Antonio Pietrangeli, The Director of Women

Emma Katherine Van Ness

Description

A re-examination of the films of Antonio Pietrangeli from a feminist perspective

One of the founding fathers of neorealism in the postwar period in Italy, Antonio Pietrangeli went on to focus his lens upon the female subject. Eight of his ten full-length films feature female protagonists. This study seeks to better understand both his achievements and his failings as a feminist auteur as well as analyse his films by applying new critical and theoretical approaches. Pietrangeli’s representations of women struggling with questions of identity was a revolutionary act in the 1950s and 1960s. The book makes a case why we should recuperate these films today since the standards for representing women in film continue to fall behind the reality of women’s lives off-screen.

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Vita; Introduction: Antonio Pietrangeli, A Brief History; Chapter 1: Pietrangelian Film Theory: From Neorealism to Feminism; Chapter 2: Maid from the Margins: Il sole negli occhi; Chapter 3: The Coming of Age of a Teenage Bride: Nata di marzo; Chapter 4: Legally Bound: Political Realism and Prostitution in Adua e le compagne; Chapter 5: Fantasmi a Roma: Sur- Realism and the Time- Image; Chapter 6: The Dora Problem: La parmigiana , Piatti, Pietrangeli and Freud; Chapter 7: Too Much Woman: Marriage, Power, and Excess in La visita; Chapter 8: Breaking Faith: Il magnifi co cornuto , Envy and the Crisis of Vision; Chapter 9: Io la conoscevo bene … Or did I? Antonio Pietrangeli, the Author and the Actress; Conclusion: Antonio Pietrangeli, Feminism and Film Theory; Bibliography; Index.

