L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 6 NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS resented by a statue knew about science, some about God, some about music. Milan and Italy cannot disregard the ecumenical l e s s o n o f E m p e r o r Constantine who in 313 AD through the Milan Edict of Toleration grant- ed freedom of conscience and freedom of worship t o a l l c r e e d s a n d r e l i - gious confessions, thus putting an end to cen- t u r i e s o f p e r s e c u t i o n against Christians in the R o m a n E m p i r e . Y o u r camera lingers on the m e m o r i a l s t a t u e o f Constantine located in Milan at Corso di Porta Ticinese, in front of the San Lorenzo Maggiore church. How important is that statue today? Constantine is a strategic pick and it's not by chance I introduce him almost at the end of the movie. On an aes- thetic level, that statue recalls our ancient identity. It con- t r a s t s v e r y w e l l w i t h t h e image of a city known for its contemporaneity. But from the lockdown point of view, I immediately felt the danger of political opposition and the instrumentalization of i n d i v i d u a l f r e e d o m . Constantine expresses the need for high-level cultural politics that is absent today, and not only in Italy. A r e y o u n g p e o p l e equipped with the moral duty of tolerance? The youth of today are sometimes more indifferent, I fear, although I must say they are free from ideological prejudices. Today's youth are sons of globalization. They have a very interesting open- minded attitude to diversity. The point is to understand how they will react when they are touched directly in their real, factual interests and not in their virtual ones. D o e s t h e t h e m e o f Golden Wings somehow r e f l e c t a l a r g e r t o p i c b r o u g h t u p i n t h e s e r e c e n t w e e k s i n a n t i - r a c i s t m o v e m e n t s a l l over the world? Golden Wings has triple quotes. There is a historical one from Va' Pensiero (Go Thought, On Golden Wings), the chorus of the enslaved Hebrews in Giuseppe Verdi's operatic triumph Nabucco where the composer quotes as well from the Bible — the i c o n i c a r i a b e c o m e s t h e anthem for Italian unifica- tion, the metaphor and a call to arms for the oppressed e v e r y w h e r e . A l s o , i n m y movie there is a contempo- rary citation of our times about "wings" seen as "our" technology. It's not by chance that the film was shot using drones to restore the sense of lightness and bring poetry to the heaviness of this pan- demic. It can happen that a memorial statue of the past, evidence of histori- c a l s i g n i f i c a n c e , n o longer produces visual and verbal evocations of a past magnificence. I am thinking about the statue of Cristopher Columbus pulled down or beheaded recently in the US. This is a b i t h u r t f u l t o t h e I t a l i a n s . B u t I a l s o u n d e r s t a n d t h a t i f w e want to fully embrace p o l i t i c a l c o r r e c t n e s s , then yes, the Genoese explorer's transatlantic v o y a g e s u n l o c k e d a n e n t i r e c o n t i n e n t f o r European colonization, causing pain to Native A m e r i c a n s . W h a t a r e your thoughts on this? When we recognize our- selves in a statue, we are moved by universal values. It happens every time a statue naturally represents an era and a turning point of that era. In the case of Columbus when we parade on the Fifth Avenue in New York we rem- inisce about the value of that journey and we are reminded of the fraternal bond between Italians and Americans. The custom has imposed itself on a biography that has lost its meaning. But it is also true that pulling down the statue of Christopher Columbus is not necessary because we should also take it out on the Portuguese mer- chants and navigators w h o s t a r t e d t h e s l a v e t r a d e t o w a r d t h e Americas. Then, without C o l u m b u s a n d t h o s e other Iberian rascals, neither Mohammed Ali, Malcolm X nor Martin Luther King would be born. Do you agree? History is neither progres- sive nor regressive. History is always a set of stories that have different times. Above all, there are unintentional c o n s e q u e n c e s o f t h e i r premises. Sometimes our predic- tions in history are wrong or fail. I find this extremely fas- cinating. The power of free- dom and madness in individ- uals is