Articles by: Letizia Airos soria

The Auditorium of the Graduate Center at CUNY was overflowing with people few days ago for the screening of Gianfranco Norelli's “Pane Amaro.”  A production of RAI (the Italian public television), the film captures the attention and gazes of at least three generations of Italian Americans present at the screening. 

With great documentary precision, the film conjures up salient and often dramatic moments of the Italian/American saga from 1880 until the end of the Second World War. A vast and intense arch of history is carefully organized into a two hour projection presenting rare historical photographs and film segments commented on by experts.

Thanks to his expertise as a reporter, Norelli embarks on a path of ‘dry’ narration, not allowing himself to surrender to sentimentalism and futile rhetoric. He shoots straight with images, film segments and carefully selected and organized testimonials.  The result is a contribution dense with moments of reflection as well as information. One may even sense the eagerness of the director to gather as many elements as possible, fully aware of the fact that he is recounting a little known history, which is especially true for the Italian viewing audience.

The Italian/American odyssey, in fact, is still relatively unexplored in Italy – and a vast cultural gap has been created in the past decades between Italians and Italian Americans. True, the same rift is oftentimes found here in the States, due to the difficulty today’s Italian sAmericans encounter when looking back upon their very roots. 
 

But during the screening on this side of the pond, the first questions that came to my mind regarded the Italians in Italy. How many Italians are aware that, between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the First World War, the victims of the largest mass lynching in United States history were in fact Italians? How many know that in the late 18th century, Italian immigrants ‘replaced’ (for lack of a better word) the emancipated black slaves on the southern plantations and were considered to be a sort of half-breed of people – neither white nor black? Are Italians conscious of the anti-Italian racism that had become widespread amongst the American newspaper columnists during the mass migration period? That inhuman and uncontrollable horde… And how many know about the plight of the Italian immigrant workers, their strikes and struggles, the rise of anarchism, and the complex undertakings of trade-unions amongst Italian men and, significantly, women? Furthermore, what is known about the Italians who were interned during the Second World War, declared by the U.S. government to be enemy aliens?      

These are important questions in themselves, but they become even more relevant when one thinks of today’s new waves of immigration – both to America and to Italy. It’s crucial to be aware of the migratory experience that affected so many Italian families during the past century, and this story needs to be told today as new migratory influxes intertwine themselves with the country of immigration, and now Italy too has become a crucial destination for immigrants.      

In the film scholars Nunzio Pernicone, Fred Gardaphè, Gerald Meyer, Mary Ann Trasciatti, and Peter Vellon comment on a century and a half of history, following a string of historical episodes. The lynchings, the Triangle Fire tragedy in which 150 workers lost their lives, the assassinations attempts carried out by the anarchists, the Sacco and Vanzetti saga, the Second World War internment camps, the poor living conditions, religion, language, and the quest to Americanize are only but a few of the many topics that are addressed in the documentary. Fiorello La Guardia, Vito Marcantonio, Carlo Tresca, Generoso Pope, and Leonard Covello are among the many names mentioned.

But “Pane Amaro” goes beyond the historic period it recounts. It’s an invitation to understanding for Italians, Italian Americans, and Americans. There was great attention from the audience at the screening and in certain moments there was even a sense of commotion. The high price Italians had to pay to integrate was clearly evident in comments and reflections expressed during the open discussion that developed after the film. And the fact that most of the Italian Americans present only spoke English did have a symbolic meaning. As Norelli recounts in his film, first came the fear to speak their grandparent’s dialects, then the “obligation/order” to speak only American so as not to be recognized as ‘enemies,’ then complete loss of contact with Italy. The renewed interest and the search for their family’s roots is a recent phenomenon for Italian Americans. 
Many in the audience took the microphones in their hands to speak and introduced themselves by first and last name, second generation. First and last name, third generation… Today they rediscover the potential of their language looking at the Italian culture with great curiosity.

In 1978 writer Pietro di Donato in his Christ in Concrete, predicted a ‘renaissance’ for Italian-American writers. “Our time is now. I see it because we are no longer figli di muratori (children of construction workers); you go to school  and you are children with brains.” His words, together with Gianfranco Norelli’s film, help us reflect thirthy years later.

Further readings:

Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno (ed), Are Italians White?: How Race is Made in America, Routledge, 2003.

Thomas A. Guglielmo, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945, Oxford University Press, 2003.

Jerre Mangione and Ben Morrale, La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience, Harper Collins, 1992.

