Italian Women Filmmakers and the Gendered Screen

Maristella Cantini

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781137336514
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film History & Criticism

Featuring essays by top scholars and interviews with acclaimed directors, this book examines Italian women's authorship in film and their visions of reality. The contributors use feminist film criticism in the analysis of their works and give direct voices to the artists who are constantly excluded by the conventional Italian film criticism.

Part I

1

Napoli Terra d’Amore

The Eye on the Screen of Elvira Notari

Chiara Ricci

I won’t say another word about the beauties of the city and its situation, which have been described and praised often. As they say here, “Vedi Napoli e poi muori!—See Naples and die!” One can’t blame the Neapolitan for never wanting to leave his city, nor its poets singing its praises in loft hyperboles: it would be wonderful even if a few more Vesuviuses were to rise in the neighbourhood.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe¹

Naples is a paradise; everyone lives in a state of intoxicated self-forgetfulness, myself included. I seem to be a completely different person whom I hardly recognise. Yesterday I thought to myself:

Either you were mad before, or you are mad now.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Introduction

When talking about women in the history of cinema, it is a must to remember the first Italian woman filmmaker—Elvira Notari.² In order to understand how groundbreaking her work is, we have to take a look at the historical time frame and the social context in which this artist lived and created her peculiar filming and directing style.³

Naples experienced winds of change, cultural revolutions, and transformations in everyday life in the period between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. In fact, this period—thanks to industrial and technological innovations, to the discovery of the world with its “new” places, cultures, and colors, to people’s interest in fashion, and styles available in shops—was characterized by a new people’s consciousness (Bruno 1995: 69–70). Each individual began to think of himself (or herself) as a member of a crowd and, above all, as a human being with his (or her) own ideas and points of view. But in such an atmosphere, the lines between crowd and individual, between freedom and loneliness became blurred (Simmel 2009: 414). As Georg Simmel⁴ wrote: “Indeed, if I do not receive myself, the inner aspect of this outer reserve is not only indifference but, more often than we are aware, it is a slight aversion, a mutual strangeness and repulsion, which will closer contact, however caused.” But he goes on to say that the metropolis “grants to the individual a kind of and an amount of personal freedom which has no analogy whatsoever under other conditions. The metropolis goes back to one of the large developmental tendencies for which an approximately universal formula can be discovered.”

The Cinema Becomes in the Galleria

This new cultural atmosphere and way of thinking gained momentum in 1897 when the first cinema (and it is the first of a very long list) was run at the Galleria Umberto I (opened on November 10, 1892): the Sala Recanati managed by Mario Recanati, a prestigious businessman of this period (Bruno 1995: 57). This made the Galleria the beating heart of the town: here we could find rich and poor people, workers, those whose curiosity was aroused, the strascinafacende⁵ (61), a sort of vitelloni.⁶

The regulars in the Galleria were sure to know everybody else. Here people could meet others and share—involuntarily—pieces of their life and their free time. So the Galleria became a sort of theater where one could play the role assigned to him (or her) by life and society. But here people talked about the cinema, too. Films were projected, and the public—everyday more numerous thanks to the unusual, dark atmosphere of the movie theater—began to create its own opinions, ideas, and thoughts about what was showed and what it wanted to watch on screen.

The public accepts a movie with enthusiasm. And importantly, it reacts strongly to a film. For example, when ‘A Legge was screened (projected continually from early morning to late night; Trivelli 1998: 47), the police were called in to help maintain order as people resorted to fighting and arguing (Bruno 1995: 184).

But the most important thing is that women and men share a common interest. In fact, they love cinema even if they are separated by their own viewpoints: men are interested in the women they see on screen (they really desire them) while women seem to be more interested in the story, the plot, and in the deeper emotional aspect of the film.

Obviously, this new “habit” was both criticized and appreciated. There were the moralists who could not tolerate the cinema: most of them were fervent Catholics and exponents of the higher middle class. They were of the (mistaken) opinion that a woman goes to the cinema with the intention of arousing desire in the male audience and to receive pleasure, both physical and visual, by being excited by the dark of the movie theater. So the woman who frequented the movies was considered a sinful object of desire and declared an adulterer. But there were people who noticed in this habit a positive implication: most of them were democratic intellectuals and neither sexist nor demure. They believed that being able to go to the cinema was a victory for feminism, and that it could become a precious source of learning and discovery, above all, for those women who had not had the benefit of an education; sadly, such women formed the majority during this period. The woman who went to the cinema played—more or less consciously—two roles: she was desired by the male look, which crossed the border going into voyeurism; but she was a subject who wanted to please (in the wider meaning of the word), to learn, to understand, and—easily—to be free from the questioning aspect of the same look (Alovisio 2008: 275–276).

But the success of this innovation and of its ability to make both mind and fantasy travel, thereby moving them away from thoughts of daily difficulties and problems, without any physical or material movement, immediately became a subject for study. The record for even this belongs to a woman: in 1898, Anna Gentile Vertua wrote and published a text titled Cinematografo⁷ (Mazzei 2008: 260).

Cinema and Naples

The myth of the cinema had to reach a town like Naples, which derived its name from a mythological tale. Naples was named after a mermaid called Partenope who killed herself because Ulysses refused her love. Then the mermaid’s body was moved to the Tyrrhenian Coast and was picked up by the inhabitants of the place who, in a tribute to her, called their town Partenope.

And it is on the trail of this magical and mythical atmosphere that the cinema came to Naples on April 4, 1896⁸: this is when the first cinematographic projection was conducted (Bruno 1995: 49).

