Lo stereotipo del Sud fra Otto e Novecento. Il caso della Sardegna

Abstract

The Southern Stereotype in the 19^th and 20^th Centuries. The Case of Sardinia Following Italian unification, the North-South dichotomy which had for centuries been part of European tradition was reformulated in Italian culture, resulting in the definition of a homogeneous concept of the South and with it what is probably the most significant and persistent stereotype in the national collective imagination. This perspective stands as a constant in every text on Sardinia, since the national debate on the Southern Question placed the island firmly among the country's other Southern regions. In the early 20^th century the traditional stock of images and stereotypes characterising literary discourse became an essential reservoir of characters, situations and places for film-makers. Following the method of imagology, this paper focuses on the strategies used in representing the stereotype of the South in the cinema, specifically in the film Cainà. L’isola e il continente (Righelli 1922). The working hypothesis is that films confirmed the centrality of the North-South dichotomy as the creative engine in the Italian cinematic imagination and the identification of Sardinian society with the South perceived as a model of archaic and primitive civilisation. Depicting Sardinia in accordance with an interpretative scheme considered absolute and unchanging, the new art form followed a route already laid down in literature. In addition, in a cultural phase dominated by the need to develop and disseminate a national consciousness, it contributed to the production of images and symbols standing in open contradiction to the ideal of a united Italy, revealing the contradictions that the Risorgimento had created rather than resolve.