Imagining Naples: Reconfiguration of a city in the movies by Terry Gilliam, John Turturro and Jonathan Demme

This article investigates the image of Naples depicted by three American film-makers: Terry Gilliam with The Wholly Family (2011), John Turturro with Passione (2010) and Jonathan Demme with Enzo Avitabile Music Life (2012). In these movies Naples is perceived through a translocal perspective, an intersection of different cultures and places, where the role of memory is strongly emphasized. The common denominator of these different productions is the topic of the roots, highlighted with a cinematic sightseeing of the city. Turturro, Demme and Gilliam move the camera in tourist places, but behind the typical postcard view they give rise to a reconfiguration of the city’s soul. The article focuses on the way in which these films reject the stereotyped image of Naples built by Hollywood, providing an opportunity to rethink the complex notion of porosity proposed by Walter Benjamin.