underestimated. As directors and authors, we have a lot to suggest to soci- ety through cinema and the- atre. Ten days ago in Milan, the statue dedicated to Indro Montanelli, one of t h e m o s t i n f l u e n t i a l Italian journalist of the 2 0 t h c e n t u r y , w a s sprayed red and tagged with the words "racist, r a p i s t , " b e c o m i n g t h e country's first statue tar- g e t e d s i n c e a w a v e o f similar incidents across t h e U S a n d E u r o p e . Montanelli was 26 years o l d i n 1 9 3 5 w h e n h e bought and married an Eritrean child of 12 years d u r i n g t h e f a s c i s t r e g i m e ' s a g g r e s s i o n a g a i n s t E t h i o p i a . I n a widely circulated video o f a 1 9 6 9 t a l k s h o w a p p e a r a n c e , h e c o n - f e s s e d w i t h a c e r t a i n pride to buying the child f r o m h e r f a t h e r . N o d o u b t , M o n t a n e l l i remains a great journal- ist. But in your opinion, s h o u l d t h a t s t a t u e b e r e m o v e d ? I t w o u l d b e like saying, we'd better n o t e v e n c o n s i d e r t h e i n c r e d i b l e m u s t - s e e C a r a v a g g i o ' s m a s t e r - p i e c e s a s t h e g r e a t Baroque art master mur- dered a man. It does not make sense. Isn't neces- s a r y t o j u d g e l i v e s i n their totality? L e t ' s s t a r t w i t h t h e premise that the Montanelli's monument is ugly - it never stirs in me aesthetic emo- tions, it never convinced me. Yet, it would be fair to also r e c a l l m e m o r i e s w h e n i n 1977 the journalist was shot four times in the legs by the Red Brigades. That was also a n o u t r a g e o u s a t t a c k o n press freedom. However, the q u e s t i o n i s n o t a b o u t M o n t a n e l l i b u t a b o u t w h e t h e r o r n o t h e c a n remove the story with vio- lence and insults in the name of the story itself. U n f o r t u n a t e l y , t h e destruction of statues by smashing their nose (or more) is well-known to us through history, in b o t h W e s t e r n a n d Eastern history. There have been many exam- ples of militant devotion t h a t t u r n s i n t o t h e destruction of marble s t a t u e s t h a t b e c o m e "harmless enemies that cannot fight back," as Greek Sophist Eunapius wrote in 392 AD. Luckily the phenomenon is rela- tively rare compared to the number of sculptures that survive. As an Italian writer has well written, what surprises and impresses idiots is num- bers. Today a smartphone can break many innocent people's noses. Hasn't political cor- rectness gone too far? If we put political correct- n e s s a b o v e c o m m o n sense, is there only a sin- g l e m o n u m e n t i n o u r cities with the 100 per- cent right to stand where it does stand? A g r e a t I t a l i a n a r t i s t , Prince Antonio De Curtis, known under his stage name Totò, would have declared the Italians are all "home and church." The problem arises in the way they behave on the streets. I believe this anthro- pological approach applies to everyone, Americans includ- ed. Isn't it better to study history instead of erasing it? Aren't we the history a n d i s n ' t H i s t o r i a Magistra Vitae (History: L i f e ' s I n s t r u c t o r ) a s Cicero did teach us? We study to learn, gain experience, and as a method to research a reality that is always in motion. Sometimes history helps us continue, or c h a n g e , o u r p a t h . O t h e r times, it helps us discover that we took the wrong road. But as time goes by, we may also be surprised to know through history that we are never moving to a place other than on our way home. W h a t i s y o u r n e x t movie or art project? Next year marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri, the father of the Italian language. From t h e D i v i n e C o m e d y , I a m producing a 30-minute short film entitled Dante for Our Fortune where the charac- ters of the Divine Comedy are interpreted through con- temporary dance and classi- cal music, jazz and musicals, a c c o m p a n i e d b y m y voiceover, which recites the most poetic passages from the Inferno, Purgatory, and P a r a d i s e . I c a n ' t w a i t t o return to the United States and California in particular to present this work. Continued from page 4 "Statues do not save, but their embodied and grounded symbols do," says Finazzer Flory (Photo courtesy of Finazzer Flory)

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