‘Exhibiting cinema’: the cultural activities of the ‘Museo

Nazionale del Cinema’, 1958-1971.

In July 2000 the new national museum of cinema reopened its

door in Turin, in that city’s most symbolic building: the

‘Mole Antonelliana’. This museum had, however, existed for

many years in previous locations (one of which had been a

section of the Mole itself) and had been at the forefront of

promoting cinema and all its surrounding culture in Italy and

beyond. This article looks at the role played by the ‘Museo

Nazionale del Cinema’ in Turin in promoting cinema culture

between 1958 and 1971. It will do this principally through

the examination of the ‘Notiziari’ published by the

‘Associazione Museo Nazionale del Cinema’ and other documents

conserved in the library and archive Mario Gromo, part of the

museum itself. In particular this article will distinguish

between three types of cinema: national, European and

American (USA) and ask three questions: first, to what extent

and how did the museum (screenings and exhibitions) promote

Italian national cinema and cultural traditions; second, what

importance was European cinema given in the programming

activities and third, how did the museum negotiate with the

1

increasing developments in international cinema, especially

from the US.

The founder of the museum: Maria Adriana Prolo

Maria Adriana Prolo, the founder of the Museo Nazionale del

Cinema (MNC henceforth) arrived at her interest in cinema

through her research into the Turin early film industry, this

in turn was indirectly stimulated by her work as historian of

literature and archivist: ‘A research on materials in 1938

with Francesco Pastronchi about Piedmontese literature at the

end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th sent her

towards the “seventh art”.1 Soon afterwards she wrote and

published an article for the journal Bianco e Nero2 about

‘Torino cinematografica prima e durante la Guerra, Appunti’.

Alongside her work of researcher Prolo commenced her activity

of collecting artefacts for a future museum of cinema,

privileging what has been defined as her ‘other great

passion’: the ‘archaeology of cinema’.3 The pre-cinematic

collection of the MNC is considered today one of the most

important in the world, if not for the quantity, certainly

for the quality of the artefacts.

2

There is also another more personal and romanticized version

of how she became interested in cinema and this is based on a

childhood memory of having seen a silent movie ‘Occhi che

videro’ (Eyes that saw)4, where the ‘seeing’ becomes ‘a

premonition of what I wanted to see established, a museum of

cinema in Turin'.5 It is very probable that the two versions

are not necessarily exclusive and are both facets of the same

‘passion’, the drive to establish a national museum of

cinema.

Prolo’s historical research on Italian cinematography

intensified during the thirties when she started her

collaboration with the 'Centro Sperimentale di

Cinematografia' in Rome, helped directly by the then director

Luigi Chiarini. This collaboration brought her into contact

with many directors, actors, screen writers, choreographers

and designers; individuals who at one time or another had

been involved in the ‘golden age’ of the Turin film industry.1 Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Maria Adriana Prolo (Turin, 2002), p. 16: ‘It was then that I met the poets Carlo Chiaves and Guido Volante, who had both written screenplays (sceneggiature) and Ernesto Maria Pasquali, who had left journalism for film directing. Being unable to find material on them, I began to read, copy after copy of magazines on silent cinema which I had found at the National Library'.2 The journal Bianco e Nero is a scholarly journal first published in January 1937 by the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia based in Rome, to promote cinematographic culture in Italy. The journal is still published today.3 Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Maria Adriana Prolo, 2002, op.cit., p. 25.4 Occhi che videro (Ubaldo Pittei; Turin, 1914).5 Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Maria Adriana Prolo, 2002, op.cit., p. 16.

3

These individuals were quite happy to be interviewed as well

as to hand over documents, photos, cameras, etc. to Prolo. It

is at this juncture that the collection proper started and

the museum began to take shape materially as well as

intellectually.

Prolo's activities clearly developed in a threefold

fashion, to comprise archival historical research, oral

history research and collection of objects. On the archival

front she began by assembling and scouring for material and

information from libraries all over Italy. The aims behind

the archival activity was to publish a history of early

Italian cinema, she was also especially keen to publish an

anthology with writings by Ricciotto, Canudo, d’Ambra,

Papini. This was initially to be written in collaboration

with the editor of ‘Cinema’ magazine Francesco Callari, but

nothing came of this collaboration.6 Prolo's historical

research did not stop at libraries and archives, proving to

be a pioneer in both her research activities as well as her

collecting; she introduced very early on 'oral history'

methodologies based on real-life experiences, which are now

well established within historical research.7 She did this by

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gathering all oral witnesses involved in the early

cinematographic industry in Italy and in Turin in particular,

some of the most notable examples were Giovanni Pastrone,

Arrigo Frusta, Baldassarre Negroni and even Charles Lépine, a

central figure in early French cinema, who by the time Prolo

interviewed him, was already confined to his bed (he died in

Turin in January 1941).