 (Translated by Robert Cavanna)

Non sono passi felpati quelli che utilizza il regista Alex Halpern nel raccontare sua nonna.  Entra nella vita della centenaria italo/americana Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavalieri quasi con clamore. Con quell’affettuosa irriverenza che solo un nipote “discolo” può permettersi e che è la ragione intima del rapporto felice che spesso intercorre tra due generazioni, così lontane e al tempo stesso cosi vicine.

E il percorso che compie il giovane regista ha un’intensità che travalica la storia personale della sua famiglia, pone diversi interrogativi sul rapporto con le nostre radici e sulla figura femminile nel contesto italo/americano e non. Halpern ha l’abilità di portare sullo schermo la storia di una donna forte, indipendente, a modo suo cardine di una  famiglia, viva presenza e punto di riferimento, così lontana da alcuni stereotipi femminili ma al tempo stesso così integra nel tramandare elementi di un passato che non c’è più.

Ed il suo racconto della storia di Mary viene documentato da filmati, fotografie, tratti da un prodigioso archivio di famiglia, che ritraggono momenti importanti di emigrati negli Usa e non solo. Di una famiglia come tante. Da Stromboli a New York, a Brooklyn. Con gioie, dolori, sogni, illusioni.

Ma perchè il regista ha deciso di realizzare un film?

“Ho inziato il viaggio nella vita di mia nonna a 18 anni, quando ho visto le foto di famiglia, i filmati realizzati da mio padre,” racconta il regista “poi nel corso di un viaggio a Stromboli, isola d’origine, a Mary viene predetto da una zingara che sarebbe morta novantasei anni…”.  Nasce così, sul filo di una superstizione, un documentario.  Nipote e  nonna cominciano un’avventura. Increduli a loro volta realizzano scena su scena.  Magicamente cresce un film di grande valore umano e artistico e la vita della signora Mary va ben al di là della realizzazione del lungometraggio e dei novantasei anni.


La ritrae nella routine di tutti i giorni, in quei particolari che spesso i nipoti spiano dalla soglia di una porta, cogliendo gli elementi più irriverenti delle abitudini dei vecchi che amano.  Vediamo Maria nel bagno, in cucina, mentre si mette la sua dentiera, orgogliosa di avere ancora dei denti. Cogliamo la sua vanità, così dolce da far sorridere. La vediamo con tutta la sua grinta, la sua sua saggezza bambina, la sua intensa personalità.

Spiamo gesti che sono nella vita di tutti i giorni e che molti, che vivono affianco a delle persone anziane, conoscono. Questi gesti qui assumono un valore emblematico grazie all’autoironia della protagonista. Diventano un insegnamento. Ci accorgiamo della grande energia e del grande segreto di Maria: saper sdrammatizzare partendo proprio da se stessa.

Intorno a lei ruota la sua famiglia che percorre decenni di storia. Il regista affronta anche gli aspetti più controversi del suo heritage come membro femminile di un nucleo di emigranti. Ed i segreti vengono snocciolati piano piano, con la forza della loro irriverente verità.  Si raccontano relazioni exraconiugali, amori 'Illeciti", conflitti familiari, litigi, lutti. Si sentono o intravedono nelle voci di altri membri della sua famiglia e amici, si colgono negli occhi intensi, ma semichiusi dagli anni, della vecchia Mary. Il ritratto che ne esce di Mary è molto particolare. Non è certo una madre tradizionale  (per esempio quando la figlia le rivela una storia d’amore giovanile avuta con lo scrittore Jack Kerouac) , nè una moglie classica, con sua sorella ha una relazione molto difficile  (il rifiuto di incontrarla fino alla fine è emblematico). Sono diversi i problemi che escono fuori nel film, vicende e tristezze che si vivono spesso nelle famiglie, scontri interni difficili da rivelare e da ammettere.

Ma Mary ha un’energia che attraversa tutto, grazie sempre alla sua schietta ironia. Per nulla indispettita dalle domande intriganti del nipote rivela anche: perchè no si può provare un orgasmo anche alla mia età!                

Mary Mirabito Livornese Cavalieri ha vissuto una vita intensa. Dopo la morte del primo marito si risposa con un antico spasimante che non vedeva da quaranta anni e che era poco gradito al marito. Ascolta vecchi dischi di vinile e ricorda come sognava di diventare cantante. Sono diversi i momenti che rimangono impressi dopo aver visto il film. A Mary piace prendersi in giro, ridere. Porta con se quella saggezza fatta di esperienza, quel guardare la realtà attraverso gli occhi distaccati di chi sa vivere.

