Poetika objektivnosti Cesarea Zavattinija

Cesare Zavattini was an acclaimed neorealist screenwriter and a theorist of neorealism. He has played a pivotal role in the critical rethinking of the new postwar Italian cinema although many of his concepts were considered avant-garde for that period. He stood for a direct, spontaneous, and immediate cinema with real people and real events. Despite his desire to eliminate all that was fictional from his films, Zavattini’s concept of new realist cinema cannot simply be described as a documentary approach. He was not so much interested in making documentary films but in making documentary-like fictions. He believed in the potential of cinema to reach a wide audience and in its capacity to be aesthetically subversive. The aspiration for an avant-garde cinema that would reach the masses was a naïve attempt that was too radical for the Italian cinema at the time. Most of his ideas were not accepted in Italy, but he was admired by young filmmakers all over the world. Some of his ideas were realized a few decades later in the works of the famous cinéma vérité and independent avant-garde filmmakers. Throughout his career, Zavattini argued that cinema should be socially committed art. He believed that neorealist films should direct the viewer’s gaze toward specific social issues and voice a subjective judgment on it. In neorealist films, fictional style and documentary rhetoric make the illusion that the experience of characters stands for the experience of the audience.Cesare Zavattini bio je poznati neorealistički scenarist i teoretičar neorealizma. Imao je ključnu ulogu u kritičkom promišljanju novog poslijeratnog talijanskog filma premda su većinu njegovih ideja smatrali avangardnima za to vrijeme. Zalagao se za direktan, spontan i neposredan film sa stvarnim ljudima i stvarnim događajima. Usprkos želji da eliminira sve što je fikcionalno iz svojih filmova, Zavattinijev koncept novog neorealističkog filma ne može se jednostavno svesti pod formulu dokumentarca. On nije bio toliko zainteresiran za snimanje dokumentaraca koliko za snimanje doku-fikcije. Vjerovao je da film može doprijeti do široke publike, ali i da ima mogućnost da bude estetski subverzivan. Ideja o avangardnom filmu koji može doprijeti do mase bio je naivan pokušaj koji je bio preradikalan za talijanski film tog vremena. Većina njegovih ideja nije bila prihvaćena u Italiji, ali bio je uzor mladim sineastima diljem svijeta. Neke od njegovih ideja realizirat će se nekoliko desetljeća kasnije u filmovima poznatih cinéma vérité i nezavisnih avangardnih redatelja. Cijelu svoju karijeru Zavattini je tvrdio da film mora biti društveno angažirana umjetnost. Vjerovao je da neorealistički filmovi trebaju usmjeriti pogled gledatelja na određene društvene probleme i iznijeti subjektivan stav o njima. U neorealističkim filmovima fikcija i dokumentaristička retorika stvaraju iluziju da iskustvo likova predstavlja iskustvo publike

Il Mezzogiorno nella storia, cultura e nel cinema italiano

The Italian South has been represented through the stereotypes of violence, economic underdevelopment, age-old traditions, isolation and poverty. Over the decades cinema has played a pivotal role in creating and promoting an exotic image of the South. The notion of the domestic Other coming from the Italian South, is still discussed in Italian politics, sociology, cinema and media. However, neo-colonial representation of the South has changed in the last two decades; new, young and local filmmakers have started addressing present socio-political situation in Southern regions from a different perspective. The essay explores how and why the forceful rhetoric of North versus South has taken hold in Italy and how the notion of margin or cultural border, as the South is usually referred to, has been created and perpetuated in politics, anthropology, literature and cinema. The article is divided in three parts: the first part is a historical overview of discursive mechanisms used in politics, history and anthropology; the second part presents the most prominent post-war documentaries on the South inspired by the research of the Italian ethnologist Ernesto De Martino; the third part focuses on the representation of the Italian South in Italian feature films from the 1950s up to the present day. Through the analysis of the selected films the author outlines the main tendencies in the representation of the South on screen.Il Mezzogiorno è stato spesso rappresentato in maniera riduttiva e stereotipata tramite immagini di violenza, sottosviluppo, tradizioni arcaiche, isolamento e povertà. Per decenni il cinema ha promosso un’immagine esotica del Mezzogiorno. La nozione del Mezzogiorno come l’Altro è tuttora presente nella politica, sociologia, cinema e nei mass media. Negli ultimi due decenni, grazie a una nuova generazione di cineasti meridionali, il modello di rappresentazione neocoloniale della situazione socio-politica nel Mezzogiorno è stato sostituito dalle forme narrative innovative e da diversi punti di vista. Il presente lavoro analizza le origini del rapporto conflittuale tra il Nord e il Sud e del concetto della frontiera culturale nella politica, antropologia, letteratura e cinema. L’articolo è diviso in tre parti: nella prima parte sono rappresentate le strategie discorsive presenti nella politica, storia e antropologia; nella seconda parte sono analizzati i più importanti documentari del secondo dopoguerra ispirati alle ricerche dell’etnologo Ernesto De Martino; nella terza parte, invece, sono analizzati i film di finzione dagli anni ’50 fino ai giorni nostri. Attraverso le analisi delle opere cinematografiche sono indicate le principali tendenze nella rappresentazione del Mezzogiorno nel cinema italiano