Prolo herself certainly seemed to think that her

encounter with all the protagonists of early Italian cinema

were at the centre of the idea of creating a national museum

of cinema: ‘Almost all of them had documents, photos,

cameras, and it is for this reason that on that famous 8 June

1941 I wrote on my diary “thought of a museum of cinema”.8

The latter will become a life-long project, which she will

incessantly work at to the point of exhaustion. This we know

from the rich correspondence with ‘cinematic soulmate’ Henri

Langlois.9 Regrettably only the first volume of her history

has ever been published10 and even that, much later than

6 Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Maria Adriana Prolo, 2002, op.cit., p. 19.7 In the Italian context of particular note is the research done by the historianLuisa Passerini.8 Prolo’s own account in Cahiers du Cinéma, Naissance d’un Musée. Le Musée de Cinémadu Turin, No. 33, March 1954, pp. 18-19.9 Sergio Toffetti ed., Le Dragon et l’Alouette. Maria Adriana Prolo-Henri Langlois Correspondance 1948-1979 (Torino, 2002).10 Maria Adriana Prolo, Storia del cinema muto italiano (Milano, 1951).

5

expected; and even more regrettably her work was never given

its due credit, explained by Pesenti Compagnoni as a ‘veiled

snobbish attitude towards the researcher and her work, which

although not publicly reviewed was nonetheless used by

specialists in the field, often without acknowledging her’.11

If it is true that in the light of today her work presents

some lacunae, for example she never discussed or analysed the

films themselves, she nonetheless set the research in motion.

There was only one other work published on Italian silent

movies before Prolo’s.12 This ‘veiled snobbery’ on the part

of the cinematographic critics and specialists in the field

was steeped in their inability to understand the value of her

novel methodology as well as thinly disguised rivalry, which

undoubtedly also had a gender bias. On the other hand her

reception abroad, especially in France, was somewhat in

contrast to the Italian 'snobbery'. French film historian

George Sadoul was especially full of praise in his comments

towards her work, both in his writings about early cinema in

Italy as well as in his historical work about the general

history of cinema. 11 Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Maria Adriana Prolo, 2002, op.cit., p. 22.12 The book in question is by Eugenio Ferdinando Palmieri, Vecchio Cinema Italiano (Venezia, 1941), quoted in Gian Piero Brunetta, Guida alla storia del cinema italiano, 1905-2003 (Turin, 2003), p. 413.

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One last aspect of this formidable woman's life worth

mentioning is her interest in photography, which she saw as

‘a link between the magic lantern and cinematographic

technologies’.13 This in time will become one of the dominant

themes in her activities: from promoting photography in

relation to Turin, publicising the need for a history of

photography and setting in motion research and collection of

photographic artefacts in the same way as she had done for

pre-cinema and cinema. The ultimate aim was to create another

museum, this time of photography; her model was the George

Eastman House of Photography established in 1949 in

Rochester, which she knew well. The museum of photography,

unlike the cinema one, did not come to fruition, but she did

eventually establish another museum in her place of birth:

the 'Museo Storico Etnografico of Romagnano Sesia', in which

photography plays a large part.

First steps in the direction of a National Museum of Cinema

The museum ‘adventure’ proper, in the sense of searching for

support, funds, location begun almost at the same time as the

13 My translation of ‘anello di congiunzione fra la lanterna magica e gli apparecchi cinematografici da presa e da prioezione’ cited in Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Maria Adriana Prolo, 2002, op.cit., p. 25.

7

idea and the collection itself. At any rate, at the

beginning, and throughout the thirties it appeared the

project was very welcome and in addition Prolo could count on

personal and familial connections for the promotion and

initial funding of the museum. The idea to create a museum of

cinema was welcomed because it coincided with the reopening

of the FERT studios and the strongly felt need to regenerate

the Turin’s cinematographic industry. This new optimistic

climate brought her project to the fore, mainly in the Turin

press, which clearly celebrated the revival of the ‘officina’

cinema and its museum. An article by Mario Gromo in ‘La

Stampa’, brought a parallel with the Berlin’s studio UFA and

its museum.14

The first location of the museum of cinema was in the

same building where it will become a very successful museum

59 years later, finally occupying the whole building of the

Mole Antonelliana. In its modest beginnings in June 1941 the

museum was leant by the Turin Council the first floor of the

Mole where all sort of objects began to find their way: many

14 Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Alla luce delle fonti d’archivio : il volto storico del museo nazionale del cinema di Torino, in Nero su Bianco. I fondi archivistici del Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Torino, 1997), p. 32-33.

8

different models of ‘ancient’ cameras, magic lanterns,

slides, photographs, sets, scripts, posters, films, etc.15

Funding also begun to come the museum way16 and of equal

importance were the few articles which begun to appear in the

press about the establishment of a museum of cinema. But

this was also a terrible time, in the midst of World War Two,

and Turin was suffering heavy bombardments. All the artefacts

of the museum were stored in the cellars of the mole, and

they did not re-emerge until 1946 having fortunately suffered

no damage.

