Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies - Volume 2, Issue 3, 2014

This article aims to examine the Sixth Generation films of contemporary China through the lens of Italian Neorealism: particularly, their moral commitments and aesthetic innovations. Along with many international art films, the Sixth Generation films share a realist impulse that was most innovatively pioneered and explored in Italian Neorealism. In every case, the film-maker is attempting to chronicle the present by focusing generally on the dark side of reality and specifically on the life lived by disenfranchised people. The goal is to create an anti-illusionist film culture that helps viewers to see and reflect upon this reality first from within and then beyond cinema. Selecting Xiao Shan Going Home (Jia, Zhangke, 1995) and Still Life (Jia, Zhangke, 2006) by Jia Zhangke as representative of the Sixth Generation, this article details how such films adopt Italian neorealist conventions (such as long takes, long shots with deep focus and location shooting) and thereafter expand these formal elements to underscore social contradictions behind the glamour of Chinese economic development so as to present a more complete sense of modernity.

By tracing how Wang Baoqiang and Giulietta Masina configure the concept of innocence in four films – Fellini’s Il Bidone/The Swindle (1955) versus Li Yang’s Blind Shaft (2003), and Fellini’s La Strada/The Road (1954) versus Feng Xiaogang’s A World without Thieves (2004) – this article demonstrates that similar human conditions produce similar cinematic responses. The parallel elements here include bankrupt political systems (Maoist socialism and Mussolini’s fascism) accompanied by economic prosperity and the advent of materialism, in which individuals attempt to regain a sense of self through the traditional values of their cultures, whether Confucianism in China or Christian humanism in Italy: the focus on innocence in both Chinese and Italian films has also attracted similar critical responses. This article touches on the relationship between the following responses and the analysis of the films: Italian Neorealism in contrast with Chinese documentary realism, nostalgia for home, Christian and Buddhist humanism, value judgment, post-socialism, consumerism, problems of ethics, populism, Nietzsche’s concept of the innocence of becoming and Heidegger’s conception of homeless. The article concludes by suggesting an examination of Daoism for a comprehensive understanding of the parallelled configuration of innocence, bridging the concepts of Nietzsche and Heidegger and heeding both senses of crisis and senses for hope.

十七岁的单车/Beijing Bicycle (Wang Xiaoshuai, 2000) is a significant masterpiece of Wang Xiaoshuai, one of the Sixth Generation directors in China that shows a host of similarities with Ladri di biciclette/Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948). This article concentrates on the relationship between the creation of the Chinese Sixth Generation, New Generation directors and the Italian Neorealism movement, elaborating on different perspectives of aesthetic system construction, the thought enlightenment of André Bazin, the members of the Sixth Generation and New Generation directors in China and the creative situations these Chinese directors are in, and eventually asserts that the creative track and formation of aesthetic philosophy of the Chinese Sixth Generation and New Generation directors are closely associated with the Italian Neorealism movement.

Japanese animated series and films are, today, commonly named ‘anime’. Italy is the western market where the highest number of television anime were aired and theatrical anime released: it is a crucial context to assess the impact of anime on Western audiences. There is a lack of literature in English on the topic. This article provides information on the success of anime in Italy, with reference to the theatrical films released before the boom and a bibliography in Italian; indicates the main differences between the booms in Japan and Italy and gives hints on other national markets for anime; discusses the historical reasons of the arrival of anime in Italy; offers explanations on the stages of the success in this country (and in Western Europe) and in the United States before and during the boom, with the US market being a relevant touchstone; outlines the consumption model of television anime in Italy in the 1980s; provides critical remarks on the social–cultural features of the Italian anime boom as distinguished from the impact of anime on other national contexts. The article is informed by a multidisciplinary approach: cultural sociology, comparative media studies and animation studies.

A recent bilateral film co-production agreement between Italy and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), ratified in September 2012 by the Italian Parliament, will hopefully bring fruitful cooperations between these two national film and television industries. However, Chinese and Italian film co-productions are not an unprecedented phenomenon. The first co-production between these two film industries actually happened in 1982, when mini-series Marco Polo was produced by Italian television network RAI along with Chinese Company Cinematic Co-Production (CCCC). The aim of this article is to examine the production history of Marco Polo and its complex transnational dimension, through the analysis of issues previously highlighted by theoretical works about the crisis of national cinema and of issues of identity in European co-productions. Moreover, the article will analyze RAI’s production policy of the late 1970s and early 1980s, a watershed era that marks a move from the production of works of international film-makers of modern cinema, to more spectacular and marketable productions for the new global television market. Finally, I will discuss Marco Polo’s relationship with the Italian political film, an important production trend in 1970s Italian cinema, to which director Giuliano Montaldo contributed with at least three of his films. I will suggest that the Italian political film was extremely apt at narrating a story focused on intercultural communication, and that Montaldo had been hired by RAI because of his experience in this genre.

Famous for being the first foreign feature film that obtained permission to shoot in the Forbidden City, The Last Emperor (1987) is also one of the most ambitious and expensive independent productions of its time, awarded four Golden Globes and nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. In addition, The Last Emperor can be considered as one of the first attempts of cinematic collaboration between West and East, in a period of cultural and economic transformations witnessed by China. This article aims to offer an overview of the production history of The Last Emperor, focusing on the co-production collaborations and the outcomes of a western auteur’s gaze on Chinese history. Questions of Orientalism, travel narrative and critical reception are taken into account in order to engage with the transnational implications of Bertolucci’s film and the western fascination with China.

Since the end of the 1990s, Indian producers have been outsourcing an increasing number of film productions to western countries (especially in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, in the United Kingdom and United States). The outsourcing is part of a corporatization process that is laying roots within the Indian film industry and pushing its producers to play an important role in the global media landscape. In light of these trends, the article investigates the reasons motivating Indian producers to move their film shoots abroad. It especially analyses the phenomenon of Indian films shot in Italy, and explains why Italy is currently so appealing for Indian producers. The article is based on some in-depth interviews conducted in India and Italy with some key-players of their respective film industries, and on a survey submitted to the Italian film commissions.

18 IUS Soli: The Strange Case of Citizenship in Modern Italy, directed by Fred Kuwornu (2012)

Sergio Leone: Il cinema come favola politica, Christian Uva (2013) Rome: Edizioni fondazione ente dello spettacolo, 220 pp., ISBN: 9788885095694, p/bk, €12.90

Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader, Giorgio Bertellini (ed.) (2013) New Barnet, Herts, UK: John Libbey Publishing, 401 pp., ISBN: 9780861966707, p/bk, $40

Fenomenologia del cinepanettone, Alan O’Leary (2013) Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 152 pp., ISBN: 9788849835182, p/bk, €14.00/£15.23

L’Africa in Italia: Per una controstoria postcoloniale del cinema italiano, Leonardo De Franceschi (ed.) (2013) Rome: Aracne Editrice, 512 pp., ISBN: 9788854858862, p/bk, 23€

La sopravvivenza delle immagini al cinema. Archivio, montaggio, intermedialità, Francesco Zucconi (2013) Milan-Udine: Mimesis; 254 pp., ISBN: 9788857514024, p/bk, 22€

Bertolucci, il cinema, la letteratura. Il caso ‘Prima della rivoluzione’, Alessandro Marini (2012) Alessandria: Edizioni Falsopiano, 267 pp., ISBN: 9788898137060, p/bk, €20.00