Soon afterward, several movie theaters came up. At the beginning they were considered the same as café-chantant shows in which play actors, singers, conjurers (just like Leopoldo Fregoli, Lina Cavalieri, Eduardo Scarpetta, and Raffaele Viviani), and enchantress sciantose⁹ participate.

The cinema became the trend of the moment. It became a means to communicate, a way of life, and with each passing day it grew in importance in the everyday life of the public. All of this was possible thanks to the birth and to the diffusion of a new phenomenon called “stardom” with the rise of stars like Francesca Bertini, Leda Gys, Rodolfo Valentino, Lyda Borelli, and many others. The public was fascinated by these stars and people began to imitate their tastes, styles, dresses, and make-up. The stars became idols for the public. Hence, the movie theaters were always crowded and sometimes there were problems caused by the public who were desperate to enter the theater and watch the film.

This period also saw the birth of the first film companies who made Naples—with Rome and Turin—the diamond-point of the national production. Also, most of them celebrate their own city by their names: “Napoli Film,” “Partenope Film,” “Vesuvio Film,” and many others (Masi and Mario 1988: 30–33).

Elvira Notari

In this fervent context lies the development of the individual, intellectual, cinematographic, and entrepreneurial personality of Elvira Notari. In spite of this she cannot be labeled a “feminist” because she remains faithful to her roots and to the ideal of the family so important, above all, in the south of Italy. Surely she can be considered as one of the most modern and most cultured women of her time. She is one of the first working girls of the twentieth century and manages to structure her family with a matriarchal hierarchy without upsetting the traditional family with its rules and values.

Notari was very sensitive to life and to the intellectual environment of her era. She was friends with most of the important writers of her time, and they helped her find and write stories and screenplays: Carolina Invernizio,¹⁰ Salvatore Di Giacomo,¹¹ Sibilla Aleramo,¹² Francesco Mastriani,¹³ and Libero Bovio.¹⁴ Instead, another speech deserves Notari’s relationship with Matilde Serao¹⁵ who always refuses to make over the royalties of her works. Serao did not want to see her words become images by Elvira Notari as she did not think Notari was a good filmmaker (Annunziata 2008: 250–251).

But what is important is the fact that Elvira Notari, first and foremost, before being a director, an editor, a screenwriter, and a businesswoman, is a woman. This is the point from which we have to start if we want to understand her art, her rigors, and her opera.

The Dora Film

The family comprised Nicola Notari, Elvira Coda, who became a Notari on marriage, and their children Eduardo, Dora, and Maria.

The family company began its activity in 1909 but it did not have its own studio. So the Notaris began to shoot their scenes on the sets of “Vesuvio Film,” whose owner was Gennaro Righelli¹⁶ (Bruno 1995: 348). Until the film company closed in 1930, all the family members (with the exception of Maria who did not take part in this cinematographic project) collaborated actively to make their business competitive on the national and international markets. Nicola was the cameraman, set photographer, art director, and editor; Elvira was the director, screenwriter, and editor; Eduardo, alias Gennariello, was one of the protagonists in most of Elvira’s films; Dora, even if her name never appeared on the screen, helped her parents during the painting of the frames and while editing and the company name, which was Film Dora in 1909, then Films Dora, and, since 1915, Dora Film, was definitely a tribute to her (Bruno 1995: 95).

This adventure began when Nicola came back from the war and had to find a well-paid job. He was a good painter and so he began painting. He hoped to sell at least one of his works, but fate had other plans for him. He decided to start painting photographs in many laboratories in his town. He had so much work that he needed the help of his sister Olga, and then Elvira after their wedding on August 25, 1902 (94).

It is but a short step from photography to cinema. Soon the Troncone brothers¹⁷ and Menotti Cattaneo¹⁸ decided to give Nicola the chance to paint for their films.

Elvira and Nicola thus became familiar with the world of cinema and decided to found their own film company in Naples, in Via Roma 91¹⁹ (Bruno 1995: 348). Here the patriarchal mold was totally replaced by a matriarchal one under the supervision of Elvira Notari without creating any problems at home. Their relationship remained clean, honest, and true.

The Production

Films Dora began producing shorts between 1906 and 1911 and called them Augurali and Arrivederci (Troianelli 1989: 83; Bruno 1995: 99–100). These shorts opened and closed the shows but, unfortunately, all of them are lost.

In the first case we are talking about a sort of a wish that the cinema-owner gave to his public in order to make them happy and satisfied by the show and to emphasize that they were an important instrument, for Films Dora, to publicize its work. In the second case, instead, we have shorts showed at the end of the film and they had to say goodbye to the public before they left the movie theater and also invite them to the next show.

Dora Films, between 1902 and 1912, produced and realized documentaries too but they are lost.

Elvira used shorts from real life and Nicola worked as cameraman: what was most important was portraying reality and truth the way it appeared to the naked eye and this was the trademark of the entire Notari range of work.

Eduardo (son of Elvira and Nicola) had this to say about the way the Notaris worked:

I suoi nemici la chiamavano il carabiniere, ma mia madre era capace di dolcezze e generosità squisite. Si sa come si dice a Napoli: che la donna è il capo della casa e che lei fa la fortuna o la disgrazia del suo uomo . . . Mia madre fu una donna eccezionale e fece la fortuna e la felicità di mio padre e di noi tutti. I nostri film erano fatti in famiglia. Mia madre li scriveva e li metteva in scena, mio padre faceva le scenografie e filmava gli attori, che erano anche loro una sola famiglia poiché avevamo anche una scuola di ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• Part I
• Part II
• Notes on Contributors
• Index