Following the war the museum attempted to organize a few

activities, but these were on the whole minimal and rather

unsuccessful. These were no times for cinema, as funds were

clearly needed elsewhere and for much more vital needs. It

was only in 1949 that the first retrospective about

cinematography in Turin organized by the museum (in the

Galleria Metropolitana) achieved a notable success, not least

because it brought together all the people that had been

involved in the ‘golden era’ and who were still very much 15 This history is traced in a general pre-bulletin, June 1941- September 1958 No.0 (1962).16 The first funding of the museum were thus divided: Fiat 3000 lire; Cartiere (paper mills) Burgo 300; Banca Anonima di Credito, 1000; Cassa di Risparmio, 500;Amministrazione Provinciale (Provincial dministrative body), 500; Istituto di SanPaolo (bank), 300; Pastificio Agnesi (pasta firm); FERT 1000; Ente Provinciale per il Turismo (Provincial Tourist Board), 1000.

9

interested in establishing its importance in Italian cinema’s

history.

Maria Adriana Prolo continued in the meanwhile her

indefatigable work of publicizing the museum. In 1949 during

the Congress of the International Federation of Film

Societies, which took place alongside the Venice Film

Festival she asked all present to help with the collection

and promotion of documents and objects pertaining to Italian

cinema history. A year later a retrospective on cinema was

organized as part of the Second International Exposition of

Cinematographic Technology, and the following year in 1951, a

photographic exhibition was organized dedicated to the Museum

of Photography George Eastman House of Rochester, which had

first helped and supported the MNC both through donations and

advice.

In 1952 the museum took part in one of the first

experimental television programmes by presenting and showing

some of the most important pieces of the museum’s collection

(it is worth remembering that RAI, the Italian Public Service

broadcast only started broadcasting on a regular basis two

years later in 1954). In the same year the Museum contributed

10

to the Venice Film Festival with two films from its

collection of silent movies made from the ‘golden age’ of the

Turin cinematographic industry. One produced by Itala Film in

1907: ‘La cameriera é troppo bella’ (The housemaid is too

beautiful) and one produced by Ambrosio Film in 1911: ‘Le

farfalle’ (The butterflies). All these activities were taking

place in a spatial vacuum as the museum did not yet have a

permanent location where to exhibit and screen its

collection, artefacts or films.

Support for the establishment of a museum came from an

unlikely quarter, from the director of the Cinémathèque

Française-Musée du Cinéma, Henri Langlois, a lifelong

supporter and friend of Prolo, during his visit to Turin for

the Marc Chagall exhibition in Palazzo Madama. Throughout his

stay he was busy persuading journalists and authorities to

not only find an adequate location for the museum but also to

give it a proper jurisdiction. As a result on 7 July 1953 the

‘Association of the Museum of Cinema’ was formalized and

established legally although another five years will pass

before the actual museum and auditorium were opened. In the

interim period between the establishment of the ‘Association

11

of the Museum of Cinema’ and the establishment of an actual

museum, exhibitions and screening activities continued

unabated. Of particular importance is the exhibition

organized following the invitation by the Cinémathèque in

Paris at Avenue de Messine, 7, the first ‘mythical’ site of

the Cinémathèque Française. The exhibition opened in January

1954 and lasted until June; this exhibition has always been

considered the successful 'trial run' for the future museum.

In October of the same year the museum was accepted as

member of FIAF (The International Federation of Film

Archives). The following year the MNC contributed to the

grand exhibition organized by the Cinémathèque Française for

the 60th anniversary of the birth of cinema: ‘60 ans de

cinéma’ in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. In that same

year there was also collaboration with the London National

Film Archive on the 'First International Exposition of Sport'

in Turin. Activities were also prolific in Italy, in 1956 on

the invitation of the ‘Cineteca Italiana-Archivio Storico del

film’ based in Milan17 the museum organized an exhibition of

some of the best pieces of its collection; it contributed to 17 The Cineteca Italiana in Milan was first established in 1947. It has a deposit of more than 15.000 films from the origins to today. FIAF considers the Cineteca one of the best archives of European silent movies. In 1985 it also opened a small museum of cinema.

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the ‘First Exhibition of Cinematographic Books and

Periodicals’, part of the Venice Film Festival. At last in

1957 the museum was granted a space at Palazzo Chiablese, and

the work begun in earnest to prepare the sixteen rooms which

housed the first national museum of cinema in Italy, coupled

by some secure funding from the state as well as private.

Today the MNC is a rich collection which comprises many

'fondi' (deposits) of films and surrounding; the most

substantive ones are Fondo Itala Film and Fondo Pittaluga;

alongside there are a few minor ones: Fondo Film Artistica

Gloria and Fondo Cabiria. There are also many other smaller

collections in the archives, too numerous to mention here,

however, these for archival purposes are grouped under type,

such as ‘sceneggiature’ (scripts), or in the case of very

diverse type of film documentation this has been grouped

under ‘Fondi Diversi’ spanning two centuries.18 The wide

chronology is explainable here because this ‘fondo’ comprises

documentation on items which are part of the ‘archaeology of

cinema’.

18 All the material has now been catalogued with the support of the Piedmont Regional fund and the fine archival work of Carla Ceresa and her team and is available in a publication alongside a series of essays on the history and activities of the MNC. Carla Ceresa and Donata Pesenti Compagnoni, Nero su Bianco, I fondi archivistici del Museo Nazionale del Cinema (Turin 1997).