Magic and Religion in the Works of Ernesto De Martino. Syncretism of Paganism and Catholicism in Religious Practices of Southern Italy

Ernesto De Martino jedan je od najznačajnijih talijanskih etnologa koji je istraživao utjecaj katoličanstva na poganske obrede u pokrajinama na jugu Italije. Zbog njegovog kritičkog odnosa prema eurocentričnim kategorijama uvriježenim u poslijeratnoj europskoj antropologiji, smatraju ga pionirom moderne talijanske antropologije. Najpoznatiji je po istraživanju tarantizma – glazbeno-plesnog obreda koji se često prakticirao na jugu Italije nakon Drugoga svjetskog rata. Osim istraživanja talijanskih magijskih fenomena, De Martino se bavio odnosom religije i magije u modernom svijetu te utjecajem katoličanstva na narodnu vjersku tradiciju. U kasnijim djelima, pod utjecajem Antonija Gramscija, sve više se počinje baviti subverzivnom ulogom poganskih obreda u odnosu na hegemonijsku kulturu.One of the most prominent Italian anthropologists Ernesto De Martino became known internationally owing primarily to his study of the “magical” phenomena in southern Italy such as mourning rituals, trance, possession, and tarantism. The aim of this article is to give an overview of De Martino’s ideas and to contextualize his assertions in a wider context that goes beyond the borders of Italian cultural anthropology. The originality of his thought and his relativistic perspective places him in the same line with post-modern and post-colonial anthropologists. De Martino’s “critical ethnocentrism” was aimed at deconstructing the Eurocentric hierarchy of judging non-European societies. Firm rejection of the wellestablished ethnocentric assumptions was the result of De Martino’s awareness of historically and culturally determined use of values and criteria of judgment. Rather than simply rejecting Western values within the context of the anthropological discipline, De Martino stood for a more critical use, including questioning the respective symbolic structures and confronting them with different cultural categories. The act of shedding the light over historical and cultural background, in which categories and values are embedded, enables the anthropologist to cope with the limits of his own system. Throughout his scientific carrier De Martino was fascinated by the irrational. In his concept of culture, magic was endowed a very important existential function. He wrote extensively on magic and popular religion. His first book, Il mondo magico (Magic World, 1948), was De Martino’s first attempt to deal with the irrational in the wider context of world ethnology. Unlike his later works, De Martino’s assumptions on magic in this study were based on fieldwork accounts of other international ethnologists and the thoughts of respectable philosophers such as Croce, Hegel, Heidegger, and Kant. Popular religion in southern Italy is the central topic of three subsequent volumes: Morte e pianto rituale (Death and Mourning Rituals, 1958), Sud e magia (South and Magic, 1959), and La terra del rimorso: contributo a una storia religiosa del Sud (The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism, 1961). The key concept present in all his writings is the so called “crisis of the presence”; that is the possibility to maintain or preserve the self in the face of everyday changes. In pre-industrial societies, everyday hardships and natural circumstances rendered life very difficult and the individual was in constant threat of losing his or her “presence” – his ability to act in the present. When the “presence” is jeopardized, magic is used to consolidate it. In pre-industrial societies, magic as an imaginary symbolical system, was the only permissible cultural institution allowed in such situations. Ernesto De Martino’s work on magic, popular culture, pagan practices and rituals has been extremely important for the development of modern anthropology. Although, most of his fieldwork was related to magical phenomena in southern Italy, his general assumptions on magic and religion make his work universal

Challenges of Documentary in the Age of New Media

Pojava digitalnih tehnologija u filmu promijenila je postojeće modele produkcije, distribucije i recepcije. Neki teoretičari gledaju na digitalnu tehnologiju kao prijetnju indeksnom fotografskom realizmu te vjeruju da se ta ista karakteristika zanemaruje ili čak potpuno gubi kod digitalne slike. Dokumentaristi brzo prihvaćaju nove medije i tehnološke promjene, kako kroz povijest tako i danas, jer im otvaraju veće mogućnosti u procesu stvaranja filma, ali omogućuju i veći angažman korisnika odnosno gledatelja. Novomedijski dokumentarni film nastaje isprepletanjem različitih medija i novih tehnologija, ali to nužno ne pretpostavlja da je dokumentarac u krizi, dok je korištenje digitalnih tehnologija manje radikalno i prijeteće za prirodu filma, nego što se to u početku činilo.The arrival of the digital technology in the documentary has changed the existing modes of production, distribution and reception. Some film scholars see the digital as a threat to indexically-­based photographic realism and believe that this feature is neglected or lost in the digital image. New media and technological changes have always been quickly embraced by documentary filmmakers from the early days till today since they provide more possibilities in filmmaking and also invite the users (viewers) to be more active. New media documentary comes out as a result of the interplay of different media and new technologies, but that does not necessarily lead to the crisis of representation, and the use of digital technologies is less radical and threatening to the nature of cinema than it was first voiced in scholarship

