Tra crimine e nostalgia: note sulla rappresentazione musicale e audiovisiva di Marsiglia

Abstract

Browsing through films and TV series located in Marseille, we notice how this city is often provided with recurrent topoi : the charming and nostalgic frontier/harbour city where an (often multi-ethnic) community of gangsters, sailors, adventurers and prostitutes comes and goes and engages in usually illegal activities. Based on a sample of ca. 120 audiovisual texts, this article aims at emphasizing the consistency of significations conveyed by both visual and musical representations of the city of Marseille. As a case-study, the focus shall be the film Borsalino, possibly the perfect synthesis of the above-mentioned topoi both on a visual-narrative and a musical level.