Between fiction and reality

On Wednesday, 18 March, the Rome Center community joined to listen to the panel “Mafias in Films: Between Fiction and Reality”. Dr. Donato Santeramo: Professor of Semiotics at Queen’s University, Canada, and Antonio Nicaso, historian and leading expert on criminal organizations, uncovered the real-life elements of the Mafia in the cultural fabric of Italy, highlighting how representations of criminal organizations in film and television have shaped contemporary ideas of Italians in the collective imagination.

 

Definition of the term 'mafia' and history

Santeramo and Nicaso began by defining the term mafia, explaining that even though the word originally came from Sicily, now it is essentially an umbrella term for criminal organizations all over the world. Nicaso, who teaches the social history of organized crime at Queen’s University, Canada, explained that all criminal enterprises have two important features. The first is that their essence is based on rituals and symbols which build a sense of identity and belonging, thus creating micro-societies which, in turn, makes "them almost, impossible or at least very difficult to combat ”. The second is that they are a “network of people who trust each other”, he says. This external relationship is inextricable to criminal organizations, Nicaso continued, “it would be like milk without lactose or coffee without caffeine”.

Next, Dr. Santermo discussed the origins of the mafia first as a concept connected to honor, pointing to the opera “Cavalleria Rusticana”, based on a short story by realist Sicilian author, Giovanni Verga. This work “is perhaps something that may have inspired (the Mafia), but that is not directly linked to it”, he states. The story is grounded in concepts of honor, jealousy, and personal vendetta. It “asks the question of how one cleans up an offence” and the answer to that question is clear “you clean it up with blood, with bloodshed”, continues Dr. Santeramo. So, he concludes, this work contains “all the ingredients... that then may then be used to define and become what is at the core of the ‘culture of the Mafia’”.

 

Filmmaking students reflect on representation

While the entire Rome Center community was invited to the lecture, there was a special invitation for the students of Flaminio Di Biagi’s “Italian Film Genre” and Interpreting Literature”, as well as Nicola Moruzzi’s “Themes in Film and Digital Media: Filmmaking in Rome”. These students spent the semester studying representation and storytelling, engaging in both the literary and more technical aspects of film.

Moruzzi’s students spend their semester as filmmakers.  In just 12-13 weeks his students write, film and edit short films, “tiny representations of the world”, he says. Inviting his students to this panel allowed them to contemplate ideas of representation and the relationship between media and society, reflecting further on the work of a filmmaker.

When asked about the student experience at the panel, Moruzzi paraphrased Mexican writer Roberto Bolaño, “there is no innocent filmmaking”. “Representing reality (or fantasy) through any media, is never a neutral act; it carries a point of view, it has an incredible influence on viewers and readers, and in general on society and it should be done in a responsible way”.

 

First-hand experiences with the Mafia and the stereotypes

In fact, Moruzzi pointed out that before the panel, some students believed that the Mafia was not real, rather it was an invention of film, living only on the silver screen. But both Dr. Santeramo and Prof. Nicaso – who team teach a course on a similar topic at the Italian Summer School at Middlebury College, Vermont, of which Santeramo is the director – spoke frankly about their own personal experience in relation to the mafia.

Dr. Santeramo told a story about taking a taxicab one time in Ontario, Canada and because of his Italian descent, the cab driver automatically thought he was a mafioso and offered to waive his fare out of fear. This underlined the stereotype that all Italians are mafiosi. Prof. Nicaso, having grown up in Calabria, recalled his personal experiences with the local criminal organization, 'Ndrangheta: when his schoolmate’s father was killed and when his friends wanted to join. After hearing these first-hand accounts, the students realized how the Mafia truly affects the lives of many people and the stereotypes that they have derived from these media representations.

 

The power of the mafia to manipulate images

Later in the panel one of Moruzzi’s students, Keegan Gallagher, posed a question to the panelists about a more recent depiction of the mafia: The Sopranos, recalling the story that a mafia boss made a phone call to actor James Gandolfini, telling him he loved the show but that mafia bosses don’t wear shorts. Gallagher was curious about the veracity of such a story. “I'm convinced that that was a real situation,” Professor Nicaso responded, because the De Cavalcante mafia family was proud of the depiction but thought that Tony Soprano should have had “a more dignified aspect and look”.  

“The arts always reflect a specific culture and society, and it would be unavoidable, when covering Italian films or stories, not to run into the topic of Mafia. Crime, too, reflects the society that produces or is affected by it”.

Dr. Flaminio Di Biagi, Professor at the Rome Center for more than 35 years

 

Other students, Moruzzi said, were particularly interested in the discussion about the ambivalent power of representation of organized crime, as it can influence many young people, making Mafiosi more likeable than they are. 🎵TK账号 | 瑞士IP注册 | 满月白号 | 微软邮箱验证 | 优质账号 | user用户名 this, a student quoted Prof. Santeramo, when he said, "There are no good mafiosi", reflecting on how the stories that Hollywood tells differ from real life.

 

Italian film genre students engage in the media and stereotypes

The students of Dr. Flaminio Di Biagi’s film course spent the semester studying the representation of Italy, Italian society and Italians which include references to Mafia, Sicilians and organized crime in general. “The arts always reflect a specific culture and society,” Dr. Di Biagi says, “and it would be unavoidable, when covering Italian films or stories, not to run into the topic of Mafia. Crime too reflects the society that produces or is affected by it”.

 

At the panel, Dr. Di Biagi asked the speakers why there is such an “appetite for mafia films”. Even though we know they are evil, Di Biagi continued, “spectators flood the box office and buy tickets”. Santeramo responded, expounding on how themes of violence are universally popular. He continued, “mafiosi are always outsiders... they never really belong to the establishment” and “this idea of being outsiders, there's always something that attracts”.

Additionally, Santeramo again pointed to the history of mafia films and how – especially at the beginning- they were “also a way of degrading southern Italians”. Pointing to the story line of Little Caesar (1931), Santeramo mentioned the Hays Code, which was self-imposed censorship by the film industry, setting down moral guidelines. This code came to life in Mafia films because, starting in the 1930s, “they could not portray things where people actually gained from criminal activities”. Thus, at the end of Little Caesar, the character of Little Caesar, who is from southern Italy, dies, while his partner, who is from northern Italy, lives. Thus, reinforcing the idea of good and evil in connection with the North and South of Italy.

According to Di Biagi, professor of Italian literature and film at the Rome Center since 1989, this depiction of Italians “may be a stereotype, it may be overrated and spectacularized for box-office results but even stereotypes contain some basic, concrete reality (if not truth!)”.

 

'It depends on those who watch'

Professor Nicaso answered the question of these films’ popularity by pointing to their democratic nature. Film and movies “enter all homes”, he said. “It depends on the people who watch those movies”. If I watch Gomorra, Nicaso said, I am “not going to imitate the end”. But he said, “if you live in the margins of Naples, and haven’t had much schooling and are without positive role models, your options are choosing between bad and the worst. You have little opportunity”.  

“But that doesn't mean that we don't have to do or produce television series like Gomorra. I'm not trying to stop the production of those movies”, he underlined. “This is why it is important to talk about these things,” Professor Nicaso said. “No censorship,” he urged, “because that would be counterproductive. But we must make sure that voices of legality are always heard”.

This conclusion aptly wrapped up Dr. Donato Santeramo and Prof. Antonio’s Nicaso’s discussion on the both the reality and fiction of images of Mafia in film and television. The call to neither censor mafia films nor overly idolize mafiosi in the media provided the Rome Center community with a clearer picture of one element of how Italians and Italian-Americans are depicted in the past and present.