Giuseppe Patroni Griffi

1. “One of the most versatile personalities of the Italian cultural scene of the late twentieth century” - La Repubblica Giuseppe PatroniGriffi A Presentation by Rachel Lampson http://www.repubblica.it/2005/l/sezioni/spettacoli_e_cultura/patrongriff/patrongriff/patrongriff.html?ref=search

2. Born on February 27, 1921 in Naples, Italy • Died on December 15, 2005 in Rome, Italy • “Son of Felix and Noble Baroness Laura de Gemmis” • Screenwriter, Director, Playwright, Author • Served as Artistic Director for the TeatroEliseo in Rome from 2002-2005 • The theatre has since been formally dedicated to his memory • Winner of two Emmys • 1993 Outstanding Individual Achievement – Classical Music/Dance Programming: Tosca: In the Settings and at the Times of Tosca (1992) • 2001 Outstanding Classical Music-Dance Program: La traviata(2000) Biography http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Patroni_Griffi http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665993/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665993/awards?ref_=nm_awd

3. Canzoni di mezzo secolo (1954) • Cavalcade of Song (1954) • The Magliari (1959) • Lettere di unanovizia (1960) • Girl with a Suitcase (1960) • The Sea (1962) • I cuoriinfranti (1963) • The Witches (1967) • More Than a Miracle (1967) • ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1971) • The Driver’s Seat (1974) • The Divine Nymph (1975) • La romana (1988) • Femmina (1998) Filmography (Writer) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665993/?ref_=nmawd_awd_nm#writer

4. The Sea (1962) • Metti, una sera a cena (1969) • ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1971) • The Driver’s Seat (1974) • The Divine Nymph (1975) • La gabbia (1985) • La romana (1988) Filmography (Director) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0665993/?ref_=nmawd_awd_nm#director

5. Novels • Ragazzo di Trastevere (1955) • Scende giù per Toledo (1975) • Gli occhi giovani (1977) • La morte della bellezza (1987) • Del metallo e della carne (1992) Plays • D’amore si muore (1958) • Anima Nera (1960) • In memoria di una signora amica (1965) • Metti, una sera a cena (1967) • Persone naturali e strafottenti (1974) • Prima del Silenzio (1979) • Gli amanti dei miei amanti sono i miei amanti (1982) • Cammurriata (1983) • Una Tragedia Reale (1999) Other Works http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Patroni_Griffi

6. “Declarations of love are shadowed by death, encapsulated by the symmetrical vows that the siblings make where they promise to love or kill one another” (Silverstone 559). • Griffi’s rendering of the play “strips away the play’s subplots” and alters its focus significantly. The relationships between Annabella, Giovanni and Soranzo are pulled to the forefront, leaving Bonaventura, Florio, Putana and Vasques to occupy more marginal roles (Silverstone 560). • “Through an examination of the death of Annabella and Griffi’s directorial intervention into Ford’s text in the final moments of the film” the way in which death is presented “works to deprioritize the deaths of Annabella and her extended family, excising them from a community of mourners, in favor of reifying (in quasi-spiritual and erotic terms) the death of Giovanni” (Silverstone 561). • Through the violent ends of both Annabella and Giovanni, death then becomes eroticized (Silverstone 561). • Silverstone notes that it also becomes “sexed,” because men are given more space to mourn and be mourned. This can be readily observed in the brutal rape and murder of female guests at the banquet, who are subsequently ignored in the aftermath (Silverstone 561). • Annabella seems to be given considerable agency over her own desire. This is exhibited both in the sex scene between Annabella and Soranzo and her final confrontation with Giovanni (Silverstone 562). • Silverstone then connects the hesitation indicated by Annabella’s trembling hand on the dagger (also held by Giovanni) to the film’s Italian title, which translates to “Farwell, Cruel Brother” (Silverstone 562). • The agency, if any, Annabella has managed to achieve in either desire or death is undermined by her murder “and the subsequent display of her heart as a token of exchange between men” (Silverstone 562). “Sexing Death: Giuseppe PatroniGriffi’s‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore ” • Silverstone, Catherine. “Sexing Death: Giuseppe PatroniGriffi’s‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.” Shakespeare Bulletin 29.4 (2011): 559-572. MLA. 27 Mar. 2014.

7. The violence that marks the relationships of the films central figures spills over into the public realm that surrounds them (Silverstone 563). • “In contrast to the atmosphere of measured restraint that has infused much of the film, the carefully composed order of the banquet. . .breaks into disarray and the film cuts between images of violence perpetrated primarily against women” (Silverstone 563). • To discuss the narrative twist in which Soranzo proclaims “let not one member of her family survive”: • The punishment Soranzo wishes to invoke upon Annabella is “displaced onto the members of her family” (Silverstone 563). • Through this massacre, Soranzo is attempting to remove witnesses to his public humiliation (Silverstone 563). • “Whereas the earlier death of Annabella was presented in terms of an erotic embrace in which she had some measure of agency, this sequence positions the stabbing” of an innocent female bystander “as rape” (Silverstone 564). • Giovanni is given two deaths: He is first fatally stabbed and impaled on the wall of the antechamber (with a knife through the heart). Next, his body is taken outdoors to be executed as Soranzo looks on (Silverstone 567). • “The careful and controlled display of Giovanni’s body and the ritual of the execution reinstitute the atmosphere of restraint and decorum that the massacre destabilized, marking differences between the deaths in sharply gendered and eroticized terms” (Silverstone 567). • The way in which Giovanni’s body is displayed also “draws on Christian iconography” thus locating “him in terms of Christian martyrdom.” These images become eroticized through the implication of a sexual tension existing between Giovanni’s lifeless form and his shirtless executioners (Silverstone 567-8). • “…the film turns women into spectacles only then to render them invisible and to exclude them from forms of mourning and community in sharp contrast to the death of Giovanni” (Silverstone 569). • Silverstone argues that positive resistance against violence towards women can still result from watching this film because it prompts viewers to consider the gender constructs of violence. “Sexing Death: Giuseppe Patroni Griffi’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore ” Silverstone, Catherine. “Sexing Death: Giuseppe PatroniGriffi’s‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore.” Shakespeare Bulletin 29.4 (2011): 559-572. MLA. 27 Mar. 2014.