La gestuelle de l’acteur Totò : entre ancrage culturel, innovations et survivances archaïques

Abstract

The Italian actor Totò had a unique way of acting, repeatedly compared to a living puppet on stage and on screen. This study intends to discover in this famous actor from Naples an ancient gesture, a communication tool reactivated in specific dramaturgical situations and whose digressive, sometimes subversive use leads inexorably towards the comic. Because the city of Naples indeed has a vast vocabulary made up of typical gestures and movements that distinguish it from all other cities. Using a sample of images selected from his cinematographic work, we will attempt to analyze Totò’s gestures. The objective is to try to identify the meaning of certain precise gestures of the actor's hands and to detect a possible interpretation which would go beyond simple communication. After some historical considerations linked to communication gestures in southern Italy and their metaphorical dimension, we will look at the analysis of Totò's hand gestures in order to understand their originality.

Keywords

• gesture
• Totò
• Italian cinema
• Neapolitan culture
• acting