Falcone e Borsellino

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Falcone e Borsellino
Tony Gentile , 1992

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

The photo Falcone e Borsellino was taken on March 27, 1992 in Palermo by the Italian photographer Tony Gentile. It shows the two Italian judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who were murdered in bomb attacks a few months later, in conversation with each other.

description

Paolo Borsellino

The photo taken with black and white film shows the two judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino sitting at a table facing the photographer. They each wear a dark suit with a white shirt and tie. Both of them have put their heads together and are smiling. While Borsellino, sitting on the right, has both arms crossed in front of his torso, Falcone is holding his glasses in his slightly raised left hand and holding his right arm in front of his stomach. In front of both judges are notebooks with writing materials on the table, on the right are Borsellino's glasses. A microphone is installed in front of the Falcone.

Creation and publication

The photo was taken on March 27, 1992 during a panel discussion in Palazzo Trinacria in Palermo's historic La Kalsa district . This neighborhood was not only a stronghold of the local mafia, it was also where Falcone and Borsellino had spent their childhood. In addition to Ayala and the two judges of Palermo, Deputy Mayor Aldo Rizzo and the journalist Giovanni Pepi took part in the panel discussion organized by Giuseppe Ayala on the subject of “Crime, Politics and Justice” . Ayala was judge and candidate of the Partito Repubblicano Italiano for the upcoming elections to the Chamber of Deputies . He had already made a name for himself with his campaign against the Mafia.

The 28-year-old photographer Tony Gentile worked as a press photographer for the evening edition of the Giornale di Sicilia and was commissioned to document the event with photographs. After taking several photos at the beginning of the panel discussion, he went to a side wall of the room to wait for the opportunity to take more photos. When he saw Falcone and Borsellino joking with each other, he ran to the center of the table, right in front of the two judges, and took a series of four pictures with his Nikon F3 . The later known picture, exposure time 1/60 s with flash , was the second of the series and the 15th of the film. Gentiles editor-in-chief initially rejected the series as he preferred a photo with all panelists for the article, but wanted to use it at a later date.

A few days after the murder of Giovanni Falcone on May 23, 1992, Gentile, urged by a colleague, sent the negatives to his Rome-based Agenzia Sintesi photo agency . Bild 15 has been sold to a number of daily and weekly newspapers around the world. After the attack on Paolo Borsellino on July 19, 1992, the photo was already available in the archives of numerous media and has been published many times. By the end of the year it became a symbol for the two murdered judges and for the fight against the Sicilian Mafia .

Twenty years after the photo was taken, Gentile stated in an interview that the photo had little to do with creativity. It was important to observe the actors, to recognize that something was happening and to seize the moment. The technical aspect of choosing black and white film was common in press photography at the time. For recordings in the evening there was no other option because of the close editorial deadline.

In 2017, Tony Gentile sued the public television broadcaster Rai , which had used the photo several times in broadcasts, for copyright infringement. In December 2019, a court in Rome dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that it was a simple photo and not a work of art, which is why, after the 20-year protection period after the initial publication, the photo was to be regarded as a creative common property and in the public domain. Tony Gentile protested against this decision and überpinselte in a public protest printed on a poster contact sheet of his photos of Falcone and Borsellino with white paint. An appeal has been lodged against the judgment.

analysis

In contrast to other photos such as Leap in Freedom , The Terror of War or Freddy Alborta's photo of the dead Che Guevara , which have become a symbol for historically significant events through the direct representation of an event or its effect, Falcone e Borsellino is characterized by the lack of immediate Related to the murders of Falcone and Borsellino. The image works through the depiction of relaxed innocence and two intact bodies, which is in stark contrast to the television images of large-scale destruction after the devastating attacks on the judges. This contrast is reinforced by the friendly closeness of the two men, which is almost like a hug and arouses strong emotions in the viewer. It was compared with another (posed) photo of two Italians showing cyclists Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi during the 1952 Tour de France , when Bartoli handed his supposed rival Coppi his water bottle as he climbed the Col du Galibier . The sporting rivalry is reflected in the different political convictions of the judges, the socialist Falcone and the neo-fascist Borsellino. Both photos show several parallels, the arrangement of two Italian national heroes close to each other, the uniformity of the two cyclists in their jerseys and the two judges in their gray suits and white shirts, the attributes of the bicycle handlebars and the notepads in front of the protagonists, and even the half-closed eyes of Bartoli and Falcone. In both photos, an unexpected event attracts the viewer's attention, here the bottle exchange and there the whispered conversation.

Aftermath

Falcone e Borsellino on banners: "You did not murder them, their ideas are on our feet (further)."

Falcone e Borsellino has been copied on countless occasions by government agencies and representatives of civil society, appropriated for the fight against the Mafia or other purposes, parodied and alienated for satirical purposes. Some of these derivative representations have gained great popularity in their own right.

Protest culture

On the anniversary of Falcones' assassination, the Palermo-based anti-mafia organization Comitato dei Lenzuoli published posters and banners with the express permission of Gentiles with the reproduction of the photo and the text Non li avete uccisi: le loro idee camminano sulle nostre gambe (German: you have she didn't murder her, her ideas walk on our feet (further) ).

