Addio, Uncle Tom!
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Addio Zio Tom |
| Country of production | Italy |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1971 |
| length | 123 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Gualtiero Jacopetti Franco Prosperi |
| music | Riz Ortolani |
| camera |
Claudio Cirillo Antonio Climati Benito Frattari |
| cut | Gualtiero Jacopetti |
| occupation | |
| |
Addio, Uncle Tom! (Addio Zio Tom) is an Italian film from 1971. It was directed by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi with music by Riz Ortolani . The film belongs to the genre of the moon film . The film travels back in time to the so-called antebellum America (the United States in the time before the civil war ) and shows the miserable conditions under which the black slaves had to live in America. The film is drawn up like a documentary. Actors recreated historical scenes.
production
The film was essentially shot in Haiti , where directors Jacopetti and Prosperials were allowed to shoot as the guest of the dictator Papa Doc Duvalier . Duvalier supported them with diplomatic status, filming permits all over the island and invited them to dinner. Hundreds of Haitians appeared as extras in the film.
Different versions
The Director's Cut by Addio Zio Tom draws parallels between the horror of slavery and the rise of the Black Power movement, represented by Eldridge Cleaver , LeRoi Jones , Stokely Carmichael and others. The film ends with the showing of William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner . Here Nat Turner's revolt is relocated to the present, including the shaking of uninvolved whites. American distributors found this too drastic and forced Jacopetti and Prosperi to cut out thirteen minutes for the Anglo-Saxon audience.
Reception and criticism
The film has been widely criticized for racism, although directors Jacopetti and Prosperi claimed to have just come against racism. In Roger Ebert's review of 1972 stated that the directors have turned the most disgusting, herablassendste insult of decency that have ever disguised as documentation ( "Made the most disgusting, contemptuous insult to decency ever to masquerade as a documentary."). Critic Pauline Kael called the film the worst, concrete and most rabid incitement to race war (“the most specific and rabid incitement to race war”). White racists associated with the Ku Klux Klan such as David Duke suspected a Jewish conspiracy to incite black people.
The directors rejected this allegation. In the documentary Godfathers of Mondo (2003) they spoke again about having made the film to denounce racism.
Soundtrack
The Italian composer Riz Ortolani contributed the soundtrack to the film. He had worked with the directors on Mondo Cane and Africa Addio .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Provocateur Gualtiero Jacopetti Dead at 91: Honoring the Man Behind the Mondo Movies. Richard Corliss, August 21, 2011.
- ^ Farewell Uncle Tom Roger Ebert, 1972
- ^ Pauline Kael, "The Current Cinema: Notes on Black Movies," New Yorker, December 2, 1972, 163.
- ^ David Duke, My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding (Mandeville: Free Spech Press, 1999), 311.
- ^ The Godfathers of Mondo. Gov. David Gregory. Blue Underground, 2003.