13

To understand how the museum could sustain many of its

activities over the period chosen for research it is

important to describe, albeit briefly the composition of

these collections. All the information is divided between

what is termed ‘scheda archivistica’ (dates, typology,

original titles of the document) and ‘scheda filmografica’,

when the item is a film (original title, production date,

film maker, principal actors, etc.). Four of the collections

and deposits are clearly tied to the early cinematographic

distribution and production houses operating in Turin between

1910 and 1935. Itala Film’s collection is from 1910-1927

(A159-A190) with 767 items; the Fondo Pittaluga is a large

deposit with 1802 archival items and covering the years

between 1920-1935; The Fondo Film Artistica Gloria is a

smaller archive from 1912-1915 (A195-A198) with 55 items and

the Fondo Cabiria is a very dedicated deposit which

concentrates on documentation concerning the film Cabiria and

which was set up in order to publish the volume on Cabiria19.

It was also used to support the recent restoration of the

film. It is composed of 20 items spanning 1914-1988.

19 Paolo Bertetto and Gianni Rondolino, Cabiria e il suo tempo (Milan and Turin, 1998).

14

Particularly important in the two large ‘Fondi’, Itala

and Pittaluga, is the material pertaining to the silent era,

both national and international. They contain material about

silent films from Austria, Australia, Belgium, Britain,

France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, the Soviet Union, Sweden

and the United States. They also contain a substantive

deposit of the first film productions with sound. The other

two substantive archives are more directly linked with the

museum’s own activities, or with the activities of its

founder and first director discussed above: ‘Fondo Prolo’

(A562-A567 with 79 items) and ‘Fondo Museo Nazionale del

Cinema’ (A1-A158 with 1467 items). The first comprises

Prolo’s correspondence, working notes for book publications

and articles, general working notes, her historical and

literary studies, notes for the creation of a Historical and

Ethnographic Museum in her place of origin, Romagnano Sesia.

The second is the entire archive of the history of the museum

up to 1993, divided into three sections: administrative

documents, financial information, including donations,

acquisitions and exchanges and lastly activities, of both the

museum and the film house, Cinema Massimo from 1938 to 1993.

15

The ‘sceneggiature’ archive is also very rich (A344-A561 and

A 593-598) with 1401 items and it almost spans the whole of

the 20th century, from 1908 to 1994. The list of its material

is very extensive; suffice to say that it is mostly composed

of donations from film directors of the original scripts or

other material related to some of their most important films.

The example most famous and which is currently on exhibition

in the museum is the script for Psycho donated by Hitchcock

in 1961.20

The programming activities: 1958-1971

The Museum officially opened its doors on 27 September 1958.

Its opening also coincided with the International Congress of

Cinematographic Technologies then in its tenth year. The

museum had sixteen rooms for exhibitions, a screening

auditorium with a 120 capacity, a library, a photographic

library, a film library and an archive. In November of the

same year the first season begun which usually lasted until

May: visitors to the museum were able to see two films a day

in the auditorium which could project 35mm and 16mm films.

The screenings were often part of major retrospectives and

20 Fondo Hitchcock, script with hand written notes, A540/6.

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these also included museum exhibitions of artefacts (notably

objects related to the films screened, but not exclusively).

The activities of the museum expanded greatly following

the establishment of the museum. The first information

available, albeit not very detailed, about the activities of

the museum from 1958 onward is recorded in the first

Notiziario of the Associazione Museo del Cinema, which was

actually brought out many years later.21 Some information

about the activities of the museum is also available in the

newly archived catalogue of the Fondo Museo Nazionale del

Cinema, above mentioned as ‘Proiezioni, mostre e

collaborazioni fino al 1988’.22 In this same archive there is

also some information about activities prior to 1958

described as ‘Attività anteriori al 1958’ (Activities prior

to 1958).23 The publication of a regular Notiziario by the

'Associazione Museo del Cinema' from 196624 has allowed

researchers to look at the role cinema increasingly played in

21 Notiziario dell’Associazione Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Anno 1, No. 1, January1966, p. 4.22 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1958-1989, A126-A138; A 140.23 Ibid, 1947-1957, A113.24 Notiziario, Anno I, No. 1, January 1966. This first issue incorporates a description of cultural activities undertaken prior to 1966, beginning with January 1962.

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Italian society by studying the detailed programming and

exhibitionary activities of the museum.

The museum, like its French counterpart, had the dual

role of museum and cinémathèque and in this article I would

like to particularly concentrate on the latter. However, the

screening was often accompanied by a collection of artefacts

surrounding the films shown, the genre, and the theme or film

maker. For the purpose of this article I have divided the

information about all the programming activities in three

sections: Promoting Italian, European and US/Hollywood

Cinema. It is also worth mentioning in passing, as this is

beyond the brief of this article, that the programming

activities also extended to other cinema, albeit to a much

lesser extent; namely African, Japanese and Latin American.

Many screenings of films from around the world were

incorporated in thematic programmes, such as the ones on

avant-garde filmmaking and documentary and art mentioned

below. The museum also undertook a great deal of educational

activities with secondary schools, which were and still are a

large part of the museum's brief; these normally took the

form of museum's visits, accompanied by screenings which were

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quite diverse, but which often culminated with the screening

of Pastrone’s Cabiria, discussed below.

