Massimiliano Gaudiosi
Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples (Italy)
Basilicata Inside and Outside
The Lucanian Landscape and the Interior/Exterior Relation in Non-Fiction Cinema
In an essay reported by Walter Benjamin, Adrien Dupassage underscores the similarities between the overloaded ornament of the façades in the fairs and the popular conception of the street in all southern countries, where “the exteriors of houses appear more ‘lived in’ than their interiors”, and the exhibition of the private life confers on the dwellings “the quality of a secret place”. In both the cases the effect is the same, and everything suggests a sense of mystery piquing the curiosity of foreigners. Such a kind of dynamics between interior and exterior, so crucial for the idea of intérieur that Benjamin will develop in the Arcades Project, offers an intriguing perspective for the comprehension of the image of Lucania in non-fiction films and, in more general sense, the representation of Southern Italy in the second postwar documentary. If on the one hand the interior/exterior combination can be a strategic tool for the investigation of the image of the South – so marked by the ideas of boundary, juxtaposition, exchange and porosity – on the other hand Basilicata and its landscape on film represent a quite unique case study, a realm where the transition from inside and outside is more similar to a transition between worlds.
The aim of the presentation is to analyse the ways in which the Lucan landscape has been depicted in non-fiction films, focusing the attention on the different variations of the interior/exterior connection during the second postwar. Without claiming to be exhaustive, the main task is to comprehend the function of special tropes and liminal spaces such as doors and windows, houses and natural caves, and to understand the role of transitional spaces between public and private places. The portrait projected on the screen will be compared with different representations of the region, paying particular attention to the pictures of Basilicata disseminated in Italian popular tourist magazines like Le vie d’Italia.
Massimiliano Gaudiosi, Ph.D. at the University of Siena, is Research Fellow in Film Studies at the University Suor Orsola Benincasa for the project “Archives of the South. Non-Fiction Cinema and Southern Landscape in Italy 1948-1968”. His research interests include theory and film analysis, media archaeology and the cinematic representation of the landscape. He is author of Lo schermo e l’acquario. Scienza, finzione e immersività nel cinema degli abissi (Pisa, Edizioni ETS, 2019) and (with Augusto Sainati) Analizzare i film(Venezia, Marsilio, 2007). He also published many essays on film journals and edited books.