Italian Americans in Film : Establishing and Challenging Italian American Identities

This book examines how Italian Americans have been represented in cinema, from the depiction of Italian migration in New Orleans in the 1890s (Vendetta) to the transition from first- to second-generation immigrants (Ask the Dust), and from the establishment of the stereotype of the Italian American gangster (Little Caesar, Scarface) to its re-definition (Mean Streets), along with a peculiar depiction of Italian American masculinity (Marty, Raging Bull). For many years, Italian migration studies in the United States have commented on the way cinema contributed to the creation of an identifiable Italian American identity. More recently, scholars have recognized the existence of a more nuanced plurality of Italian American identities that reflects social and historical elements, class backgrounds, and the relationship with other ethnic minorities. The second part of the book challenges the most common stereotypes of Italian Americanness: food (Big Night) and Mafia, deconstructing the criminal tropes that have contributed to shaping the perception of Italian-American mafiosi in The Funeral, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, and the first two chapters of the Godfather trilogy. At the crossroads of the fields of Italian Culture, Italian American Culture, Film Studies, and Migration Studies, Italian Americans in Film is written not only for undergraduate and graduate students but also for scholars who teach courses on Italian American Cinema and Visual Culture. Daniele Fioretti teaches Italian American culture and Italian cinema, language, and culture at Miami University, USA. He is the author of Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature Pasolini, Calvino, Sanguineti, Volponi (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has also written Carte di fabbrica: la narrativa industriale in Italia 1934-1989 (2013) as well as articles and book chapters on cinema and literature. Fulvio Orsitto is the Director of the Georgetown University study center in Fiesole, Italy. He has published more than thirty essays and book chapters on Italian and Italian American cinema and Italian Literature. His book publications include the edited volumes The Other and the Elsewhere in Italian Culture (2011) and Cinema and Risorgimento (2012), the co-authored manual Film and Education. Capturing Bilingual Communities (2014), and seven other co-edited volumes Foreword 7 Contents 18 Notes on Contributors 20 List of Figures 24 Chapter 1: Introduction 26 Works Cited 36 Films and TV Shows Cited 37 Part I: Establishing Italian American Identities 38 Chapter 2: ‘I Don’t Do Business with Dagoes’: Anti-Italian Discrimination in Nicholas Meyer’s Vendetta 39 Works Cited 52 Chapter 3: Ask the ‘Dust Jacket’. Robert Towne’s Film Adaptation of John Fante’s Ask the Dust 54 John Fante: Writer and Screenwriter. 56 Robert Towne: Screenwriter and Director. 58 Arturo Bandini: “Lover of Man and Beast Alike”. 61 Camilla Lopez: A Mirror for Ethnic Rediscovery. 69 Conclusion 77 Works Cited 84 Films and TV Series Cited 86 Chapter 4: Setting the Italian American Gangster in Stone: Little Caesar and Scarface 87 An Historical Perspective, Pre-Code Groundbreakers 87 Remakes, Homages, and Reflections in Contemporary Culture 94 Works Cited 99 Films and TV Series Cited 101 Chapter 5: Nice Guys Finish Last? Delbert Mann’s Marty 102 Works Cited 116 Films and TV Series Cited 117 Chapter 6: The Italian American Prizefighter: Ethnicity in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull 119 Ethnic New York City 120 ‘The Brawler’ 125 Return to New York City 131 Works Cited 136 Films Cited 138 Chapter 7: Mean Streets. A Mirror Construction of Reality 139 Martin Scorsese: The Trifecta, the Mise-en-Abyme, and the Construction-en-Abyme 139 Charlie Cappa: Mirrors, Windows, and the Narcissus’ Myth 141 Mirrors 141 Windows 145 The Narcissus Myth. 148 Conclusion 154 Works Cited 163 Films and TV Series Cited 164 Part II: Challenging Italian American Identities (and Their Representations) 166 Chapter 8: Abel Ferrara’s The Funeral: Taking Aim at the Stereotype 167 The Funeral in Perspective 167 Historical Context 170 A Tragedy of Moralism: Mafia and Its Imagined Communities 174 Conclusion 179 Works Cited 180 Films Cited 182 Chapter 9: Good Food is Close to God: Religious Overtones of the Culinary Arts in Big Night 183 Primo 187 Pascal 193 Secondo 199 Cristiano 203 Gabriella 204 Works Cited 210 Chapter 10: The Eclipse of the Godfather’s Garden: From the Agromafia to the Money Mafia 213 Oranges and Olive Oil / Agromafia 215 The Garden State / Suburban Mafia 219 Westward Expansion / Money Mafia 222 Conclusions 226 Works Cited 228 Films Cited 230 Chapter 11: GoodFellas. When the ‘Kid from Little Italy’ Meets the ‘Oklahoma Kid’ 231 The ‘Kid from Little Italy’ and His Cinematic Universe. 232 Windows, Symbolism, and Stylistic Devices 236 Windows 236 Symbolism and Stylistic Devices 245 Conclusion 251 Works Cited 260 Films Cited 261 Chapter 12: Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco between Classic Hollywood and the New Gangster 263 Works Cited 273 Films and TV Series Cited 274 Chapter 13: Documentary and Italian American Identity: Time and Exposure in Alfred Guzzetti’s Family Films 275 Making Time Exposure (2012) 278 The New World of Film Is the Known World: Filming Family Portrait Sittings in the 1970s 285 Conclusion: A Personal Time Exposure 294 Works Cited 296 Films Cited 297 Index 298