Promoting national cinema in Italy in the 60s

The Museum was given the title of 'National' at the General

Assembly of 1966 (Law of 4 November 1965). At this same

meeting there was also a discussion about more appropriate

future locations for the museum, a discussion which will

accompany its history right up to 2000. But the institution

had been clear all along about the importance of national

cinema, and especially about the important role Italian

cinematographic production, and Turin's early cinematographic

industry in particular, played in the development and

dissemination of cinema as a whole. Nonetheless the MNC had

also assembled material about early cinema production in

other Italian contexts, of note is the Naples’ early cinema

production; in October 1960 the museum collaborated to the

exhibition ‘Quando il cinema si chiamava Napoli’ (When cinema

was called Naples).25

25 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1960, A126/11. An interesting account of early cinema in Naples can be found in Giuliana Bruno, Streetwalking on a Ruined Map. Cultural Theory and the City Films of Elvira Notari (Princeton, 1993).

19

The Italian state may well be a case of

‘nazionalizzazione debole’ (weak national identity), in its

turn a result of ‘double geographic identity’, Mediterranean

and North European, but these identities are nonetheless

crossed by a third, younger formation, barely 150 years old,

with numerous common cultural features with the first two:

Italian identity.26 This third formation was very visible in

the activities of the MNC in Turin. For example in 1961, the

museum programming activities commemorated the centenary of

Italian unification with a season of films on the

Risorgimento (the irredentist movement of the nineteenth

century): 25 films in total were screened between May and

November of 1961.27 Turin is of course the city which most

symbolizes the irredentist movement of the 19th century and

its cause for Italian unification and liberation from foreign

rule. It is also the city which houses the Museo Nazionale

del Risorgimento Italiano.

The most important and well known early film in the

MNC’s collection is undoubtedly the film Cabiria made by

Giovanni Pastrone, a central figure in early Italian film-

26 Paul Ginsborg ed., Stato dell’Italia. Il bilancio politico, economico, sociale e culturale di un paese checambia (Milan, 1994), pp. 643-644.27 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1961, A127/3.

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making. Pastrone had also supported the establishment of the

museum and had donated shortly before his death in 1959, his

substantial film and documents collection to the museum.

Cabiria is described by the Italian film historian Gian Piero

Brunetta as the ‘polar star of early cinema’.28 This film has

been screened on many occasions and in many different

contexts, most recently on one of the private Italian

television channels, LA7. In 1964, the film’s fiftieth

anniversary of its first screening was commemorated by the

MNC in a special programme and in 1965 the screening season

kicked off with the screening of Cabiria. The entire

programme of the years looked at in this research is

interspersed by the screening of this film, either

individually or as part of a season on early cinema and

cinematographers. Early cinema and Cabiria in particular, was

nonetheless not the only ‘star’ of the programming remit of

the MNC, the museum in its dissemination of cinema culture

was very conscious of other forces at play in the

cinematographic industry in Italy. Neorealism was not quite

28 Gian Piero Brunetta, Guida alla storia del cinema italiano, p. 33. Also Gianni Rondolino, Il fondo Cabiria, in Nero su Bianco, I fondi Archivistici del Museo Nazionale del Cinema. (Turin, 1997), pp. 69-72. The original version of Cabiria, made in 1914 has been lost. What arrived to posterity is a version re-montaged byPastrone himself in 1931. Cabiria has been recently restored by the MNC.

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yet on the wane, in the 1965-1966 season homage was paid to

Alberto Lattuada,29 one of the earliest film makers to make

films in the neo-realism mode, with the screenings of 13 of

his most important films. This was the most complete season

dedicated to the filmmaker up to that point.30 Alongside,

individual films were screened regularly of contemporary

filmmakers, in collaboration with the ‘Cineclub’ of the

Museum Association. During the season 1966-1967, programming

included films by Roberto Rosselini, Pietro Germi, Emanuele

Luzzati, Mario Soldati and Giuseppe De Sanctis. In that same

season from 31 January to 12 March the programme comprised a

‘Personale di Francesco Rosi’, perhaps the most overtly

political filmmaker of the neorealist group.

The activities of the museum and the associazione did

not however concentrate solely on feature filmmakers. Many

series were programmed around documentary filmmakers; of

particular note over the years were the week-long programming

of ‘film di montagna’ (documentaries about mountains and

climbing). Turin is a northern Italian city surrounded by

29 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1965-1966, A128/7.30 The films screened were Il Bandito, Senza Pietà, Il Mulino del Po, Luci del Varietà, Anna, La Lupa, La Spiaggia, La Tempesta, I Dolci Inganni, Lettere di unaNovizia, L’Imprevisto, La Steppa, Il Mafioso in Notiziario, Anno I, No. 1, January 1966, p. 14.

