A brutal humanism for the new millennium? The legacy of Neorealism in contemporary cinema of migration

Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 8 (1). pp. 61-77. https://doi.org/10.1386/jicms_00005_1 

Autor: Rachel Johnson, University of Leeds, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9408-4924  

Keywords: Neorealism; Fire at Sea; refugee crisis; film festivals; brutal humanism; gaze theory; neocolonialism; cinema of migration 

Abstract: This article proposes that the institutional construction of Italian cinema of migration in the new millennium may be conditioned by an enduring, implicit aspect of Neorealism’s legacy: a ‘brutal humanism’ which posits the witnessing of bodies in crisis as an ethical act. Supplementing Karl Schoonover’s (2012) theory of brutal humanism with Lacanian gaze theory, I argue that the Berlin International Film Festival’s synopsis of a recent cause célèbre of Italian cinema, Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) (Rosi, 2016), instantiates a ‘brutal vision’ directed towards the figure of the refugee, while the film text’s depiction of the ‘objective gaze’ of these characters challenges such relations of power and looking. The article underlines the importance of competitive European film festivals and paratexts in the international circulation and ideological construction of Italian cinema, while arguing that the film text itself can offer a site of resistance to the meanings that institutions ascribe to it.  

Idioma: Inglés 

Publicación: January 2020

Volumen: Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 8 (1). pp. 61-77. ISSN 2047-7368

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