The representation of the romani minority in european films

F A C U LT Y O F H U M A N I T I E S UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN

Master’s thesis Petronela Nita

The Representation of the Romani Minority in European Films

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Academic advisor: Eva Jørholt Department of Media, Cognition and Communication

University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities Master of Arts in Media Studies

Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, 2012 Author: Petronela Nita

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE ROMANI MINORITY IN EUROPEAN FILMS

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to look at how the Romani minority has been represented in European cinema throughout time, with an emphasis on the stereotypes employed by filmmakers in their depictions.

The thesis draws on theories regarding representation and stereotypes from cultural studies, postcolonial studies and film studies, and provides an overview of the stereotypes most commonly associated with the Romanies, based on works coming from anthropologists and Romani scholars.

The research was done by comparing films made by non-Romanies with film made by Romanies. The films made by non-Romanies have further been divided into Western European and Eastern European films.

The results showed that Romani filmmakers have appropriated the stereotypes associated with the Romani minority by non-Romanies, while Eastern European and Western European representations did not seem to differ too much.

The author recommends a greater variety of depictions of the Romani minority by the Romanies themselves, focused on individuality and complexity of the characters, against the perpetuation of stereotypes.

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Keywords: Romani minority, representation, self representation, stereotypes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7 Issues of representation and difference in cultural studies 8 Images of the Self and of the Other 11 Stereotyping: a representation of difference 12 Definitions 12 The characteristics of stereotypes 13 Functions of the stereotypes 14 Counter-strategies when dealing with stereotyped representations 16 Stereotyping in films 17 Commercial films 18 Art films 19 Stereotypes associated with the Romani minority 21 CASE STUDY 30 Western European cinema 32 Eastern European cinema 45 Self representations 59 CONCLUSION 72 BIBLIOGRAPHY AND FILMOGRAPHY 77

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INTRODUCTION

As a child, I always heard the phrase “If you don’t behave properly, the Gypsies will come and steal you”. Told by my parents, the caretakers at the kindergarten or by other parents to their own children, it made me believe that the Romanies are bad people and that I should avoid them.

Born and raised in a town in Transylvania, I could recognize them easily because of their darker skin, because they were the only ones still going through the town in a carriage pulled by horses, and because I often saw them looking through the garbage bins (this is something that some of them still do, perhaps even more than before).

They were different even from the Hungarians from my hometown who, except for their language and the fact that we were learning in separate classes, each in its own language, were just like us.

In school I had one Romani classmate – the first person of Romani ethnicity that I have actually talked to. She was wearing the same clothes like us, spoke Romanian perfectly and was living in a flat with her Romani mother, accountant at a private company, and her two older brothers (I do not know what happened to her father). A friendly and open person, she made me realize that the Romanies are not all the same and they are not at all frightening.

Romanies, who are supposed to come from India, have been slaves in Romania from the beginning of the fourteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century, killed during World War II together with the Jewish people, and deported by the French government in 2010 to Romania and Bulgaria.

Although considered a marginalized group, the Romani minority has always been represented in arts, and their portrayal was highly romanticized in the literature and paintings of the nineteenth century (Aleksandr Pushkin’s “The Gypsy”, Prosper Mérimée’s “Carmen”, Georges de la Tour’s “The Fortune Teller” and Vincent van Gogh’s “Encampment of Gypsies with Caravans”), as part of the anti-industrialization movement. In cinema, the first representation of Romani dates back to 1896, when Georges Méliès made “Campement de bohèmiens”/ “The Bohemian Encampment”.

While there are several depictions of the Romani community, only few of them have been made by artists of Romani ethnicity themselves, and this is especially the case with cinema. The lack of self-representations is due to their tradition, based on orality, but also to the poor living conditions which most Romanies are facing. The small !4

number of self representations in comparison to portrayals made by others gives rise to questions regarding the accuracy and authenticity of these representations.

As a person who has been influenced by the stereotypes about the Romanies from a very young age and later learned that these stereotypes can do a great damage to them, I am interested in seeing if and how they are used in European cinema, and how difference is represented. With this statement, I also have to acknowledge a lack of this thesis: I do not know what would be an accurate image of the Romanies, since I am just an outsider to their community and have met only a few people of Romani ethnicity.

The image of Romani has been associated with various stereotypes throughout time, either positive or negative. Positive stereotypes such as the freedom of the Romani people (a paradoxical stereotype since, as I mentioned earlier, they were slaves for five centuries!) created the romanticized and exotic image of the community. The “freedom” of the Romani people becomes a negative stereotype when it emphasizes lawlessness and a denial of the rules created by the dominant group. Sometimes, both sides of the stereotype are used in the same representation – see for example Mérimée’s “Carmen”.

Whether positive or negative, their representation is often unbalanced and affected by ethnic prejudice. The Romani people are the internal “other” in Europe and their portrayal cannot but reflect that, whether this portrayal is made by non-Romanies or

by Romanies themselves.

The aim of this thesis is to look at how stereotypes are used in representing the Romani minority in European cinema in two cases: first, when their image is constructed by European filmmakers of other ethnicities and, second, when the films are made by a member of the Romani community itself.

In a century when dialogue between nations and ethnicities should be encouraged and multiculturalism is a word that shows up in many environments, minority groups like the Romani minority should be also given a voice and encouraged to create selfrepresentations, not only in films, but in art in general. Last year the European Union has done a first step, in urging all the member states to come up with national strategies for the integration of the Romani communities (http://ec.europa.eu/justice/ discrimination/roma/national-strategies/index_en.htm). This shows how important this topic is in Europe, even on a political level and it is an additional reason for choosing this subject.

