On The Front. Cameramen and Photographers recount the Great War

The National Cinema Museum is offering On the Front. Cameramen and photographers recount the Great War, an exhibition by curators Roberta Basano and Sarah Pesenti Campagnoni, at the Mole Antonelliana from 29 January to 3 May 2015, through a visual itinerary with shots and film footage by military photographers and cameramen, who show an extreme, imposing and contradictory war.
 The Great War was the first conflict to be documented in a systematic way by military cameramen and photographers or by amateurs. Photography and cinema, the Twentieth century technological arts, are placed at the core of an offensive and invasive strategy which is no less dangerous that the one played out by the armies in the trenches: such static and moving pictures communicate straight to the spectator, overcoming language limits, disinterest and ideological constraints. The shots and the footage of soldiers and officials, the images from the front and the rear lines, of the wounded, the sick and the mutilated, thus take on a centre-stage role in defining the balance of power of the main belligerent countries, for they invade the pages of daily papers and magazines and dominate shows at cinemas worldwide, finding an echo in the countless amateur photographs accumulated by the veterans and their families.
 The exhibition winds from the Temple Hall, the heart of the National Cinema Museum and the Mole Antonelliana, the symbol of the city, to the showcase venues on the balcony-gallery (floor +25). Over 160 unpublished photographs belonging to the museum collections are presented along the ramp, shot mostly by Luis Bogino, a photographer born of Piedmontese parents in Argentina, who followed the Royal Italian Army. In addition to Bogino’s photos there are shots taken by photography-buff soldiers deployed in war territories. The film footage circuit develops in parallel to this first one, featuring films shot on the front and in the rear lines, and clips of narrative films from various periods, as a testimonial of how this visual and cultural heritage has been interpreted in differing ways in the course of time.
 Particular prominence is given to the film Uomini contro (Many wars ago) by Francesco Rosi, who died recently and whose imposing archive is held by the museum.
 At the top of the helicoid ramp (floor +25) a section of the exhibition highlights the way the Great War locations and collective imagination relating to it still constitute a theme to reflect on and to revisit nowadays on the part of contemporary artists, who offer a contemporary viewpoint on the war event, a personal analysis of the first world war, of the places it passed through and of an often-forgotten memory, by means of the photography and cinematic medium. The last part of the display circuit includes a tribute to photographer Paola De Pietri‘s opus (reviewing the front locations in the present), a series of watercolours and two video installations by artists Yervant Gianikian - Angela Ricci Lucchi,  the first of which is still unreleased (but both being the result of patient work on original fragments of vintage films), and a space dedicated to video-clips by pop, folk, rock and metal musicians who have asked themselves questions about this conflict.
 Completing the exhibition, the On the Front. Cameramen and photographers recount the Great War catalogue, published by Silvana Editoriale, offers a broad selection of photographs on the Great War belonging to the National Cinema Museum collections, flanked by a series of essays offering important reflections on the military photo-cinematographic production which was contemporary with the conflict, and on the artworks which the film industry and artists’ sensitivity subsequently dedicated to this issue, with historic, technical and aesthetic in-depth research.
 Several  educational activities will be featured for students,  as well as themed guided tours, and cycles of screenings at the Library/Mediatheque.
 The dates dedicated to Great War at the Cinema Massimo will be two. One on 30 and 31 January 2015, with the “war  trilogy” by Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci-Lucchi, who have dedicated a good part of their life to the study of the war and the images which have depicted it. While on 3 February, within the customary rendez-vous with Magnificent Visions, it will be the turn of the film Maciste Alpino, restored by the National Cinema Museum and the Venice Biennale, considered to be the first war film in the history of film. Screened as a premiere at the latest Venice Film Festival to inaugurate the revamped Sala Darsena, the film is presented here with a recorded music accompaniment, composed and performed by Raffaele Casarano and the Locomotive band.

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