Regionalism and RepresentationUniversity of Warwick04.26.2013

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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick

SARDINIAN CINEMA

1900s 1990s

1990s today

Hetero-representation

• literary mediation• crystallized stereotypes• mythical vision of the island

Self-representation

• first-hand experience• critical awareness• interpretation of modernity

The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick

The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick

Grazia DeleddaNobel 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick

Exotism depriving Sardinia of its true identity:

• wild-west scenary• unexplored tropical islands• futuristic worlds• deserted wastelands

Signor Robinson, Sergio Corbucci, 1976 Deguejo, Giuseppe Vari, 1966

2+5 Missione Hydra,Pietro Francisci,1966

The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick

Sardinian cinema 1900/1990

Common traits influenced by Deledda’s work:

• 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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 nativeauthors 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 islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick

Sardinian language as prominent identity-related theme due to:

• 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

• refashioning of the local language• multiple registers and geographical variations

Use of Sardinian language at the cinema:

The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan 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

Bellas Mariposas, Salvatore Mereu, 2012

Jimmy della Collina,Enrico Pau,2006

Tajabone,Salvatore Mereu,2009

Dimmi che destino avrò,Peter Marcias,2012

The Sardinia case: issues of memory and identity in the cinematographic representation of an islandAntioco Floris, University of CagliariIvan Girina, University of Warwick