Goodbye Uncle Tom

Goodbye Uncle Tom
Goodbye Uncle Tom
	Japanese DVD cover
Directed by	Gualtiero Jacopetti; Franco Prosperi;
Written by	Gualtiero Jacopetti; Franco Prosperi; English Version: Gene Luotto;
Produced by	Gualtiero Jacopetti; Franco Prosperi;
Cinematography	Claudio Cirillo; Antonio Climati; Benito Frattari;
Edited by	Gualtiero Jacopetti; Franco Prosperi;
Music by	Riz Ortolani
Production; company	Euro International Films
Distributed by	Euro International Films
Release date	30 September 1971;
Running time	136 minutes
Country	Italy
Languages	Italian; English;

Goodbye Uncle Tom (Italian: Addio Zio Tom) is a 1971 Italian mondo docudrama co-directed and co-written by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi with music by Riz Ortolani. Based on true events, the filmmakers explore antebellum America, using period documents to examine in graphic detail the racist ideology and degrading conditions faced by Africans under slavery. Due to the use of published documents and materials from the public record, it is labeled a documentary, though all footage is re-staged using actors.^[3]

Production

The film was shot primarily in Haiti, where directors Jacopetti and Prosperi were treated as guests of Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. Duvalier supported the filmmakers by giving them diplomatic cars, clearance to film anywhere on the island, as many extras as they required, and even a weekly dinner with Duvalier himself.^[3] Hundreds of Haitian extras participated in the film's various depictions of the cruel treatment of slaves, as well as white actors portraying historical characters (including Harriet Beecher Stowe).

Scenes were also shot in the U.S. states of Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida.

Release

The film was confiscated in Italy and re-released the following year, 1972, in a cut version bearing the different title Zio Tom.^[2]

In France, the film was released as Les Négriers, in Germany as Addio, Onkel Tom!^[2]

Alternative versions

The directors' cut of Addio Zio Tom draws parallels between the horrors of slavery and the rise of the Black Power Movement, represented by Eldridge Cleaver, LeRoi Jones, Stokely Carmichael, and a few others. The film ends with an unidentified man’s fantasy re-enactment of William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner. This man imagines Nat Turner's revolt in the present, including the brutal murder of the whites around him, who replace the figures Turner talks about in Styron's novel as the unidentified reader speculates about Turner's motivations and ultimate efficacy in changing the conditions he rebelled against. American distributors felt that such scenes were too incendiary, and forced Jacopetti and Prosperi to remove more than thirteen minutes of footage explicitly concerned with racial politics for American and other Anglophone audiences.

Reception

The film has frequently been criticized as racist, despite directors Jacopetti and Prosperi's claims to the contrary. In Roger Ebert's 1972 review of the shorter American version, he asserts that the directors have "Made the most disgusting, contemptuous insult to decency ever to masquerade as a documentary."^[4] He goes on to call the film "cruel exploitation", believing that the directors degraded the poor Haitian extras playing slaves by having them enact the extremely dehumanizing situations the film depicts virtually as they occurred. Gene Siskel put the film second (behind The Last House on the Left) on his year-end list of what he called the sickest films he saw in 1972.^[5] Critic Pauline Kael called the film "the most specific and rabid incitement to race war".^[6]

The directors denied charges of racism; in the 2003 documentary Godfathers of Mondo they specifically note that one of their intentions in making Addio Zio Tom was to "make a new film that would be clearly anti-racist" in response to criticism by Ebert and others over perceived racism in their previous film Africa Addio.^[7]

The film was a commercial failure.^[3] It is now considered a cult classic.^[8]

Italian film critic Marco Giusti calls it "not bad" and remembers that the numerous scenes in the nude "made a certain effect back then".^[2]

Soundtrack

The film was scored by Italian composer Riz Ortolani^[2] and is notable for the theme "Oh My Love" sung by Katyna Ranieri,^[2] which would later be used in the soundtrack to the film Drive (2011). Ortolani also collaborated with directors Jacopetti and Prosperi on their previous films, Mondo Cane, and Africa Addio.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Giusti 1999, p. 4.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Giusti 1999, p. 5.
^ ^a ^b ^c Provocateur Gualtiero Jacopetti Dead at 91: Honoring the Man Behind the Mondo Movies. Richard Corliss, August 21, 2011.
^ Farewell Uncle Tom Roger Ebert, 1972
^ Siskel, Gene (14 January 1973). "The sickest of '72... to a healthier '73". Chicago Tribune – via Newspapers.com.
^ Pauline Kael, "The Current Cinema: Notes on Black Movies", New Yorker, December 2, 1972, 163.
^ The Godfathers of Mondo. Dir. David Gregory. Blue Underground, 2003.
^ Inside the Most Racially Horrifying Movie Ever Jen Yamato, "The Daily Beast", Sep. 30, 2015

Bibliography

Giusti, Marco (1999). dizionario dei film italiani STRACULT [sic]. Cles: Sterling & Kupfer. ISBN 978-88-200-2919-7.

External links

[FOOTNOTEGiusti19994-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Giusti 1999, p. 4.

[FOOTNOTEGiusti19995-2] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Giusti 1999, p. 5.

[Corliss-3] Provocateur Gualtiero Jacopetti Dead at 91: Honoring the Man Behind the Mondo Movies. Richard Corliss, August 21, 2011.

[4] Farewell Uncle Tom Roger Ebert, 1972

[Siskel-5] Siskel, Gene (14 January 1973). "The sickest of '72... to a healthier '73". Chicago Tribune – via Newspapers.com.

[6] Pauline Kael, "The Current Cinema: Notes on Black Movies", New Yorker, December 2, 1972, 163.

[7] The Godfathers of Mondo. Dir. David Gregory. Blue Underground, 2003.

[8] Inside the Most Racially Horrifying Movie Ever Jen Yamato, "The Daily Beast", Sep. 30, 2015

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

v t e Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin
Characters	Uncle Tom
Film adaptations	Uncle Tom's Cabin (1903) Uncle Tom's Cabin (Thanhouser, 1910) Uncle Tom's Cabin (Vitagraph, 1910) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1914) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1918) Topsy and Eva (1927) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927) Onkel Toms Hütte (1965) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1987)
Related works	A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin Tom show
Animation	Hittin' the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931) Mickey's Mellerdrammer (1933) Uncle Tom's Bungalow (1937) Uncle Tom's Cabaña (1947) Southern Fried Rabbit (1953)
Anti-Tom literature	Aunt Phillis's Cabin The Planter's Northern Bride Little Eva: The Flower of the South Uncle Tom's Cabin As It Is Uncle Robin's Cabin "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Contrasted with Buckingham Hall, the Planter's Home Ellen; or, The Fanatic's Daughter The Ebony Idol Frank Freeman's Barber Shop The North and the South; or, Slavery and Its Contrasts Mr. Frank, the Underground Mail-Agent The Cabin and Parlor; or, Slaves and Masters The Black Gauntlet White Acre vs. Black Acre Antifanaticism The Lofty and the Lowly The Leopard's Spots
Related	Josiah Henson 1849 autobiography Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site Dimples Goodbye Uncle Tom Tit for Tat Uncle Tom syndrome Underground Railroad The National Era Onkel Toms Hütte (Berlin U-Bahn) Harriet Beecher Stowe House (Brunswick, Maine)