Documentary Film, Observational Style and Postmodern Anthropology in Sardinia

Abstract

This article redresses the scholarly marginalization of Sardinian documentaries in standard academic histories of Italian cinema. It is hoped that the analysis offered here will encourage engagement with a territory that has not been extensively researched or investigated. The majority of documentaries about Sardinia verge, or seem to verge, on exoticism. Moreover the prevalence of words often overrides the denotative aspects of the images, reducing the complexity of human experience represented on the screen. The article offers a historical overview of documentary film in Sardinia, suggesting that observational documentary and ethnographic films made in the last three decades express anthropologically thick descriptions, and that these descriptions represent a postmodern form of social documentation that achieves an accurate description of the world.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the timely suggestions of the anonymous readers of an earlier version of this article, and the valuable comments of David MacDougall.

Notes

The titles of the actualités made by the Lumières included in the series Voyage de LL. MM. en Sardaigne are: Cavalcade historique en Sardaigne, Cuirassés de l'escadre française sur les côtes de la Sardaigne, Cuirassés de l'escadres italiennes, Inauguration du Monument de Victor-Emmanuel à Sassari; Visite de LL. MM. à la mine de fer.

I should like to make clear that in this quotation MacDougall is not referring to early documentary filmmakers in Sardinia; rather, he is writing about early ethnographic and documentary films more generally.

Parts of the series are The Alaskan Eskimo [1953], Siam [1954], Arizona Sheepdog [1955], Switzerland [1955], Men against the Arctic [1955], Samoa [1956], Disneyland U.S.A. [1956], The Blue Men of Morocco [1957], Lapland [1957], Portugal [1957], Wales [1958], Scotland [1958], The Ama Girls [1958], Seven Cities of Antarctica [1958], Cruise of the Eagle [1959], Japan [1960], and The Danube [1960].

Ferrara's film involves the collaboration of Ernesto De Martino as scientific advisor. The film is indeed based on De Martino's studies on the Italian south—i.e., the tarantismo of Puglia [Gallini 1997].

The Ethnographic Institute of Nuoro, directed by Paolo Piquereddu, is also active in the promotion of visual anthropology in Sardinia through scholarships such as AVISA (Visual Anthropology in Sardinia) and the production of documentary films.

As MacDougall writes, “television producers insist on what they call “signposting,” to make sure that no one, not even the proverbial little old lady in Nottingham, will miss the point. That stance, with its implicit fear of film's open-endedness, represents a regressive tendency to return film to the status of text” [2006: 41].

Among the films shared and featured in this online digital archive the series Memorie in lingua sarda [2008] and the collection of 25 documentaries titled Sardegna: andata e ritorno [2007] are clearly focused on Sardinian identity. The first is especially important, for it includes 313 interviews in the Sardinian language, with Italian subtitles. The people interviewed are octogenarians who experienced the change since the end of fascism. This series includes also interviews and memories of Sardinian expatriates who have pursued successful professional careers abroad. The Sardegna Digital Library: http://www.sardegnadigitallibrary.it.

As MacDougall writes, “films are not very good vehicles for summary statements, but they do nevertheless imply a typicality and encourage viewers to extrapolate from the specific case. The style of the film plays an important point in this. An image taken out of context, overlaid by music and commentary, more easily takes on exemplary power” [2006: 53].

Although the subjects speak spontaneously before the camera, they are generally aware of its presence. The advantage of shooting in the observational style, according to Marshall, is that “you do not tell people what to do or say” [1993: 72].

Examples of such films include Ulla Boje Rasmussen's Coro di Bosa [1998], Ignazio Figus’ Castelsardo: Lunissanti [2006] and Sant'Antonio Abate a Torpé [2007], Tiragallo's and Da Re's Su pistoccu [1999] and Ordire [1999; Tiragallo 2007], among many others.

Ethnographic film and anthropological writing have in common issues related to the “distance between the subject and the object in order to produce better accounts and analyses of other cultures” [Crawford 1992: 70].

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Silvio Carta

Silvio Carta completed his Ph.D. in Italian Studies at the University of Birmingham. His articles and reviews have appeared in Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Review, Visual Studies, Visual Ethnography, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Political Communication and Studies in Documentary Film. His latest book, Visual Anthropology in Sardinia, has just been published by Peter Lang (2015).