“Per me era depositaria di più di cento anni di segreti familiari” racconta il nipote-regista in una breve intervista con Edwige Giunta (New Jersey City Univesity) alla fine della proiezione. Era rimasto affascinato quando aveva 18 anni dal suo archivio, dai suoi oggetti, dalle foto, dalle lettere che facevano parte della storia intima ma anche pubblica di una donna che era seconda di tredici figli di una famiglia siciliana immigrata in America.

 

“Per me era importante vederla nella sua totalità, ci sono parti intime nel film, ma la responsabilità come regista era dire la verità nel miglior modo possibile” dice Alex Halpern, mentre descrive il suo percorso delicato, ma al tempo stesso necessariamente invadente, per carpire i segreti della sua famiglia.

“Sapevo che lei era un soggetto per un film: matriarca, nonna, madre, moglie, amante e figlia, nonna.” E noi abbiamo visto il suo candore ed il coraggio, la sua irriverenza, il suo forse inconscio conflitto con i tradizionali ruoli spesso assegnati alle donne di prima generazone italo/americana.

Mentre risponde alla Giunta cogliamo negli occhi del regista il velo di una tristezza serena. Sua nonna Mary è venuta a mancare solo tre settimane fa, a 108 anni. “E’ la prima volta che vedo il film dopo la sua morte” confessa commosso.

E fra l’altro dice: “Raccontando la sua storia mi sono reso conto che i nostri eroi sono persone ordinarie”.  Ha narrato la storia della propria nonna. Una nonna speciale, ma speciale proprio perché come altre donne che non sono state raccontate. Il suo documentario ha un grande valore per questo motivo oltre ad essere artisticamente molto interessante.

Sua nonna ha vissuto una storia intensa e Halpern ha saputo sapientemente intrecciarla nel film con altre testimonianze, superando il banale passaggio generazionale. Ha fatto conoscere Mary, smitizzando con la realtà scena dopo scena. Ulizzando più voci è riuscito ad esaltarne la personalità e a far riflettere anche su alcuni luoghi comuni.

"Nana" Mary Mirabito LIvornese Cavaliere   (1899 - 2008)

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Nine Good Teeth, di Alex Halpern è stato presentato lo scorso mercoledì presso la Graduate School of Journalism della City University di New York nel corso del programma  “Documented Italians” Film and Video Series, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute del Queens College, CUNY


 

The auditorium of the Centro Primo Levi is packed. The entire audience is moved, emotional, reflective, and at times incredulous.


“You who live securely in your warm homes, when you return in the evening find hot food and friends, consider that if this is a man…,” these lines by Primo Levi along with others by the author, stick in my mind throughout the evening.


January 27, 2008. The screening of the film L’isola delle rose: La tragedia di un paradiso (Island of Roses: The Tragedy of a Paradise) written and directed by Rebecca Samonà was accompanied by a brief but intense interview by journalist Andrea Fiano with Stella Levi, a former resident of Rhodes who survived Auschwitz. The film reconstructs the annihilation of the Jews of Rhodes who were deported after September 8, 1938. The events come to life through the first-hand account of someone who lived them.


Before the interview, we watch 52 intense minutes of a story that is not often found in history books: the details of daily life interrupted. The true force of the documentary lies in its narration of everyday life which is completely wiped out in a short time. Over the course of the screening a silent invitation becomes a responsibility: to reflect on our own daily lives, especially on our seemingly insignificant actions.


Rebecca Samonà’s work is important for this reason. It confronts and questions our own way of life: the small gestures, our relationships with others.


“In every group, there exists a predetermined victim: one who carries pain, who everyone mocks, on whom they heap malevolent rumors, and with mysterious agreement everyone unloads their negative feelings and their desire to harm,” wrote Primo Levi in The Truce (1962). This is a description of a social dynamic that is seemingly banal yet insidious and not to be forgotten.

L’isola delle rose: La tragedia di un paradiso recalls history through personal black and white images, similar to our own home movies. They are that familiar. On the screen we see the narration of a time gone by, one that no longer exists but that could very well still be with us.


