Models of representation of the rural landscape in the television documentary series Questa Nostra Italia (1968)

This article presents a study of representations of Italy’s rural landscapes in the 1950s and 1960s. This period, which has been somewhat neglected in studies of the country’s rural imaginary, was a time of important transitions: from the Fascist regime to democracy, from rural predominance to economic acceleration and industrialisation, from the documentary production and didactic initiatives of Istituto Luce to the new industrial productions and the consolidation of the television medium. In fact, it was Italy’s newly founded public broadcaster, RAI, that seized the baton of education and rediscovered the landscape through reports on travels around Italy with a focus on social issues. The case study chosen for this research is the documentary program Questa Nostra Italia, a follow-up to Guido Piovene’s historic radio program and book, directed by Virgilio Sabel. These television reports capture rural Italy, particularly the rural south, with a dynamic perspective encompassing both modernisation and a return to the land, always with a view to the human presence, which becomes the protagonist and driving force of the narrative. The landscape is subjected to a profound reconsideration, crystallised in an array of images with folkloric and evanescent connotations to become a bucolic and timeless remembered space, fixed in the memory of every Italian.