Daniela Bini

Women of the South and the Art of Carlo Levi

It was Levis search for the “indistinto originario” (Paura della libertà 19), the primordial magma where darkness and light are still fused, that attracted him to the land of interior Lucania; an area where instinct and reason, magic and science, nature and spirit were still one. And it perhaps was the same search that attracted him later on to the islands of Sicily and Sardinia. But Lucania was to remain the most congenial place to Levis needs. In this essay I have a twofold purpose: to examine one aspect of this “indistinto originario,” the feminine, and Levis complex relation with woman, but also to compare the Lucanian with the Sicilian female in order to show how Levis perception of the feminine is more in tune with the former. For this purpose I discuss Vergas character Gnà Pina (la Lupa) and Levis witch Giulia Venere. Finally I try to demonstrate that such “indistinto originario” can be better expressed through shapes and colors, that is, in painting, than through words.

Neapolitan Leopardi and the Naples of Mario Martone

To make a biopic of any writer is an effort almost inevitably doomed to failure. Filming the life of Leopardi was a hard challenge. During the study of Il giovane favoloso, however, something unexpected came up: Martone was not interested so much in the poet of Recanati, as in Leopardis Neapolitan and final period. A great part of the film, in fact, deals with and also invents episodes of his and Antonio Ranieri’s life in Naples. Martone’s strong connection with Naples is apparent in the treatment of the city, from the camera shots to the use of colors and the intensity of the scenes. Watching the movie I realized that the film the director wanted to make was on Naples, as he had done in many of his earlier works. And Leopardi’s final period gave him a perfect excuse to do this. Il giovane favoloso ends with a dramatic scene of erupting Vesuvius while the voice of the poet recites his final canto “La ginestra.” But Martone’s dialogue with Leopardi had already started years before in “La salita”, an episode in the film I vesuviani. There the director describes the climb of mount Vesuvius that the mayor of Naples, interpreted by Tony Servillo, undertakes to reflect upon the changes his city has undergone, its corruption, and the compromises he has been forced to accept. It could be interpreted as the realization of the presumption and fallibility of humankind Leopardi so well portrayed in “La ginestra,” that is, as his prophecy.