The main theme is autobiographical. It is a journey (both physically and in memory) to Rhodes by the director/author, pregnant with her second child, along with her own mother who is the daughter of an Italian serviceman interned in Germany (1944-45) and of a Jewish woman from Rhodes, who after a pleasant life there was deported. Her life ends in Auschwitz, as did hundreds of others from the island.


The film traces the director’s maternal Jewish line through a trip that passes from physical places to hidden places in the human mind.


Slowly we realize that we are discovering pages of forgotten history. Individual life histories lived in first person, mostly female, are revealed through rare archival highlights and become entwined.


At a certain point, the film passes from light to darkness. A nearly idyllic atmosphere is introduced at the beginning of the film. Clips of advertising from the period depict Rhodes as a real paradise of happiness and harmony. And it is in this tranquility that the director’s grandmother is raised and lives her incongruent love story with a Sicilian official. In 1936, against the wishes of her parents, she decides to run away and marry him. Her family’s subsequent acceptance of the marriage would seem to further the young woman into a life of considerable security and prosperity. But that did not occur. “Consider that this is a woman. Without hair and without a name, with no more strength to remember, empty eyes and cold womb, like a branch in winter,” wrote Primo Levi.


Rebecca and her mother, some sixty years later, visit the places hungry for answers. They question friends of the family, read diaries of the father interned in Germany; they examine every square foot of the places that were settings for both happy times and heinous memories. And in their path of memory, an absurd witness appeared: disbelief.


Snapshots of everyday life: lunches with family members, parties, set tables with food, the long shores of Rhodes full of healthy and beautiful people, young people poised for prosperous futures. And afterwards, a family, many families, an entire community, completely exterminated.


The director seems to suggest that any one of us could have been in Rhodes at that time. When we get up, when we go to work, when we take the sun at the beach, when we play with our children, when we fall in love, when we celebrate, we do so without ever imagining that one day the folly of other human beings can destroy everything.


Memories, especially female memories, take on a symbolic value: it is through the transmission of memories from the grandmother to the mother, to the director herself and to her daughter in her womb that we learn never to forget.


The sighs of an elderly woman seated next to me signal the entire vision of the film that ends in front of a captivated audience. After a few minutes, there is the steady but fragile voice of another woman, Stella Levi. An emotional Andrea Fiano conducts the interview. Levi’s memories gives voice to the past but also looks to the present so the same mistakes are not committed in the future.


Visiting the island only once, in 1967, Stella Levi recalls: “I have lived with the ghosts of Rhodes, I still hear the voices of the people I knew. Ghosts that vanish but that I would like to take with me.”


“Before ’38 we were all the same. Before you were a human being and then you were not. The humiliation of being dragged out of your own home, and no one stopped them!”


With Mrs. Levi’s first words one senses the same, nearly child-like disbelief that accompanied the film. “Sometimes I ask myself: I lived through all of this? At Auschwitz you smell death even during the brightest and warmest days in August. The sky becomes gray. Auschwitz was death.”


 “This is not an easy interview for me because I am the son of a Jewish survivor. I have so many questions, but at the same time I am afraid of invading her privacy.” And so begins Andrea Fiano with great sensitivity. “Why were more women able to survive?” he asks. Mrs. Levi responds, “I don’t know why women seem to be stronger in this case. Perhaps it is because they protect life. They carry it inside.”


“My memories are in Italian and I have to translate them into English in order to speak to you. When I returned to Rhodes I knew that I would find only ghosts there. The colors, the scent of that city are no longer the same. There are no Jews now. Today the entire community is gone. There is a synagogue, a museum…. but it is difficult to associate the memories. Places of happy, ordinary life can become brutal horrors…silent witnesses of the worst human atrocities. Radiant Rhodes, the emerald sea, full of oranges, its houses, offices, schools…”


Mrs. Levi shares in a loud voice a paradoxical question: “How could they be so elegant and commit these crimes? In the evening, after giving the gas, they dressed up and played the most beautiful music.”


 “I remember that when we arrived at Auschwitz they didn’t think that we were Jews because we didn’t speak Yiddish. They understood only when they saw us pray. Since we spoke French, we were placed with the French women. This was my salvation. The French women spoke German and this was the only way we could follow orders …”


She says with great certainty: “Can it happen today? Dafur, Bosnia… It is happening… ‘Remember, you were a slave in Egypt.’ This is one of the most important precepts in Judaism, but it should apply to all of humanity.”


And to the question of whether she feels hatred, she responds: “No. Hatred is a disease and I do not want to hate.”


