Orienting Italy: China Through the Lens of Italian Filmmakers

202 Pages·2022·2.327 MB·English

by  Mary Ann McDonald Carolan

Orienting Italy
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Orienting Italy
China through the Lens of Italian Filmmakers
•
Mary Ann McDonald Carolan
Cover: Tijger Tsou as Pu Yi in The Last Emperor (1987), dir. Bernardo Bertolucci.
Columbia Pictures/Photofest
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2022 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
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For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Carolan, Mary Ann McDonald, author.
Title: Orienting Italy : China through the lens of Italian filmmakers /
Mary Ann McDonald Carolan.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2022] | Series:
SUNY series, horizons of cinema | Includes bibliographical references,
filmography, and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022009659 | ISBN 9781438490618 (hardcover : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781438490625 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Motion pictures—Italy—History. | Chinese in motion
pictures. | China—In motion pictures. | LCGFT: Film criticism.
Classification: LCC PN1993.5.I88 C2718 2022 | DDC
791.430945—dc23/eng/20220314
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022009659
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Maria Kelly Carolan and Anna Margaret Carolan
and
In memory of Mary Kelly McDonald (1931–2020)
and Francis M. McDonald (1931–2018)

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
1 Documenting China between Fact and Fiction: La muraglia
cinese/Behind the Great Wall (Carlo Lizzani, 1958) 15
2 An Italian Director in China: Chung Kuo—Cina/Chung Kuo—
China (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1972) 39
3 A Tale of the Forbidden City: Bernardo Bertolucci’s
L’ultimo imperatore/The Last Emperor (1987) 63
4 Orienting Neorealism: Gianni Amelio’s La stella che
non c’è/The Missing Star (2006) 85
5 The Chinese Woman in Italy: Gorbaciof (Stefano Incerti, 2010)
and Io sono Li/Shun Li and the Poet (Andrea Segre, 2011) 103
6 Documenting Chinese Immigrant Youth and Italian
Anti-Immigrant Prejudice: Miss Little China
(Riccardo Cremona and Vincenzo De Cecco, 2009) 127
Conclusion 143
Notes 151
Filmography and Works Cited 163
Index 177

Illustrations
1.1 Poster for La muraglia cinese/Behind the Great Wall. 17
1.2 Monks playing horns, Behind the Great Wall. 28
1.3 Last young woman sold into marriage beside her child
husband, Behind the Great Wall. 30
2.1 Caesarean birth with acupuncture, Chung Kuo. 40
2.2 Donkeys milling wheat with a roller, Chung Kuo. 46
2.3 Nanking Yangtze River bridge, Chung Kuo. 48
2.4 Laundry drying on a boat under Nanking Yangtze River
Bridge, Chung Kuo. 48
2.5 Tiananmen Square, May 1972, Chung Kuo. 50
2.6 Official photographer in Tiananmen Square, Chung Kuo. 51
2.7 Portraits of Lenin and Stalin in Tiananmen Square,
Chung Kuo. 52
2.8 Portraits of Marx and Engels in Tiananmen Square,
Chung Kuo. 53
2.9 Political street art, Chung Kuo. 53
2.10 A young girl peeking at the movie camera as she waits
to be photographed, Chung Kuo. 54
2.11 Chinese in Tiananmen Square waiting to be
photographed, Chung Kuo. 55
ix