GIORGIO MANGIAMELE

Cinematographer of the Italian Migrant Experience

Raffaele Lampugnani

Paperback

200 pages

ISBN: 9781921421631

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Giorgio Mangiamele is without doubt one of the most interesting and artistically gifted filmmakers in contemporary Australian cinema, even though his ideas and talent were often hampered in a technical sense by material and financial circumstances; he is absolutely crucial as representative of the post-war Italian migration experience in Australia.

His oeuvre has received considerable critical attention recently but a serious, organic, critical analysis has been hampered by misconceptions about his marginal position with respect to mainstream production and the typecasting of the author as a “migrant” cinematographer. This study has sought to bridge the prejudicial divide between the diasporic context and the artistic value, talent and intentions of the filmmaker. Underpinning this argument with Deleuze and Guattari’s theoretical framework of “minor” literatures, it is suggest that Mangiamele’s diasporic cinematic production did have an influence on mainstream cinema and society, in the sense that “minor no longer designates specific literatures but the revolutionary conditions for every literature within the heart of what is called great (or established) literature” (Kafka, 18).

In order to elucidate Mangiamele’s acuity, and cinematographic talent and human observational skills, a socio-historical and cultural framing for his oeuvre is provided confirming the author’s crucial importance for the post-war period, his highly individual style and work imbued with ethical and moral principles as well as compassion and humanistic concerns.

Raffaele Lampugnani is Lecturer in Italian Studies at Monash University (Melbourne). His areas of expertise include textual exegesis in Dante studies, and contemporary Italian and Italo-Australian poetry and narrative. He has published in these areas and edited the special issues of the academic journal Spunti e ricerche, The Prostitute in Italian Society, Art and Literature (2000) and From Text to Screen (2006), and co-edited Studies in Memory of Tom O'Neill (2002).