Primo Levi wrote: “He who has been tortured remains tortured. He who has been tormented can no longer acclimate himself in the world, the revulsion for the annihilation can never be extinguished.” (The Drowned and the Saved, 1986)


In Stella Levi’s words, in addition to the courage and the need-want to tell, there is internal burden of a marked existence.


“You who live securely, in your warm homes…”

 

A young director meets a couple in love; this is not the first time that a film is born from this kind of encounter. Perhaps it would not even be shown in this context, were it not for the film’s extraordinary point of view and its connection to the Italian/American experience. Director Abigail Honor, an Englishwoman transplanted to Manhattan, has at least two reasons for telling the story: the film’s artistic value as a documentary as well as the cultural value of its content.

Released in 2003, the film has been shown at many film festivals, and its awards include the "Q Cinema Award" for the best documentary film at the sixth annual Fort Worth Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 2004.

 The film was screened last week in the CUNY TV studios as part of the film series “Documented Italians” presented by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute of Queens College. The film concerns Vincent Maniscalco and Edward DeBonis, a gay Italian/American couple who decide to marry in church according to Catholic rite. The public was invited to participate in a discussion that is still not easy or straightforward. In fact, both Professor Anthony Julian Tamburri, Dean of the Calandra Institute and Joseph Sciorra, Assistant Director of Academic and Cultural Programs emphasized that when the film was released four years ago the time was not yet ripe to publicly tackle these issues. And is now the right time? The debate is now at least open, especially since the film screening was hosted by of one of the most important Italian/American institutions.

 Abigail Honor and Professor Peter Savastano of Seaton Hall University and Drew University moderated the discussion after the film and focused on the film’s cultural imperatives for the Italian/American community.

 Since the time of its release Saints and Sinners has received mixed reviews. Its main theme touches on the depth of Italian/American culture and its intimate link to Catholic tradition, and suggests the perceptions that Americans have of Italian/Americans and their faith.

 Forty-six year old Vinnie and 52 year old Eddie are both of Italian descent, and like many Italian/Americans they were raised with solid Catholic values. For them to wed in a church represents an acknowledgement of their Italian/American upbringing.

 “Before meeting Vinnie,” Eddie recalls, “I had gone away from the Catholic Church but then I understood that for him, the sacraments were an important part of his spirituality, and this was my way of reconciling with Catholicism. The Catholic Church may never recognize our union, but we had to fight for it nevertheless.” These are profound words that transcend the Catholic Church’s perception of homosexuality and they reveal the couple’s connection to their Catholic and Italian/American roots.

 In reality, the couple was not wed in a Catholic church as no priest would accept their union, but they were married in an Episcopalian church by a gay minister, Raymond LeFebvre. Their union became official when the state of Massachusetts legalized homosexual marriage and they were later re-married.

 Abigail Honor recounts how she met the couple: “I got to know Eddie e Vinnie after I put an ad in the Village Voice to find people for a documentary. After a while, I received a call from Eddie and I immediately understood that they were exactly who I was trying to find. They were the right people to bridge the gap between a gay couple, their families, and the communities in which they were raised.”

 Honor approaches the themes of the documentary with detachment balanced with profound tenderness. There is no shadow of judgment present in the film; they are presented simply and treated as an ordinary couple.

 It was the couple’s normalcy that struck us most, especially as they retold the story of their meeting and the stages that led to marriage, like that of any heterosexual couple. They are very much a conventional couple, and perhaps seem even more so because of their respect for tradition and culture. Written in their own words, their marriage vows speak of their commitment, mutual respect, and the search for recognition of their union.

 The preparation of the church where the wedding took place made us reflect on the differences between a typical Italian/American wedding and an Italian one. The accuracy with which the preparations were made was far more Italian/American than Italian.

 At the end of the screening, the audience was left with an overarching feeling of purity and simplicity. With subtlety and without brooding, the film also touched on certain prejudices against gay marriage. For example, on the day of the wedding there is the fear of going to hell if one receives the sacrament of Communion from a gay minister.

The director’s talent lies in her ability to suggest different aspects of the theme without favoring one over another. She reminds us that it is also important to reflect on the couples’ smiles and mutual glances on their wedding day when their wedding announcement appears in the “Styles” section of the New York Times. Can the New York Times pronounce their union “official”?

The documentary can be purchased at www.amazon.com.

 (Translated by Giulia Prestia, a memeber of i-Italy's Community)