22

Alpine peaks and the Alpine culture is never far away. These

‘mountain’ series, which normally lasted a week, clearly

reflected the interests of both the people organizing the

activities as well as the interests of the people of Turin.31

Other documentary series were organized in a similar way as

week-long programmes, such as the week of Ethnographic and

Sociological Film32 or the week on Picasso.33 A more extensive

screening season was organized on contemporary Italian

painters with a total of 18 documentaries screened.34

Other types of programmes and series, in a more popular

vein centred on actors, both Italian and international. The

first of note was the homage dedicated to Ettore Petrolini,

theatre and early cinema actor, an all-rounded Italian

comedian, a character ‘straight out of the Commedia

dell’arte’ who played in some of Blasetti’s films of the

30s.35 The films screened to remember his infectious

characters are ‘Petrolini’ by Blasetti and Campogalliani and

‘Cortile’ by Campogalliani. Another Italian actor celebrated31 For example as early as 1960 the MNC contributed to the IX International Festival of Mountain and Exploration Films held in Trento 3-9 October. Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1960, A126/10. 32 The ‘Prima settimana del film etnografico e sociologico’ was held between the 8-14 June 1959. This was followed by one in May 1960, Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1959, A/126/5; 1960, A126/8.33 Notiziario, Anno III, No. 6, January 1968, p. 3.34 Notiziario, Anno III, No. 7, May 1968, p. 5.35 Notiziario, Anno II, No. 3-4, January 1967, p. 6.

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in the programmes of the museum in 1969 is Tina Pica, who had

died a year earlier, aged 84. Tina Pica, like Petrolini, was

an Italian actor who had spanned not only two centuries but

two medium, theatre and cinema. She had acted in many silent

movies and had transferred into talkies without difficulty,

unlike many 'actors-divas' of the silent years. But other

figures beside actors were also celebrated. In 1970, on the

centenary of the birth of the Turinese Arturo Ambrosio,

originally owner of an optical equipment shop, then one of

the first producer and filmmakers in Italy, the museum set up

an exhibition of his activities in 58 glass boxes containing

photographs, original documents, pamphlets and manuscripts.

The exhibition was followed by screenings of work he produced

and/or directed, for example the production of ‘Nozze d’oro’

(1911) directed by Luigi Maggi.36 Arturo Ambrosio was

responsible for many famous lavish epic productions such as

the film Quo Vadis (1924), reputed to be a world-wide box

office success of the time. Other more museological

exhibitions were also organized by the museum, for example

the first International exhibition of Stereoscopy in

36 Notiziario, Anno V, No. 14-15, May-December, 1970, pp. 4-5; Also Fondo Museo Nazionalde del Cinema, 3 November 1970, A 129/10.

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Photography and in Cinema, various exhibitions of 'Lanterna

Magica': Fantasmagorie, 'Tableaux mécanisés', 'Tableaux

Fixes', etc.37

Collaborative projects in the promotion of Italian cinema

Many activities of the museum were also centred on

collaboration with similar institutions at international

level to promote and disseminate Italian cinema. In 1960 the

museum contributed in setting up an exhibition of the

‘Historia do cinema italiano’ in Rio de Janeiro (7-15

June)38, similarly in 1967 a copy of 'Cabiria' was sent to

the ‘Cinemateca Uruguaya’ in Montevideo, and other copies of

films were prepared for sending to the same 'Cinemateca',

although we do not have details of these.

In 1966 the museum collaborated with the Algerian

Cinémathèque on their exhibition of ‘Images du Cinéma

Italien’ in Algeri. There are many details available about

the loans to this exhibition. We know that the museum sent

many films by Pastrone (Cabiria, L’Emigrante, Il Fuoco, Tigre

Reale, Maciste Alpino, Cretinetti e gli Aeromobili Nemici,

37 Notiziario, Anno V, No. 14-15, May-December, p. 4; Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1970, A129/8. 38 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1960, A126/9.

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Che Bello) and two by Eleuterio Rodolfo (La Meridiana del

Convento, La Zia di Carlo). They also sent many original

documents, autographs, posters of the silent as well as early

sound era in Italian cinema (the MNC has a very rich

collection of posters, many of them currently on show in the

top floor of the Mole Antonelliana); the exhibition was also

opened by the founder and director of the museum, Maria

Adriana Prolo. The outcome of this collaboration has had some

negative ramifications as the correspondence about the loans

and their return protracted itself right up to 1988.39

In general however collaborations were successful and

the MNC was very keen in lending its collection (film,

documents and artefacts) to exhibitions and screenings around

the world. Further collaborations followed; in 1968 the MNC

organized in conjunction with the Italian Cultural Institute

in Teheran and the Iranian Cinémathèque a retrospective of

Italian silent movies sending twelve films of the period

between 1909 and 1925.40

Promoting European Cinema in Italy

39 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1966-1982, A128/12.40 Notiziario, Anno III, No. 7, May 1968, p. 5.

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The activities of the museum did not of course stop short at

promoting and disseminating Italian cinema culture, much of

its work was also intent on publicizing and disseminating

international cinema to Italian audiences. This circular

movement is undoubtedly the most positive element of a medium

which was one of the earliest to be globalized. This section

will deal with the MNC's activities in promoting European

cinema. Much has been made of the relationship between Henri

Langlois and Maria Adriana Prolo41 and undoubtedly the

exchanges between the MNC and the Cinémathèque Française-

Musée du Cinéma were not only constant and regular but also

grounded in cultural and mutual familiarity.

