TO UNDERSTAND the numerous social benefits of artistic motion pictures, especially from Western Europe’s neo-realist style which focuses on aspects of basic everyday living, we need to become faithful fans of classic film culture.

Today, the educational and civilised benefits of heeding and participating in such a film culture of quality are cherished in all nations where such a modern cultural value is cultivated. It leads to a wide circle of friends, focuses on social problems, a reduction of prejudices against individuals of other races, etc. Central to this panorama of film culture values is the continual theme of sensuality acting as a basic human bond, diffusing and overcoming common threats of violence, negative social values, jealousy, and tragedy.

Because film culture is a recent development, even an evolution of other older arts such as theatre, music, painting, and the novel, we can understand why many amazing films beneficial to furthering human understanding and tolerance, were able to emerge from specific nations in theatre, music, painting, and literature.
Once again, Italy is a good example. Why modern Italian films have become one of the leaders of human sensuality and permissiveness can perhaps be traced back to its ancient history… its close proximity to Africa… the experiences of the Roman Empire with non-White and other nascent European cultures, and the integration of multi-cultural values within modern Italian culture.

We can hardly expect anyone of a specific race, nation, and culture who cares only for their specific, race, nation, and culture to produce forms of art which involve or portray others of another race, nation, and culture in a balanced, or just, light.

Modern film culture is the first art form with the audio-visual means to actively portray human equality and oneness in everyday life within any nation or society. Perhaps the ability to develop such an altruistic modern cultural vision comes easier if based on historical experiences such as Italy’s, which nevertheless can be a beneficial model for others without them repeating the trials and errors of history.

Italy, which, as a fledgling culture, first lived under the fear and threat of mightier cultures and armies from North Africa, later built itself under various megalomaniac Roman rulers into an empire, after its original Etruscan identity was replaced by the Roman Republic, which then marched into areas known today as Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, The Middle East, Greece, Turkey, France, Belgium, England, and Spain. It took, but also gave, and out of this give-and-take emerged the first models of modern society which progresses from negative to positive results. In the end, modern Italian culture became enriched and guided by others vastly different, but ultimately civilised.

For example, the educational value of the classic black North African dramatist, Terence, of literary fame today, brought to Rome from Libya as a slave then freed by the Roman Senator, Terentius Lucanus.

Many dancers and musicians in ancient Rome were also Africans, and this is proven by numerous friezes which survived ancient times. Is it not such a history known to educated Italians of today and influential leaders in their society, which led to modern permissiveness such as the steady employment in Italian cities of numerous black American jazz musicians of originality and innovative skill, such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Sun Ra, etc, who could find little work in their homeland of the USA, and scarce appreciation from audiences of their own race? Even Wilfredo Lam of Cuba, still the greatest black painter of international recognition, found early acceptance in Italy and chose Albisola Mare on the Italian Riviera as the best place to live and work until his death in the 1980s.

From the 1940s onward, a succession of vibrant, open-minded Italian film-makers emerged with a persistent focus on solving social and class problems, racial bigotries, etc.

These films, especially by Roberto Rossellini, Luigi Zampa, Alberto Lattuada, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Marco Bellocchio, Bernardo Bertellucci, Marco Ferreri, and Vincente Minnelli all have black characters from the US or Africa, but their roles, unlike most found in Hollywood films, are not about being servants, criminals, thugs, pimps etc, but rather sympathetic US soldiers, creative dancers, musicians, pleasure seeking socialites, educated lovers.

In Marco Ferreri’s stunning masterpiece, ‘Le Grand Bouffe’ about a variety of cultured and sensual Italians, Marcello Mastroianni is seen quite casually and jovially meeting with his daughter and her dignified African boyfriend. Marco Bellocchio’s profoundly sensual and sympathetic film, ‘Devil in the Flesh’ of the 1980s, opens with a beautiful but emotionally disturbed black woman isolating herself on the rooftop of an Italian house.

The emphasis in these and other Italian motion pictures constantly returns to a reality, where their characters, whether Italians or others, do not define themselves by only the cultural customs or traditions they were born into, but by eclectic cultural choices from anywhere.

