Residual visions: Rubbish, refuse and marginalia in italian cinema from neorealism to the present

While the themes of garbage and refuse pervade many of the most important works of Italian cinema from the era of Neorealism to the present, thus far no scholarly attempts have been made to examine the commonalities germane to their portrayal and their relationship to larger questions of Italian cultural trends. The present study explores how filmmakers' depiction of the residual is synecdochic of an artistic vision that endeavors to capture reality at its most unprepared and, subsequently, comes to represent the increasing complexity of the mimetic undertaking in an Italian society thrust rapidly into the late stages of capitalism. Chapter One begins by comparing the Fascist representation of recycling in the INCOM documentary Nulla si distrugge (1939) to Antonioni's representation of sanitation workers in N.U. (1948), going on to explore Zavattini and De Sica's decision to feature garbage and street sweepers prominently in both Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Miracle in Milan (1951). Chapter Two examines several films that struggle with the challenges of engaged artistic representation during and immediately following the period of the Italian Economic Miracle: Antonioni's Red Desert (1964) and Zabriskie Point (1970) and Fellini's Ginger and Fred (1986). Chapter Three analyzes contemporary Italian cinema's representation of trash as the expression of a divergence of cultural perspectives in Gomorrah (2008), Corpo Celeste (2011) and a series of documentary exposes about the Italian waste management crisis.