The MNC had also contributed to the exhibitions and

screenings held at the Cinémathèque Française-Musée du

Cinéma, beginning with the exhibition in Paris in 1954

mentioned above. In 1961, on the centenary of Georges Méliès,

the MNC organized both exhibition and screenings on this

early French ‘Primitif’ filmmaker. In 1963 and 1965,

screening cycles were organized on Jean Epstein and Jean

Grémillon respectively. IMAGE The year 1968 saw a string of

41 Sergio Toffetti ed., Le Dragon et L’Alouette. Maria Adriana Prolo Henry Langlois Correspondance 1948-1979, 2002, op.cit.

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exhibitions and screening of films ‘d’oltralpe’ (over the

Alps) in collaboration with many other institutions, in

primis with the Cinémathèque-Musée du Cinéma, but also with

the Centre Culturel Français, with the Cineteca Italiana in

Milan42 and others.

Georges Franju was the first film maker to have his

films screened in the 1968 season: a dedicated retrospective

of his work which he also managed to attend in person. This

was followed by a review of Jaqueline Audry’s films, which

subsequently went on tour in Milan as part of the exhibition

‘Jacqueline Audry: from novel to film’. Before the year was

out the MNC organized a retrospective of Jean Renoir, again

this was transferred to Milan and used as part of the

‘Programma Jean Renoir’ organized by the 'Cineteca Italiana-

Archivio Storico del Film'. Many European filmmakers,

although not exclusively, were celebrated in a major cycle

entitled ‘Fifty Years of Avant-garde Cinematography', based

on an idea put forward by Henri Langlois about the continuity

of experiences between avant-garde filmmakers of the silent

and sound eras. Much of the material was also loaned from the

Cinémathèque Française.43

42 Raffaele De Berti ed., Un secolo di cinema a Milano (Milan 1996).

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Filmmakers and films are however not the only

protagonists considered important in the dissemination of

cinematographic culture, like the examples above for Italian

cinema, many French actors were paid homage through dedicated

reviews, screenings and exhibitions. Examples range from a

1962 homage to Pierre Brasseur, whose career begun back in

1924 in Jean Renoir silent film ‘La fille de l’eau’ to Jean

Gabin in 1969.44 In 1969 it was also offered to the public of

Turin a guided thematic screening of 'primitif' films from

Pathé, Gaumont (and Urban) which had been donated to the

museum.

France’s national cinema is undoubtedly the most

represented in the various programmes, partly due to the

cultural affinity mentioned above, nonetheless programming

included many exhibitions and screenings of cinema from other

European nations. Before 1958 there was a homage paid to

British Cinema in conjunction with the National Film

Archive.45 There were numerous collaborations with the Goethe

43 Notiziario, Anno IV, No. 10, May 1969, p. 6.44 Notiziario, Anno I, No. 1, January 1966, p. 4; Notiziario, Anno IV, No. 10, May1969, p. 6.45 Notiziario, Anno I, No. 1, January 1966, p. 4. This collaboration is quite unique, as the British National Film Archive was not particularly forthcoming in lending its film material to other museums/cinémathèques. For an explanation of the archive restrained approach to exchanging, lending and screening its materialsee Penelope Houston, Keepers of the Frame. The film Archives (London, 1994), pp. 37- 48;

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Institute in Turin; a season on new German cinema was

screened in February and March 1969,46 a second screening

season took place in November and December of the same year

and again the following year. In the 1967 programme there was

a week dedicated to contemporary Soviet Cinema, and especial

concentration on the filmmaker Mark Donskoi.47 Undoubtedly

these programming did not match the richness of the

programmes around French cinema, but as explained above the

role of the Cinémathèque Française and its tireless promoter

Henri Langlois coupled with his friendship with the MNC’s

director Maria Adriana Prolo went a long way in keeping

exchanges constant and prolific.48

Promoting US cinema

The dominance of US cinema at international level was also

strongly felt in the programming of the MNC throughout the

decades under study as well as in the wider Italian cinema-

going culture. Hollywood cinema, alongside Italian and French46 Notiziario, Anno IV, No. 10, May 1969, p. 6; Films screened included Es and Schönzeit für füchse by Ulrich Schamoni (1966 and 1965 respectively), Der findling by George Moorse (1967), Mahlzeiten by Edgar Reitz (1967) and Wilder reiter Gmbh by Franz Joseph Spiecker (1967).47 Notiziario, Notiziario, Anno III, No. 6, January 1968, p. 3.48The activities of the museums in promoting European cinema increased greatly in the decades following this study, especially the 70s and 80s, but these activities are being looked at as part of additional archival and historical research still in progress.

