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A Passion for Conspiracy |
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| 18/11/2008 |
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A Passion for Conspiracy will unite at the festival writers, journalists and analysts for a discussion moderated by Ranieri Polese. This scenario – which perpetually oscillates between traditional
historicism and the reinterpretations of facts – is analyzed in-depth
analysis at this year’s festival, seeing as how the search for the
truth has triggered studies, reconstructions and investigations, and
developed a deep connection between non-fiction and fiction (almost a
genre) on conspiracies and the rewriting (or reinvention) of history.
The relationship between the true and the verisimilar will be the subject of a discussion moderated by Gaetano Savatteri between judge Roberto Scarpinato and writer Carlo Lucarelli, while a possible, dramatic, contemporary conspiracy will be illustrated by journalist Maurizio Torrealta and scientist Emilio Del Giudice.
True and verisimilar crimes and misdemeanors
Intrigue can subvert a regime, a conspiracy can upset the balance of power by using its forms and rites to its advantage – it is an ancient sport and a recurring topos in all cultures, from the ancient Egyptians (the overthrowing of Akhenaton) and ancient Greeks (the Trojan Horse) to the Indians (the plot against Arjuna in Mahabharata) and Jews. Over time they have been seen as victims or ideologues of the greatest conspiracies in history. The modern idea of a “plot” belongs symbolically to a society of global communication, so much that is has quickly become one of its icons.
We are not so much interested in the simple mechanisms of plot or intrigues as we are in the system for interpreting them in news and history, for which behind every official truth there hides a “secret truth,” which gains strength and credibility precisely because it is hidden from the eyes of the normal observer, witness, citizen.
The idea has become increasingly more widespread that the West lost its “virginity” with respect to the real modern intrigues such as the assassination of JFK and kidnapping of Aldo Moro, to the Twin Towers and the mysteries of the “third level” of the Mafia. And that institutional complicity – in the sense that the state and the leading financial powers orient our lives, using illegal instruments and bending the destinies of society to their interests – lies concealed.
From this parallel vision of reality – emphasized intemperately by the system of global communication in the Internet era – there emerges both the counter information that poisons traditional information, triggering a true connection between the essay and the reinvention of the novel that draw their lifeblood from the mechanism of conspiracy hunting.
This has generated an authentic “passion for conspiracy” that has changed our perception of reality and our faith in the (presumed) truth of facts.
If you will note, in genre literature, the conventional spy story has increasingly emphasized the reason for the plot with respect to the motive for the secret war – the phenomenon is as evident as it is fleeting in its ideological confines after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the declared Cold War. In tout court mysteries, the myth of the machination has taken over the space that until recently was given to the serial killer, just as mass murder stands out against the simple crime. At the same time, there flourished a type of non-fiction at the limits between documented investigation, analysis of reality and the research behind conspiracy hunting. Almost as if identifying a secret power were not just the task of counter information but also a thaumaturgical placebo for the indecipherable nature of contemporary history and the flow of news.
It is said that, especially in Europe, it is an ancient practice and that already the ghost of Doctor Mabuse looms over Nosferatu, or that the sovereign randomness of events (only seemingly orchestrated by the maneuvering event) has always driven the noir and, before it, the classic tragedy. But there is no doubt that the recent drift is an authentic phenomenon, rather than the sign of free information that escapes censorship by the powers that be. To the point where we can say we are beholding a new event that cinema and television all the more so have quickly appropriated, especially in America, negating the revolutionary value of the conspiracy interpretation of the facts.
This year’s topic
This scenario – which perpetually oscillates between traditional historicism and the reinterpretations of facts – is analyzed in-depth analysis at this year’s festival, seeing as how the search for the truth has triggered studies, reconstructions and investigations, and developed a deep connection between non-fiction and fiction (almost a genre) on conspiracies and the rewriting (or reinvention) of history.
It thus seems valid to ask what will be the basis of our two discussions: Why do we like conspiracies? and Should Italian history of the 20th century be rewritten?
For the former, Ranieri Polese will moderate a discussion between fiction and non-fiction writers, analysts and journalists. For the latter, journalistic Gaetano Savatteri, writer Carlo Lucarelli and judge Roberto Scarpinato, who co-wrote Il ritorno del Principe with Saverio Lodato, will speak on the secret orchestrations of power behind contemporary events.
In another panel discussion, journalist Maurizio Torrealta and scientist Emilio Del Giudice will offer us a case history that exemplifies a conspiracy that may lie behind a premeditated nuclear explosion disaster, and which may today come to light thanks to counter-information and the Internet.
007, Italian style
Along with these discussions, this year the festival also offers the (sometimes involuntary) comedy of Italian spy stories, a genre created in the wake of the James Bond hits in the 1960s. These films also showed the conspiracy to be a worldwide phenomenon, yet were far from plausible, with rare and laudable exceptions such as Mario Monicelli’s We Want the Colonels and Luciano Salce’s Coup D’Etat.
Those were not just Bond years, but also the years that the first of a long series of conspiracies in Italian politics to be reported in newspapers, from the planned coup d’etats of Junio Valerio Borghese and General Di Lorenzo to the “Servizi Deviati” scandal and Gladio/P2. One wonders why these events then as now remained at the margins of cinema, to become a pretext for adventure or comedy far from all possible reality.
Yet the virtual journey from James Bond to James Tont produced lasting effects in the collective memory of those years and we felt it was worth re-examining. Ironic in their content, as films the selected titles are endearing and nostalgic examples of an imaginative and virtuoso period of commercial cinema.
Selected by critic Marco Giusti, all but one of the section’s eight titles are serious and semi-serious films featuring stars who were established or who enjoyed just that brief moment in the spotlight. Mario Monicelli’s We Want the Colonels, on the other hand, used comedy to depict the country’s most disturbing political situation at the time.
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