Dear all,
you are all warmly invited to the lecture organized by Antonella Massari, Mario Trapani and Giulio Luciani in the framework of the International Doctoral School "Tullio Ascarelli" on Cinema and Censorship. The exact title of the conference, which will take place on Tuesday 13th March 2012 in the AULA MAGNA of the RomaTre University (Via Ostiense 159) at 3:30 pm is:
"ULTIMO TANGO A PARIGI" QUARANT'ANNI DOPO: "OSCENO" E "COMUNE SENTIMENTO DEL PUDORE" TRA ARTE CINEMATOGRAFICA, DIRITTO E PROCESSO PENALE
This kind of topic is surely very interesting for all law students but it really fits in our Law and the Humanities program. Director Bernardo Bertolucci has been invited and we are waiting for his reply. Anyway, the schedule of the conference is really amazing and it is open to all people interested.
La problematica dell'"osceno" nel diritto penale
Giulio Luciani
Dottorando di ricerca in Diritto penale - Università degli Studi "Roma Tre"
Antonella Massaro
Ricercatore confermato di Diritto penale - Università degli Studi "Roma Tre"
L'opera cinematografica "oscena" e il caso "Ultimo tango a Parigi"
Luigi di Majo
Avvocato Difensore nel caso "Ultimo tango a Parigi"
Fausto Gianì
Giornalista, critico cinematografico
Perito nel caso "Ultimo tango a Parigi"
Mario Sesti
Giornalista, critico cinematografico, regista
Docente di Critica cinematografica - Università degli Studi "Roma Tre"
Curatore della Sezione "L'altro Cinema Extra" nel Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma
Claudio Trionfera
Giornalista, critico cinematografico, Capo Ufficio Stampa Medusa Cinema e Medusa Film
Perito nel caso "Ultimo tango a Parigi"
Presiede
Mario Trapani
Professore Ordinario di Diritto penale - Università degli Studi "Roma Tre"
I have just participated to the meeting about the movie 'Ultimo tango a Parigi'. The meeting has been presented by professor Trapani of criminal law, two of his assistants, the advocate Luigi di Majo who defended the director Bertolucci, and the experts of cinematogaphy who had been called at the time of the trial to help in the evaluations of the judge. Most surprisingly the judge himself came without that this had been comunicated oficially, the advocate has recognized him and asked him to take part of the debate sitting along to them.
ReplyDeleteIn 1972 this movie had been presented for the first time to the public and, by the end of 1973, three levels of judgment took place and declared that the movie was obscene and that it had to be destroyed and censored.
After that, in a particular occasion during the earliest '80s, a copy of the movie was found and abusively showed to the public and a new trial began.
This time the historical context, the persons involved and the approach to the problem were different.
It is true that in the movie there are many very explicit sex scenes, but they weren't made just to be seen as such, or to shock anyone's spirit. On the contrary such explicit scenes were more the symbols of a generation who had just lived all the new ideologies from '68, such as the idea of feeling free and not having the obligation to live love in a conformist way or to respect oll the institutions of the nation without having the opportunity to live and be just like they wanted to.
The first time the judge didn't asked for the opnion of experts about the movie , thing that happend this time and that surely helped to give a more fair judgment to the content of the film. This was important because the criminal law defines what is 'obscene', but it doesn't define what a 'work of art' is. Considering the fact that works of art and science can't be evaluated as 'obscene', it was very important to establish if the movie 'Ultimo tango a Parigi' could be considered a work of art or not. The experts answered positively to this point and the film returned available for the public.
I think that for the field of Law and the Humanities this event was very interesting beacuse the speekers did almost all engage both the judicial and the artistic aspects.
The experts talked about the fact that this movie represented an essential turning point in the collective sensibilty, and about the very different nuances of the censures that had been made about it in America and in Italy.
The professor,his assistants,the advocate and the judge obviously treated the theme almost from the judicial point of view. But, beeing the freedom to watch a movie,a work of art, something that involeves everyone,even them have expressed their opnion under a 'human' point of view.
The advocate for example said that it was a time were actually the censure against the italian cinema was very agressive, even if, for other reasons, the society was witnessing 'progressive' tendencies, for example thank to the referendum about divorce and abortion.
The judge himself told us his memories about the background of this experience of his life and most remarkably he said, with a big smile on his face, that some critiques said that 'his judgment killed the christian faith'!