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cinema mentioned above, received much attention both in terms

of retrospectives as well as in various thematic screenings

and exhibitions. In 1964 there was a homage paid to Sidney

Lumet;49 in 1966 to Delmer Daves, which concluded the 1965-

1966 season of screenings.50 In the following season, 1966-

1967, a ‘personale’ of Martin Ritt was put on with a

screening of all his films between 1956 and 1963.51 In the

same year the MNC also organized a major retrospective of

American comic films, from 1897 to 1965 entitled: ‘10 Million

Images’.52 In 1969-1970 there was an extensive season of

screenings of Henry Hathway's films, encompassing ten of his

works between the periods of 1954 to 1966.53 The last

retrospective of American filmmakers of the decades under

study, in January 1971 was dedicated to Edward Dmytryk with

extensive screenings of all his major works from 'Warlock'

(1959) to 'Reluctant Saint' (1971).54

In parallel with activities in Italian and European

cinema, there were many series dedicated to popular American

actors. The MNC organized a cycle dedicated to Shirley 49 Notiziario, Anno I, No. 1, January 1966, p. 13.50 Notiziario, Anno I, No. 2, May 1966, p. 4.51 Notiziario, Anno II, No. 3-4, January 1967, p. 6.52 Fondo Museo Nazionale del Cinema, 1966, A128/10.53 Notiziario, Anno IV, No. 11-12, September-December 1969, p. 5.54 Notiziario, Anno V, No. 13, January-April 1970, p. 4.

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MacLaine followed by a cycle dedicated to James Stewart with

popular family comedy screenings such as ‘Mr Hobbs takes a

vacation’.55 One of the most important activities on English-

speaking actors (mainly English and American) was various

screenings entitled ‘Le Voci’ (The Voices): a series of films

in original language. These were first screened in February

1968 and included films with Judy Garland, Richard Burton,

Vivien Leigh, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Woodward, and Paul

Newman. Italian people's 'imaginary' of Hollywood movies is

tied to the dubbed voices rather than the original language

voices; these series were intended as a counter to the

'inauthentic' experience of the 'dub'.

In addition to all the activities around Turin and in

the museum itself, collaborations were also sought on less

mainstream activities; the museum contributed to the

‘Seminario internazionale di studi sul cinema underground’,

organized by the Venice Biennale with copies of the shorts by

Curtis Harrington Picnic (1948) and On the Edge (1949).56 The

Avant-Garde film maker Oskar Fischinger also received much

attention with a series of screenings at the museum of both

55 Ibid, p. 3.56 Notiziario, Anno V, No. 14-15, May-December, 1970, p. 3.

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his black and white and colour work from various periods:

Radio Dynamics, Studies 5-12, American March, Composition in

Blue, Circles, and many others. Concurrently the museum

received a donation of a 'Cinéma de poche', a portable

booklet with Oskar Fischinger’s original drawings.57 American

films also made up a large proportion of the screenings

organized by the museum in conjunction with the ‘Società Pro

Cultura Femminile’, films screened were for example Jean

Negulesco's 'Woman's World', Leo McCarey's 'Rally 'Round the

Flags, Boys!', John Huston's 'Moby Dick' and many others.58

Conclusion

It has been argued by Gramsci and others that Italian

literary culture had a tendency to look beyond one’s national

borders, in the belief that it was superior to anything been

done in Italy. I would argue that in the case of cinema

culture, the opposite is true and looking beyond one’s

national borders is a mark of true cosmopolitanism. During

the decade of the sixties Italian cinema was undergoing a

‘passage’ from its very successful internationally renown

57 Ibid, p. 4.58 Notiziario, Anno I, No. 1, January 1966, p. 14; Anno II, No. 3-4, January 1967, p. 6; Anno III, No. 6, January 1968, p. 3-4;

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neo-realist phase of the previous decade to a more

‘reflective’ moment which coincided with the rise of consumer

society and an increase in wealth for the majority of the

population. The activities of the museum reflected that

‘passage’ with their screenings and exhibitions, but not

necessarily foregoing the important task of exhibiting and

screening national cinema and its cultural heritage.

What is most striking about the cultural activities of

the museum of the period studied is the diversity of its

provision; it could programme avant-garde retrospectives

alongside Hollywood family comedies, without worrying so much

about the concerns which became much more part of the

following decades, part of the ‘eternal debate’ about the

constitution of culture, the ‘art’ vs. ‘trash’ debate. We

can safely say that the museum in Turin was not run ‘like a

high class amusement park’59 but it was a genuine attempt to

reach out to all the people of Turin and beyond. The constant

screenings, exhibitions, collaborations and publications

animated what could have potentially become a moving image

archive, just open to few specialists. This is not to support

59 From the Readers’s comments in Paolo Cherchi Usai, The Death of Cinema. History, Cultural Memory and the Digital Dark Age (London, 2001), pp. 115-116.

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the comment in the Reader’s report in Cherchi Usai’s book

that the moving image archive ‘will end as a kind of museum…

asylum for cultural artefacts.60

Furthermore in its promotion and dissemination of both

national, European and international cinema the MNC attempted

to readdress the insularity created in the previous decades

under the Fascist regime when imports had been banned,

especially from America, although not even Mussolini's

authoritarian regime could ban them in their entirety.

Without the Turin museum Italian cinematic culture would have

undoubtedly continued its uninterrupted path, but very little

would be known about its origins, its rich ‘golden age’

before World War One and the different trajectories cinema

was taking in terms of genre, taste and experience.

Rinella Cere is a Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, Film and Media. This research on Turin's National Museum of Cinema was part funded by the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council).

60 Ibid, pp.116.

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