Italian Eco-Trauma Cinema: From “Vajont” to “Un posto sicuro”

Moving from Stolorow’s works, the psychological notion of trauma is intertwined with a philosophy of existence that meets “worlds apart,” inaccessible private universes based on traumatic experiences. Faced with these unfathomable emotional spaces, film gives images to what is unspeakable, and, through the contradiction between representation and what remains unrepresentable, film images are involved in the tension between a duty not to forget and a duty to help to forget. This article will focus on cinema of trauma and, in particular, on filmic representation of ecological catastrophes in contemporary Italian cinema. The two movies Vajont (Martinelli 2001) and Un posto sicuro (Ghiaccio 2015) will be analysed in order to highlight key aspects of a film aesthetic in which the anti-narrative dimension of traumatic experience is raised to the status of philosophical principle.Moving from Stolorow’s works, the psychological notion of trauma is intertwined with a philosophy of existence that meets “worlds apart,” inaccessible private universes based on traumatic experiences. Faced with these unfathomable emotional spaces, film gives images to what is unspeakable, and, through the contradiction between representation and what remains unrepresentable, film images are involved in the tension between a duty not to forget and a duty to help to forget. This article will focus on cinema of trauma and, in particular, on filmic representation of ecological catastrophes in contemporary Italian cinema. The two movies Vajont (Martinelli 2001) and Un posto sicuro (Ghiaccio 2015) will be analysed in order to highlight key aspects of a film aesthetic in which the anti-narrative dimension of traumatic experience is raised to the status of philosophical principle

Conservative Versus Surgical Management of Elbow Medial Ulnar Collateral Ligament Injury: A Systematic Review

Objective: Several studies have been published regarding the treatment of medial ulnar collateral ligament (MUCL) injuries for professional overhead athletes. However, there is a paucity of data regarding non-professional athletes. The aim of this systematic review was to compare the rate of outcome scores and complications of conservative versus operative treatments both in non-professional athletes and in non-sport-related trauma patients with MUCL lesions. Methods: A systematic review of the published literature was performed by applying the PRISMA guidelines. A search was conducted using three databases: Medline, Science Direct, and Web of Science. The keywords used were \u201culnar collateral ligament injury,\u201d \u201celbow,\u201d \u201csurgery,\u201d and \u201cconservative treatment\u201d. Patients were divided into three groups: patients who underwent conservative treatment (C-group), surgical treatment (S-group), and surgery after a failed conservative treatment (C&S-group). Clinical outcomes were analyzed: Disability of Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH), Conway scale, Carson score, and Kerlan\u2013Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic score (KJOC). Results: A total of 15 studies were included, evaluating 513 patients. Although good and excellent outcomes were found for most patients during daily and/or sport activities, independently of the type of treatment, the C-group had better results. Excellent results were found in 98.8% of the C-group, in 88.1% of the S-group, and in 87.7% of the C&S-group. The complication rate in the C-group was statistically higher compared to the S and C&S groups (P < 0.001). However, its complication rate was higher with lower patient satisfaction. Conclusions: There is insufficient evidence to establish statistically significant differences in the effects of conservative versus surgical treatments on the functional outcomes of patients with MUCL lesions. However, a period of rehabilitation therapy and the functional request of the single injured subject are useful to discern which patients genuinely require MUCL surgical repair

Assessment of the INLA approach on gerarchic bayesian models for the spatial disease distribution: a real data application

The use of approximate methods as the INLA (Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation) approach is being widely used in Bayesian inference, especially in spatial risk model estimation where the Besag-York-Mollie (BYM) model ` has found a proper use. INLA appears time saving compared to Monte Carlo simulations based on Markov Chains (MCMC), but it produces some differences in estimates [1, 2]. Data from the Veneto Cancer Registry has been considered with the scope to compare cancer incidence estimates with INLA method and with two other procedures based on MCMC simulation, WinBUGS and CARBayes, under R environment. It is noteworthy that INLA returns estimates comparable to both MCMC procedures, but it appears sensitive to the a-priori distribution. INLA is fast and efficient in particular with samples of moderate-high size. However, care must to be paid to the choice of the parameter relating to the a-priori distribution

Experimental Granulomatous Pulmonary Nocardiosis in BALB/C Mice

Pulmonary nocardiosis is a granulomatous disease with high mortality that affects both immunosuppressed and immunocompetent patients. The mechanisms leading to the establishment and progression of the infection are currently unknown. An animal model to study these mechanisms is sorely needed. We report the first in vivo model of granulomatous pulmonary nocardiosis that closely resembles human pathology. BALB/c mice infected intranasally with two different doses of GFP-expressing Nocardia brasiliensis ATCC700358 (NbGFP), develop weight loss and pulmonary granulomas. Mice infected with 109 CFUs progressed towards death within a week while mice infected with 108 CFUs died after five to six months. Histological examination of the lungs revealed that both the higher and lower doses of NbGFP induced granulomas with NbGFP clearly identifiable at the center of the lesions. Mice exposed to 108 CFUs and subsequently to 109 CFUs were not protected against disease severity but had less granulomas suggesting some degree of protection. Attempts to identify a cellular target for the infection were unsuccessful but we found that bacterial microcolonies in the suspension used to infect mice were responsible for the establishment of the disease. Small microcolonies of NbGFP, incompatible with nocardial doubling times starting from unicellular organisms, were identified in the lung as early as six hours after infection. Mice infected with highly purified unicellular preparations of NbGFP did not develop granulomas despite showing weight loss. Finally, intranasal delivery of nocardial microcolonies was enough for mice to develop granulomas with minimal weight loss. Taken together these results show that Nocardia brasiliensis microcolonies are both necessary and sufficient for the development of granulomatous pulmonary nocardiosis in mice

