| Summary: | This thesis offers an in-depth analysis of five films (Pane e cioccolata, Queen of
Hearts, L’Emmerdeur, Mediterraneo sempre, Raging Bull) which deal with the Italian
reality outside of Italy. The segment-by-segment study of these works reveals
overlapping themes that define parameters that can be used to define a deterritorialized
culture which the author of this study names the Italic culture. The analytical system
produced can help scholars and students to understand what constitutes the filmic
narrative of ethnic films. The title of the thesis derives from a monologue spoken by Jake
LaMotta in Raging Bull by Martin Scorsese, which is a paraphrase of another monologue
said by Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront by Elia Kazan. Though the words of the
speeches are similar, their meaning is different. What for Malloy was a need for success
becomes for LaMotta a criticism of this success. Presented at once as a study of forms
and a survey of cultural connotations, this investigation proposes a journey into the
representative world created by immigrants and children of immigrants who, by refusing
to disappear into sameness, question what it means to be Italian in the world today.
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