‘Dalle Stalle alle Stelle’: Peasant Stereotypes, Pledges to Authenticity and Spaces of Liminality in Return to Dust and The Tree of Wooden Clogs
New Formations - ISSN 0950-2378
Volume 2024 Number 113
‘Dalle Stalle alle Stelle’: Peasant Stereotypes, Pledges to Authenticity and Spaces of Liminality in Return to Dust and The Tree of Wooden Clogs
Andrea Bonfanti pages 89‑109
DOI: 10.3898/NewF:113.05.2024
Abstract
This article aims to contribute to the development of a critical approach to peasant representations, particularly in films. It does so by analysing two peasant reels which rose to international fame by casting ‘real’ peasants: Li Ruijun’s Return to Dust (2022) and Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978). The research develops in three stages. First, it extrapolates some of the recurrent stereotypes which have been haunting the peasant film genre and which, together, compose a schemata for how peasants appear on the big screen. Second, it criticises the so-called ‘pledge to authenticity’ that these films make. The fact that they are, more or less, realistic does not make them accurate, but simply more difficult to recognise as artistic pieces. By contrasting these creative representations with historical data, this work debunks a claim which often misleads critics and audiences alike. Third, the article explores the historical conditions which led to the genesis of these films in different cultural and temporal contexts, i.e. 1970s Italy and contemporary China. At the time of production of the two reels, these societies, however different, were undergoing similar liminal periods. In this way, romantic imageries of peasants served as an intellectual anchor to provide Italian and Chinese societies with a sense of stability in the face of a disorienting modernity.
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To cite this article
Andrea Bonfanti (2024) ‘Dalle Stalle alle Stelle’: Peasant Stereotypes, Pledges to Authenticity and Spaces of Liminality in Return to Dust and The Tree of Wooden Clogs, New Formations, 2024(113), 89-109 . https://doi.org/10.3898/NewF:113.05.2024