Hermeneutics of the Film World. A Ricœurian Method for Film Interpretation

This book identifies a new methodological strategy for the interpretation of film philosophizing. Many recent works in film philosophy, adopting the approach identified with the term film as philosophy, have considered film as capable of doing philosophy. &nbsp;Focused on the basic relationship between film and filmgoer, the proposed method is founded on the concept of the film world. Combining Merleau-Ponty’s and Ricœur’s philosophies, and reconsidering Goodman’s theory of worldmaking, the film world becomes the hermeneutic horizon from which film philosophical thought can emerge. The book shows how Ricœurian methodology has the potential to provide a valuable resource for film studies by inviting scholars to consider film interpretation in terms of film world hermeneutics.&nbsp

Lucania, Land of Fairy Tales and Cinema: Gigi Roccati’s Lucania and the Eco-Fairy-Tale Film

Giambattista Basile’s (1634–1636) Lo cunto de li cunti from the seventeenth century attests to the deep connection between fairy tales and Lucania. Basile drew from oral tradition, transcribing the folktales gathered in his travels through Southern Italy, in Campania, Puglia, and—especially—Lucania. However, Basile transformed these tales by taking inspiration from customs and rituals of the daily life of his time to criticize courtly society and literary tradition. While metamorphosis is central to fairy tales, seeing how shape-shifting is one of their dominant and characteristic wonders, the fairy tale itself has been subject to a continuous process of transformation and change. Many scholars have recently emphasized that it is at the intersection between fairy tales, media, and cultural studies that it is possible to analyze and understand the symbolic space in which these tales exist and act. How have the fairy tales collected by Basile metamorphosed in recent decades? What significant relationship exist nowadays between Pentamerone, cinema, and ecological thought? From an ecocritical perspective, reconsidering some Italian cinematic adaptations of Basile’s work, such as Francesco Rosi’s C’era una volta (1967), Matteo Garrone’s Il racconto dei racconti (2015), and Alessandro Rak et al.’s Gatta Cenerentola (2017), this chapter focuses on Gigi Roccati’s film Lucania (2019) and its ethics of interconnectedness and interdependence between humans and nature, which appear to be crucial for overcoming individual and collective traumas

Philosophy in Stan Brakhage's Dog Star Man. World, Metaphor, Interpretation

This book shows how a masterpiece of experimental cinema can be interpreted through hermeneutics of the film world. As an application of Ricœurian methodology to a non-narrative film, the book calls into question the fundamental concept of the film world. Firmly rooted within the context of experimental cinema, Stan Brakhage’s Dog Star Man was not created on the basis of a narrative structure and representation of characters, places and events, but on very different presuppositions. The techniques with which Brakhage worked on celluloid and used frames as canvases, as well as his choice to make the film without dialogue and sound, exhort the interpreter to directly question the philosophical language of moving images

Cinema documentario dell'eco-trauma. Le fabbriche dei veleni e i colori della morte al lavoro

Alcuni docufilm italiani degli anni 2000 incentrati sul tema della fabbrica, del lavoro e dell’impatto ambientale, come "Indistruttibile" di Michele Citoni (2004), "Il caso Acna" di Fulvio Montano (2005) e "Non si deve morire per vivere" di Daniele Gaglianone (2005), o i più recenti "Polvere" di Niccolò Bruna e Andrea Prandstraller (2011), "Bormida" di Alberto Momo (2018) e "La fabbrica del sogno" di Max Chicco (2020), rivolgono l’obiettivo sui disastri ecologici e i drammi umani causati da alcune aziende tristemente famose: l’Eternit di Casale Monferrato (Alessandria), l’ACNA di Cengio (Savona) e l’IPCA di Ciriè (Torino). Adottando la forma del documentario, questi film ritornano sui siti dismessi delle fabbriche muovendosi in tristi e lugubri scenari, luoghi della memoria di un passato irragionevole e distruttivo di industrializzazione selvaggia e spietata, che ha comportato altissimi costi umani e gravissimi danni ambientali. Ricorrendo alla tecnica della videointervista per raccogliere i ricordi dei sopravvissuti e offrire così allo spettatore una ricostruzione documentata e umanamente vissuta dei fatti, questi lavori mostrano come traumi umani ed ambientali possono venire rappresentati e testimoniati attraverso il mezzo filmico, che diviene efficace strumento di attivismo sociale e ambientalista. Il saggio svolge un'analisi dei casi di studio citati facendo ricorso alla prospettiva dei trauma studies e ai concetti di ecotrauma e di memoria storica, per riflettere su alcuni disastri ambientali che hanno interessato il nostro paese tra gli anni ’50 e gli anni ’90 del secolo scorso, a comporre una simbolica storia filmata dei colori delle fabbriche della morte, dal bianco della polvere di amianto dell’Eternit ai colori all’anilina dell’ACNA e dell’IPCA