Through a corpus of Italian films, main thematic and ideological trends of the audiovisual discourse on migrants will be identified. The differences between films before and after 2000 will be focused, starting from the first Italian film on these themes (Pummarò, 1990, by Michele Placido), up to the most recent film on the integration of second-generation migrants (Bangla, 2019, by Phaim Bhuiyan), passing through the rich recent wave of Italian documentaries (by Andrea Segre, Dagmavi Yimer, Gianfranco Rossi and others). Among the topics that will be studied in depth are: 1) the similarity, often established in films, between the role of the child and the role of the migrant; 2) the similarity between the role of marginalized or mentally ill people and the role of migrants; 3) the role of music as a factor of integration and multiculturalism; 4) the role of plurilingualism, strongly increased by recent films on migrants, which acts as an antidote to the standardization and to the flattening of linguistic varieties typical of the “dubbese” and of the Italian blockbuster films’s and television series’ language. Particular emphasis will be given to the language chosen by filmmakers to stage the migrant’s speech and the dialogue with migrants: which language do migrants speak in Italian films? Are they dubbed or subtitled? Do they speak their mother tongue, or Italian, or a vehicular language such as English, or mixed languages? Finally, we will emphasize that a substantial part of the linguistic and technological (in a word, socio-semiotic) innovations of (not only Italian) cinema of the last decade is due precisely to the change in gaze and perspective towards migrants. Examples of transition from passive role (i.e. of mere object of the film) to the active role (i.e. film’s authors and directors) in the realization of the filmic discourse demonstrate this statement. 1) Examples of docufictions such as La mia classe by Daniele Guaglianone (2012) and Fuocoammare by Granfranco Rosi (2016) show how the boundaries between genres and audiovisual techniques have been thwarted precisely by films on migrants. 2) Cases such as the documentary films by Andrea Segre, Daniele Vicari, Yimer and the case of the young author-director-actor Phaim Bhuiyan show how the current cinema has passed from discourse on the other to discourse on ourselves and from other-representation of foreigner to self-representation. 3) An event like Carne y arena, by Alejandro G. Inarritu (2017), leads us to reconsider, thanks to the discourse on migration, the function of cinema itself, the audiovisual language as a whole and the relationship between the viewer and the object of vision in the (new) semiotic and ideological world in which we are immersed today.

Come il linguaggio cinematografico (non soltanto italiano) si rinnova (e si fa plurilingue) parlando di migrazioni

Fabio Rossi
2020-01-01

Abstract

Through a corpus of Italian films, main thematic and ideological trends of the audiovisual discourse on migrants will be identified. The differences between films before and after 2000 will be focused, starting from the first Italian film on these themes (Pummarò, 1990, by Michele Placido), up to the most recent film on the integration of second-generation migrants (Bangla, 2019, by Phaim Bhuiyan), passing through the rich recent wave of Italian documentaries (by Andrea Segre, Dagmavi Yimer, Gianfranco Rossi and others). Among the topics that will be studied in depth are: 1) the similarity, often established in films, between the role of the child and the role of the migrant; 2) the similarity between the role of marginalized or mentally ill people and the role of migrants; 3) the role of music as a factor of integration and multiculturalism; 4) the role of plurilingualism, strongly increased by recent films on migrants, which acts as an antidote to the standardization and to the flattening of linguistic varieties typical of the “dubbese” and of the Italian blockbuster films’s and television series’ language. Particular emphasis will be given to the language chosen by filmmakers to stage the migrant’s speech and the dialogue with migrants: which language do migrants speak in Italian films? Are they dubbed or subtitled? Do they speak their mother tongue, or Italian, or a vehicular language such as English, or mixed languages? Finally, we will emphasize that a substantial part of the linguistic and technological (in a word, socio-semiotic) innovations of (not only Italian) cinema of the last decade is due precisely to the change in gaze and perspective towards migrants. Examples of transition from passive role (i.e. of mere object of the film) to the active role (i.e. film’s authors and directors) in the realization of the filmic discourse demonstrate this statement. 1) Examples of docufictions such as La mia classe by Daniele Guaglianone (2012) and Fuocoammare by Granfranco Rosi (2016) show how the boundaries between genres and audiovisual techniques have been thwarted precisely by films on migrants. 2) Cases such as the documentary films by Andrea Segre, Daniele Vicari, Yimer and the case of the young author-director-actor Phaim Bhuiyan show how the current cinema has passed from discourse on the other to discourse on ourselves and from other-representation of foreigner to self-representation. 3) An event like Carne y arena, by Alejandro G. Inarritu (2017), leads us to reconsider, thanks to the discourse on migration, the function of cinema itself, the audiovisual language as a whole and the relationship between the viewer and the object of vision in the (new) semiotic and ideological world in which we are immersed today.
2020
9783631812891
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11570/3176538
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