“È così che è nato il mito dell ’america” – media reflexivity in Emanuele Crialese’s Once We Were Strangers (1997) and Nuovomondo (2006)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Emanuele Crialese’s films about Italian emigration draw attention to their own mediality, just as in the films of the Taviani brothers (1984, 1987) and Gianni Amelio’s Lamerica (1994). Based on a study of Once We Were Strangers (1997) and Nuovomondo (2006), this article uses the concept of Bildspannung (‘image tension’) to explore the original potential of this media-reflexive technique. The technique involves both references to other media and intramedial forms of difference, as described by Pascal Bonitzer’s (2000 [1978]) concept of décadrage. How is it possible to ‘deceive any controlling immobility of the look’ (ibid. 201) and what (semantic) function does this theory of images serve in relation to collective (media-influenced) memory work on the phenomenon of Italian emigration?