Like a Movie
The Post-Futurist Cinema of the 1930s
The exhibition programme at the Casa d’Arte Futurista Depero gains a new section dedicated to cinema. The protagonist is Emanuele Caracciolo (1912-1944), a filmmaker representing the Neapolitan Futurist Group, whose activity is documented in the Fortunato Depero section of the Archivio del ’900.
Although the Futurists viewed cinema with curiosity and interest, they produced few films in the 1910s and 1920s, and most of what they did produce has been lost. In the 1930s, with the advent of sound and the birth of Cinecittà Studios, Italian cinema entered a new phase of production, which is much more thoroughly documented.
Through a selection of photographs, letters, books and magazines, the exhibition explores a number of exemplary cases, shedding new light on Depero’s projects and his contacts with the world of cinema. The itinerary features a documentary by Walter Caprara and excerpts from certain significant films: Thaïs by Anton Giulio Bragaglia, the only Futurist film to have survived to the present day, Troppo tardi t’ho conosciuta by Caracciolo, which had been lost but was rediscovered in 2003, and Marionette by Carmine Gallone, a pillar of popular cinema from his debut until at least the 1950s.