Sujets

• Arts
• Filmmaking
• Performing arts
• History of film
• Electronic
• ART

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 30 avril 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781785273193
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Antonio Pietrangeli, the Director of Women
Antonio Pietrangeli, the Director of Women
Feminism and Film Theory in Postwar Italian Cinema
Emma Katherine Van Ness
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
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or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
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Copyright © Emma Katherine Van Ness 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-317-9 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-317-5 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
To Zoe Flaminia,
the only true Roman in the family, romana de’ Roma , birthed alongside this book, raised among the revisions.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Vita
Introduction: Antonio Pietrangeli, A Brief History
Chapter 1: Pietrangelian Film Theory: From Neorealism to Feminism
Chapter 2: Maid from the Margins: Il sole negli occhi
Chapter 3: The Coming of Age of a Teenage Bride: Nata di marzo
Chapter 4: Legally Bound: Political Realism and Prostitution in Adua e le compagne
Chapter 5: Fantasmi a Roma: Sur-Realism and the Time-Image
Chapter 6: The Dora Problem: La parmigiana , Piatti, Pietrangeli and Freud
Chapter 7: Too Much Woman: Marriage, Power, and Excess in La visita
Chapter 8: Breaking Faith: Il magnifico cornuto , Envy and the Crisis of Vision
Chapter 9: Io la conoscevo bene … Or did I? Antonio Pietrangeli, the Author and the Actress
Conclusion: Antonio Pietrangeli, Feminism and Film Theory
Bibliography
Index
List of Illustrations
0.1 Antonio Pietrangeli with Clara Calamai on the set of Ossessione
0.2 Antonio Pietrangeli, Carla Del Poggio and Isa Miranda sign the Manifesto in Defense of Italian Cinema (Manifesto in difesa del cinema italiano) in 1948
2.1 Irene Galter, Antonio Pietrangeli, Luchino Visconti on the set of Il sole negli occhi
2.2 With Celestina, Pietrangeli focuses on the servant class, the domestic, female proletariat
2.3 Celestina’s private moments, much like those of maid in Umberto D
2.4 Celestina awkwardly navigates the streets of Rome, derided by her fellow maids and Fernando
2.5 Celestina rejects her suitor’s advances
2.6 Fainting as symptom of unspeakable pregnancy, “the sun in her eyes.”
2.7 Celestina realizes she has been lied to by Fernando, moments before her suicide attempt
2.8 Celestina accepts her situation, refuses to see Fernando
2.9 A chorus of maids, an alternative to a traditional family, who take Celestina into their fold
3.1 Francesca’s marriage is just the beginning, not the happy ending, of the story
3.2 Francesca, bound in her corset and by societal pressures to fit the role of ideal wife, initially enjoys the narcissistic pleasures of consumption
3.3 Francesca and Carlo visit the Colosseus, when the film begins in medias res
3.4 Francesca’s ideal courtship with Sandro, as she states mistakenly that her ideal type is silent and strong, like a tree
3.5 Francesca’s growing resentment of Simona and her husband’s respect for this professional woman
3.6 Francesca’s first, meager, paycheck
3.7 Confession and reconciliation between spouses does not mean a happy ending in Nata di marzo
4.1 Adua and her friends pooling their funds to make a new start after the Merlin Law
4.2 Dottor Ercoli inspects his investment
4.3 Marilina and Carletto, a unique vision of motherhood
4.4 Adua and Piero, a romance doomed by her past and his unscrupulousness
4.5 Milly and her Sardinian fiancé
4.6 Adua amidst the destruction of her dream
4.7 Da Adua : Adua and her friends moving toward a home of their own
5.1 Pietrangeli, the camera, and Roman ghosts
5.2 Pietrangeli aligns our gaze with that of the ghosts
5.3 Reginaldo, a living ghost on the rooftops of Rome
5.4 The disapproving ghosts. Reginaldo, Flora, Poldino and Fra’ Bartolomeo
5.5 Fantasmi: Sconosciuta, sei incantevole! Modern beauty and antique chivalry
5.6 Flora models for il Caparra, whose frescoes save Palazzo Roviano
5.7 Reginaldo at City Song, where he cannot believe his eyes/big reveal
5.8 Art historian pronouncing the work a Caravaggio
6.1 Dora studying the pupo siciliano
6.2 Defiant Dora and Michele, her Sicilian police officer boyfriend
6.3 Dora and Giacomo, the seminarist
6.4 Dora is pensive in a postcoital moment, while Giacomo sleeps
6.5 Scipio tempted by Dora while she sleeps
6.6 Dora and Nino on the beach
6.7 Nino’s career depends upon Dora’s powers of attraction despite his claims that she’s “impossible to work with”
6.8 Dora ultimately rejects Michele and the patriarchal order he represents
7.1 Pina (Sandra Milo) considers a life with Adolfo (François Périer)
7.2 Adolfo and “la bella culandrona”—Pina’s excessive qualities in her domestic space
7.3 Pina at work, admired by the townsfolk
7.4 Active Pina, passive Adolfo
7.5 The couple vying for control over the narrative
7.6 The population turns hostile toward a drunk Adolfo
7.7 Pina fixes Adolfo’s glasses as well as his self-awareness
7.8 The female voice embodied
7.9 Adolfo and the parrot, symbol of his loss of control and ineptitude
7.10 Lonely Pina, a vision of female autonomy
8.1 Alienation, mistrust and adultery between the couple
8.2 Skeptical Andrea does not believe his eyes
8.3 Maria Grazia, dutiful wife and sex object, shown alongside Pietrangeli’s camera
8.4 Andrea’s scopophilia over his wife’s décolletage runs headlong into his paranoiac possessivity
8.5 Andrea retreats into fantasy about his wife, leaving his wife behind, neglected
8.6 Maria Grazia, gracious hostess at the housewarming party, moments before her striptease
8.7 Maria Grazia, seductress within Andrea’s fantasy, surrounded by his friends
8.8 Pietrangeli shows how Andrea’s questioning of Maria Grazia’s fidelity is a projection of his own insecurities
9.1 Pietrangeli and Stefania Sandrelli on the set of Io la conoscevo bene
9.2 Adriana on the beach, opening sequence of the film
9.3 Fausto, the writer, who exploits Adriana for creative and sexual ends
9.4 The writer builds his discourse on Adriana’s back through the attribution of lack. He is knowing subject, she unknowing object
9.5 Adriana backstage at the boxing match, sympathizing with the beating the boxers are taking in the ring
9.6 Adriana watches as she is humiliated on-screen
9.7 Moments before her suicide, Adriana removes her wig
9.8 Adriana’s alienation, faces of comedy and tragedy
C.1 Pietrangeli’s female characters, like Adriana, demand that we take them seriously
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the help of many. Mille grazie , first and foremost, to Antonio Maraldi at the Centro Cinema Cesena, who over the span of many years provided access to the Pietrangeli Archives and facilitated my research and writing. His belief in my project and in the need to revisit Pietrangeli were inspirational as well as crucial to this project.
Thank you to Professors Thomas Harrison and Lucia Re at University of California Los Angeles as well as my entire dissertation committee. Your belief in as well as your scrutiny of this subject were invaluable.
Thank you to my family, especially to Carmelo and Zoe Ardizzone, Doug Poole and little Lila, whose love and support made it possible to continue to rethink, revise and finally to bring this project to a conclusion. This book is for all of you.
Vita
Dr. Emma Van Ness earned her undergraduate degrees in art history and Italian from University of Chicago before going on to earn her masters in Twentieth Century Italian Culture from Middlebury College. She completed her PhD at University of California Los Angeles in 2013. She has lived, studied and worked in Italy extensively throughout the course of her life, including two years in Pisa, one year in Florence, and four years in Rome. She currently lives and works in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where she teaches Italian language and film courses at Plymouth State University. Other publications include “Dixit Mater: The Significance of the Maternal Voice in Ferrante’s Neapolitan Trilogy,” in The Works of Elena Ferrante, Reconfiguring the Margins , edited by Grace Bullaro and Stephanie Love (2016) and translations of Lorenzo Calogero, Quaderni di Villa Nuccia , and Nelo Risi, Dentro la sostanza , in Those Who Look Like Flies from Far Away , an English translation of Quelli che sembrano le mosche da lontano , edited by Luigi Ballerini and Giuseppe Cavatorta (2013). She enjoys baking bread, getting outside