What this does is expose Italian society to learning the pleasures of foreign creations, which obviously reduces intolerance towards others and promotes civilized permissiveness. The colour films of Antonioni, from 1966 onwards, are perfect examples. Antonioni filmed ‘Blow-up’ in London, using the very talented and cultured British actors, Vanessa Redgrave and David Hemmings to make a film in English based on a short-story by the Argentine writer, Julio Cortazar, which is about an obsessive photographer in Paris, whereas Antonioni makes his own film about the multi-cultural modern values of a new post-war generation. How does he do this? In one scene where the young photographer is visited in his studio by the anxious Redgrave, he puts on his favourite modern jazz record and they listen closely to its unusual modern beat. Any serious viewer of the film may wonder who is the musician, if they do not already know. The record is by Herbie Hancock, one of many innovative black jazz musicians. Similarly, the strange, enigmatic, colourful abstract painting the camera constantly shows on the photographer’s wall is by Alan Davie, an internationally renowned abstract painter from Scotland. Yet Davie’s paintings, like the one we see, are completely influenced by pre-Columbian American Indian art, as the artist constantly lived in South America and the Caribbean. So, ‘Blow-up’ shows us several examples of people practising and appreciating cultural styles not of their racial or cultural origin.

This cosmopolitanism is the essence of a modern lifestyle leading to a modern identity. Yet Antonioni is not portraying such a lifestyle devoid of social responsibility. The first scenes of ‘Blow-up’ — cut between wildly dressed ‘flower children’ (Hippies of the 1960s, one of the greatest decades in the history of the world) and the young photographer who emerges unkempt from a hostel for derelict homeless men where he has spent the night photographing and listening to them — we realize this with surprise only when we see him pay them, then, dressed like them, hurry around a corner and jump into his expensive sports car.

‘Blow-up’, which packed Georgetown’s Globe cinema where it opened in 1967, holds our attention with its colourful hip fashion, its abstract paintings, photography, live Rock music, jazz, sexually playful girls, interracial parties, etc. What this does is propose, or demonstrate, a sensual but intellectual and cultural lifestyle worth having; an alternative lifestyle removed as much as possible from all the trickery, deceit, violence, selfishness and materialism of the social world.

It would seem to those who think that by simply following the teaching of religious leaders such an ideal lifestyle can also be attained, but people seem to hear less when values are preached to and demanded of them, whereas modern artistic styles, such as Antonioni’s films, show us the negative and positive results of our decisions and behaviour. The greatness of Antonioni — which led to his being beloved in the eyes of film fans, other artists, and film-makers across the world — arose from how much he gave unselfishly to us; how much he cared to show real solutions for the problems of modern humanity.

In 1969 -70, Antonioni went to America to film one of his most daring and important films, focusing on the North American insensitive capitalist and consumer lifestyle, which also led to rampant student unrest and black militancy, such as the Black Panthers, whom he featured in the film, with real appearances by Kathleen Cleaver and other chic black intellectuals. The film was ‘Zabriskie Point’, filmed in staggeringly lush colour and structural artistry as Antonioni’s camera revels in the urban architecture and signs of California and the nearby rugged wilderness.

It is in this film that Antonioni brings to a powerful climax his persistent concern with showing where sensuality, or uninhibited love, can act as a healthy mental stimulus in restoring our sanity. The film is centered around an angry student from a rich background who becomes radicalized, steals a gun planning to kill a policeman, but when his plan backfires, he steals a light airplane instead and flies away from the student turmoil, landing in a remote California valley of wealthy developers.

There he meets a beautiful girl, equally disenchanted with her family’s and society’s insensitive values, and they make love in the outdoors with other couples in one of Antonioni’s greatest scenes where he evokes ancient tribal sensual primitivism. In another of Zabriskie Point’s profoundly original scenes, the girl, in a rage after her boyfriend is killed when trying to return the plane, imagines the office where her capitalist boss works exploding.

The scene externalises extremism in a violent act, but in the next scene we realise it is only a reckless thought; a bad dream in her mind. This is the beauty and sympathy for youth of Antonioni the film artist, whose lasting sensual image from ‘Zabriskie Point’ is the scene where couples, even triples, make love on a hillside, demonstrating the famous 1960s Hippie slogan: “Make Love, Not War.”