Godfather,
Part Two, 1974,
Francis Ford Coppola
The Godfather,
Part Three, 1990,
Francis Ford
Coppola
“How can we let a criminal
like that run our company!
He’s got the map of Sicily
on his face! Can’t you
see? [...] He’s either a
catholic or a mafioso!”
“I don’t like your kind of people.
I don’t like to see you come out
to this clean country, in oily hair,
and dressed up in those silk
suits, and try to pass
yourselves off as decent
Americans. I’ll do business with
you, but the fact is that I
despise your masquerade, the
dishonest way you pose
yourselves. You and your whole
fucking family. (Michael
answers to him:) Senator, we
are both part of the same
hypocrisy. But never think it
applies to my family”
Who is “two times himself is also two
times stranger” (Bettini, Maurizio (ed.)
1992: Lo straniero ovvero l’identità
culturale a confronto, Roma etc.:
Laterza: 6)
“I always wanted to use the Mafia as a metaphor
for America [...]. I feel that Mafia is an incredible
metaphor for this country. Both are totally
capitalistic phenomena and basically have a profit
motive” (Coppola in Bondanella 2004: 239-240)
Big Night, 1996,
Stanley Tucci and
Campbell Scott
Filippo Ottoni:
“because CalabrianSicilian dialect on the
screen is felt by now to
be connected
irreparably to the Mafia”
(Casella 1998: 454)
Moonstruck, 1987,
Norman Jewson
“Ciao, bello!”
“Buonanotte!”
“Ti amo!”
“How long do I have to
wait? Quanto io devo
aspettare?”
“Johnny, figghiu miu,
veni cca, veni cca!
Angora aju aspettari?”
“Finalmente, che brutta,
signora!”
“Ah, finalmente, che
brutto questo grigio!”
“Don’t stand directly
under the sun. You’ve
got a hat. Use your hat”
The Rose Tattoo,
1955, Daniel Mann
“I couldn’t speak
nothing in English
exept of love”
“Rimasi ammutolita
fin dopo la notte del
matrimonio. E dopo
dissi soltanto amore”
“Serafina: Because you
don’t study no civics,
tonight.
Rosa: Don’t study no civics.
Why do you talk like you
just came over in steerage.
This isn’t Sicily, mother,
and you are not a
baroness. You do sewing”
“Serafina: Perché sai di giurare
il falso. E questo ti porta male.
Rosa: Ti porta male, ti porta
male. Ti è rimasta la mentalità di
una contadina siciliana. Quante
storie, mamma! Tu non sei una
baronessa. Sai solo cucire”
Marty, 1954,
Delbert Mann
“She don’t look
Italian to me. I don’t
like her”
Mambo italiano, 2003,
Émile Gaudreault
“You’re the classic selfhating Italian”
“Being gay and Italian is a
fate worse than... actually
there is no fate worse
than being gay and
Italian”
“Nino Paventi: How’d you
get in here? The door was
locked, the alarm system
was on... Lina Paventi:
Nino, I’m Sicilian”
• “It’s a cultural thing: us Italians we leave the house either
two ways. Married or dead”
• “Things change. Family doesn’t”
• “It’s not a democracy, it’s a family”
• “It’s BIGGER... It’s FATTER... It’s not GREEK... and
there’ll only be a wedding over mama’s dead body!”
• “Very fanny... riotous... like my big fat gay Italian wedding”
• “The slap: the end to the quintessential Italian melodrama”
• “All hell breaks loose (Italian style of course!) and the
battle lines are drawn as “tutta la familglia” goes to war”
Mickey Blue Eyes,
1999, Kelly Makin
“A taste of
Tuscany”
“Traditional tomato
passata, buffalo
mozzarella and
locally sourced
Provolone cheese,
finished with
origano”
“Insalata di porcini
e cavalo (Cabbage
and Porcini Salad)”
“Risotto.
Our new bambino”
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Actress: Monica Bellucci
Music: Ennio Morricone
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elegance
worship of beauty and good taste
tendency towards the arts
determination to work
religious bigotry
irrational traditionalism
difficulty of linguistic and cultural adaptation
machismo and cult of the family
extreme elasticity concerning civic and moral behavior
bad taste in dressing and rough habits
unseemly gesticulations
speaking too loudly
no respect of social conventions
Mac, 1992,
John Turturro
sciumi
→ fiume
scantari
→ fare paura
sparagnari → lasciare
“La Sicilia offre la rappresentazione di
tanti problemi, di tante contraddizioni,
non solo italiani ma anche europei, al
punto da poter costituire la metafora del
mondo odierno” (Leonardo Sciascia, La
Sicilia come metafora. Intervista con
Marcelle Padovani, Milano, Arnoldo
Mondadori, 1989 [I ed. 1979], p. 78)
THE END