After the death of former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in May 2013, Giovanni Malagò , President of the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano , ordered a minute's silence before all Italian Serie A football matches . The Andreotti alleged decades of contact with the Sicilian Mafia and other criminal organizations were the reason to disrupt the minutes of silence in numerous stages with demonstrative whispers and loud heckling. In Turin, numerous spectators held up copies of the Falcone e Borsellino photo during the minute's silence for Andreotti to protest the honor.

Caricaturists repeatedly used the photo as a template, mostly to criticize the ongoing entanglement of politics and organized crime and the inability of state organs to continue the fight against the Mafia by Falcones and Borsellinos.

State commemoration

Commemorative plaque on Falcone and Borsellino, from 2002 to 2011 at Palermo-Punta Raisi Airport

The Falcone e Borsellino photo was soon used by the state to commemorate the two judges. To mark the tenth anniversary of the murders , a large bronze plaque by the sculptor and medalist Tommaso Geraci was unveiled on June 11, 2002 on the outside wall of the arrivals hall at Palermo-Punta Raisi Airport , nicknamed “Falcone e Borsellino” . The representation was a reproduction of the photo with the inscription GIOVANNI FALCONE - PAOLO BORSELLINO - GLI ALTRI / ORGOGLIO DELLA NUOVA SICILIA (German: Giovanni Falcone - Paolo Borsellino - the others / pride of the new Sicily ). The plaque was set against the background of a rough depiction of Sicily made of sandstone tablets in different colors, sizes and shapes. The object was in place for less than ten years. On June 23, 2011, allegedly during construction work, it was removed and placed in the police station of Cefalù , where the medalist lived. This was preceded by a public controversy about the renaming of the airport, which was carried out by the right-wing populist Sicilian politician Gianfranco Miccichè . Miccichè criticized that the tourists arriving at the airport found the negative stereotype of Sicily as the country of the mafia confirmed.

On May 23, 2002, on the 10th anniversary of the murders of Falcone and Borsellino, the Italian Post issued a stamp designed by Tiziana Trinca and printed by the Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato (IPZS), which shows a section of the photo. Apart from the names, years of birth and death of the two judges, no explanations about the judges' work, the circumstances of their death or references to the Mafia are printed. This restrained design is typical for Italian commemorative stamps of the time, a stamp for the 20th anniversary of the murder of Police General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa appeared a few months later, also designed by Tiziana Trinca and without any reference to the Mafia.

On the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia , another stamp was issued on September 21, 2012, which took up the photo motif of Gentiles. The design by Maria Carmela Perrini was in turn implemented by the IPZS. The central motif is the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia logo. Above it are the portraits of the two judges, mounted at a greater distance in their original position, and between them the portrait of the judge Rosario Livatino, who was murdered in Agrigento in September 1990 . At the time of the stamp issue, the beatification of Livatino was taking place.

Falcone e Borsellino , mural in Palermo, July 2017

On July 19, 2017, on the 25th anniversary of the bombing of Paolo Borsellino and his escort, a mural entitled Falcone e Borsellino was installed by the Sicilian street artists Rosk and Llose on the wall of the Istituto Nautico Gioeni-Trabia in Palermo, facing the Cala . It takes up almost the entire wall of the house and reproduces a section of the photo.

Representatives of civil society criticized the state commemoration, which turns the portraits of the murdered judges into symbols of the struggle against the mafia without this struggle finding an appropriate continuation. They describe the state commemorations as tasteless liturgy that has been freed from its content and that has lost touch with the righteous and honorable victims of the Mafia.

literature

  • Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes: Tony Gentile's photograph of Falcone and Borsellino . In: Modern Italy . tape 21 , 2016, p. 441–452 , doi : 10.1017 / mit.2016.48 (English, Special Issue 4, Iconic Images in Modern Italy: Politics, Culture and Society).
  • John Dickie: Falcone and Borsellino: the story of an iconic photo . In: Modern Italy . tape 17 , no. 2 , 2012, p. 251–255 , doi : 10.1080 / 13532944.2012.665285 (English, interview with Tony Gentile).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes , S. 441st
  2. ↑ a b c John Dickie: Falcone and Borsellino: the story of an iconic photo , pp. 252-253.
  3. ↑ Lucio Luca: Tony Gentile: “L'immagine che ci ha dato la forza di reagire”. In: repubblica.it. March 27, 2017, accessed September 28, 2020 (Italian).
  4. ↑ a b Tony Gentile: Le vite di una fotografia. In: tonygentile.it. March 17, 2017, accessed September 29, 2020 (Italian).
  5. ^ A b John Dickie: Falcone and Borsellino: the story of an iconic photo , p. 255.
  6. ^ Federico Montaldo: Fotografia semplice e creativa: Il caso “Falcone e Borsellino”. In: nocsensei.com. February 10, 2020, accessed September 28, 2020 (Italian).
  7. ↑ Lucio Luca: L'autore della foto di Falcone e Borsellino diffida i partiti: “Non usate quell'immagine per fare propaganda politica”. In: repubblica.it. June 20, 2020, accessed September 28, 2020 (Italian).
  8. ↑ Vernice sui volti di Falcone e Borsellino, la protesta dell'autore del celebre scatto. In: adnkronos.com. July 20, 2020, accessed September 28, 2020 (Italian).
  9. ↑ Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes , pp 442-444.
  10. ↑ Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes , S. 444th
  11. ↑ a b c d e Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes , pp. 444-447.
  12. ↑ Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes , S. 444th
  13. ↑ Eleanor Canright Chiari: The whisper with a thousand echoes , pp 448-450.