Abstract

The photobook "Un paese" (1955) constitutes an exceptional encounter between the neorealistic project of an Italian writer, Cesare Zavattini, and the aesthetic experience of an American photographer-filmmaker, Paul Strand. The essay examines the ideas on realism which guide these authors and the intermedial dimension in which both of them operate. The dialogue between photography, cinema and literature is related to the new culture of the image that asserted itself in post-WWII Italy. Finally, the article emphasizes the composition of "Un paese", the relationship between writing and photography, and the narrative articulation of the text. In particular, it focuses on the Lusetti family icon (which appears on the book cover), reflecting not only the particularities of Strand's gaze, but moreover on the anthropological and social research at the basis of the project of Un paese. This would also come to shape "Un paese vent'anni dopo" (1976) through Zavattini's collaboration with another photographer: Gianni Berengo Gardin.