Rethinking the traditional in ethnographic film. Representation, Ethics and Indigeneity

Film je bio značajan instrument kolonijalne proizvodnje etnografskog Drugog. Predodžbe stvaraju koncepte te otjelovljuju kulturne koncepte. One provode simboličke oblike moći. Etnografski film nije samo reprezentacija stvarnosti, već i konstrukcija i interpretacija neke druge stvarnosti na temelju konvencija redateljeve kulture. Tako smo suočeni s pitanjem je li kulturno znanje moguće predstaviti “drugačije”; drugim riječima, je li moguće propitati povijesno, kulturno, politički i ideološki uvjetovane hijerarhije kolonijalne kulture? Otjelovljuju li predodžbe kulturno znanje, kako to tvrde Sol Worth i John Adair (1972, 1981)? Čije znanje predstavljaju? Kakvu vrijednost imaju predodžbe u zapadnjačkoj kulturi u usporedbi s nezapadnim svijetom? “Viktimiziraju” li slike nužno Drugoga (Ruby 1991; Kuehnast 1992; Hall 1993)? U sklopu teorije etnografskog filma kontinuirano se raspravlja o pitanjima objektivnosti, subjektivnosti, realizma te o etičkim pitanjima reprezentacije. Posljednjih godina autori etnografskih filmova traže rješenja, a novi pristupi režiranju dokumentaraca daju neke odgovore na ta pitanja.Cinema has been an important instrument in the colonialist production of the ethnographic Other. Images create concepts as well as embody cultural concepts. They enact symbolic forms of power. Ethnographic film is not only a representation of reality but also a construction and an interpretation of another reality based on cultural conventions from the filmmaker’s culture. THerefore we are challenged to discuss whether it is possible to present cultural knowledge “differently”; that is, to question historically, culturally, politically and ideologically bound hierarchies implicit in colonial culture? Do images embody cultural knowledge as Sol Worth and John Adair (1972, 1981) claimed? Whose knowledge do they present? What values images have in Western cultures as opposed to non- Western worlds? Do images necessarily “victimize” the Other (Ruby 1991; Kuehnast 1992; Hall 1993)? Ethnographic film theory has been an ongoing discussion of issues of objectivity, subjectivity, realism, and ethical questions of representation. In recent years ethnographic filmmakers have looked for solutions, and new approaches to documentary filmmaking have provided some answers to these questions

Trauma and Memory in Post-Yugoslav Cinema

The article discusses cinematic representations of memory and trauma in post-Yugoslav documentary and feature films that depict political and social reality in the post-socialist period. Through different modes of representation, from retrospective and testimonial to self-reflexive, post-Yugoslav films address important issues related to recent violent past. Since 1990s coming to terms with the past has been a central topic in public discourses and the complex and powerful role of memory in the formation of national identities has become a common topic in almost all artistic and cultural practices. Memory has become increasingly important in the construction of both individual and collective identity. As such, it has also become a site of struggle and identification. Contemporary post-Yugoslav filmmakers courageously tackle various issues related to collective memory, offering their point of view concerning events and personalities from Yugoslav history and the impact they have had on contemporary society. Younger generation filmmakers do not seek to perpetuate the nationalist discourse on war that marked the film production in the first post-socialist decade. The approach to recent history in their movies is more self-critical; the filmmakers reject self-victimization and self-exoticization and focus more on war-related guilt and embarrassment for the crimes committed by all belligerent sides

Stomatal Conductance Modeling to Estimate the Evapotranspiration of Natural and Agricultural Ecosystems

This chapter presents some of the available modelling techniques to predict stomatal conductance at leaf and canopy level, the key driver of the transpiration component in the evapotranspiration process of vegetated surfaces. The process-based models reported, are able to predict fast variations of stomatal conductance and the related transpiration and evapotranspiration rates, e.g. at hourly scale. This high–time resolution is essential for applications which couple the transpiration process with carbon assimilation or air pollutants uptake by plants. In these cases, the big-leaf approach, together with the resistive analogy which simulates the gas-exchange between vegetation and atmosphere, is a simple but valid example of a process-based model which includes the stomatal conductance behaviour, as well as a basic representation of the canopy features