The main reason for choosing European cinema is that most of the Romanies live in Europe (between 10 and 12 million, according to figures provided by the European !5

Commission - http://ec.europa.eu/justice/discrimination/roma/index_en.htm). Of the Romani communities living in Europe, most of them are in Eastern Europe – 10% of the population of Bulgaria, 9% of Slovakia’s population, 8% of Romania’s population and7% of Hungary’s population (data taken from the European Commission’s website, http://europa.eu).

According to the film scholar Dina Iordanova, this would mean that the representation of Romani people in Eastern European cinema is different from that in Western Europe. In this thesis, I will make a distinction between films made in Eastern Europe, those made in Western Europe and the films made by Romanies themselves.

I have chosen to restrict the area of films selected to that of the fiction films. While there are, indeed, documentaries about Romanies, they are harder to find because fiction films are much more popular among the audience and they benefit of a larger distribution in general. At the same time, if I would analyse both fiction films and documentaries, I would exceed the size limit of this thesis.

Reflecting on theories regarding representation, stereotypes and the concept of Self and Other, this thesis draws inspiration from cultural studies, post-colonialism, social psychology, as well as film studies and anthropology. Due to the complexity of the subject, it would be impossible to cover all the existing literature. I have tried though to refer to some of the most representative theorists for these fields, introduced in the beginning of the second chapter.

For a better understanding of the Romani culture and self-representation, I have taken into account the observations of the cultural anthropologist of Romani ethnicity Ian Hancock, who wrote extensively about the complex society of the Romani people, their history and traditions. Scholars Nicholas Saul and Susan Tebbutt, Alaina Lemon, as well as anthropologist Mattijs van de Port are also mentioned in this thesis, for their studies about the life of the Romani people.

Throughout the thesis I will use the word “Romani” for describing the Romani community, while the term “Gypsy”, which has many negative connotations and is still used by most Europeans, will be used only when quoting or referring to something that someone else has written. I also avoid the term “Roma” since, as Ian Hancock states, the word is the plural form of “Rom”, which means married Romani man and is mistakenly used by the press and even official institutions.

While I cannot provide solutions for a better representation of the Romani minority (since they are “the Other” also for me), I hope I can offer an insight into how the stereotypes associated with them work at the level of representation and self-

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representation in European cinema, and what overall image is presented to the audience.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

This thesis looks at the stereotypes about the Romani minority in European cinema by comparing films made by a representative of the Romani minority and films made by non-Romani filmmakers. As a first theoretical step, I will take a look at theories of representation discussed by Stuart Hall, one of the main representatives of cultural studies, and by the film scholar Richard Dyer. The reason for choosing cultural studies as a source of reference is that the field takes representation as one of its most important topics, and analyzes it from a cultural, sociological, and psychological point of view.

A minority group is usually referred to in terms of its differences, compared with the majority group. Which is why, further, I will discuss the concept of difference, another fundamental concept in cultural studies, as well as in post-colonial studies.

Besides the theories of Stuart Hall on the notion of difference, I will also look at the works of Homi K. Bhabha, an important theorist within post-colonial studies. Postcolonial studies’ focus is mainly on the representation of difference, and the representation of Self and Other, topics which are fundamental for this thesis and will be discussed more in detail later on.

Once the representation of difference is analyzed, I will proceed to discussing the concept of the stereotype, which is defined by Stuart Hall as a way of representing difference. I will draw from the theories of Stuart Hall, JĂśrg Schweinitz and Walter Lippmann (therefore from cultural studies, film studies and sociology).

Further on, I will focus on how stereotypes work in films, step which is important for creating a theoretical basis that will be used afterwards, in analyzing and comparing the films chosen as case studies. The literature used in this part of the thesis ranges from the classical works of David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson to the recently translated (from German) work of JĂśrg Schweinitz.

After an overview of the most significant concepts that will be used for the film analysis and, hopefully, a better understanding of the ways stereotypes act in creating representations, the last chapter before the actual film analysis deals with a !7

description of the Romani minority and of the stereotypes associated with them. In this part of the thesis, I will employ the works of anthropologists and Romani scholars like Yaron Matras, Ian Hancock, Alaina Lemon, and Mattijs van de Port, film scholars like Anikò Imre, and representatives of cultural and post-colonial studies such as Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Nicholas Saul and Susan Tebbutt, as well as Homi K. Bhabha.

Issues of representation and difference in cultural studies

One of the main challenges that cultural studies deal with is providing a definition for the concept of culture. According to Stuart Hall (1980, p.60), culture has to be seen as a complex process. One suggestion offered by the theorist is to see culture in terms of “shared conceptual maps, shared language systems and the codes which govern the relationships of translation between them” (Hall, 1997, p. 21).

The scholar emphasizes the importance of the existence of systems of representation that would enable an exchange of meanings between the members of different groups.

Here, one of the most important elements seems to be language. Although living in the same area with a dominant group, an ethnic minority (like the Romanies) keeps its own traditions, language, and values, while at the same time learns the language and culture of the dominant group.

This shows that culture and power have a strong and subtle connection. Through the power and the ideology of the majority, a certain cultural image about the minority might be created, in order to reinforce and emphasize their power. Culture can be a tool used by the majority group to set a barrier between “us” and “them”. This leads to questions about authenticity, and in this context it is important to notice if the point of view belongs to the dominant group or the minority group.

Through the analysis of the way culture performs within a society governed by certain ideologies and games of power, an important issue within cultural studies arises. This is the concept of representation.

A plausible definition provided by Stuart Hall (1997, p. 15) refers to representation as “an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture”. The production of meaning is made possible through language. According to the theorist, questions of representation should be approached !8

in three ways: the reflective, the intentional and the constructionist approach, of which the latter is the most influential in cultural studies.

The reflective approach suggests that language is the bare reflection of meaning which “already exists in the world” (Hall, 1997, p. 24), while the intentional approach suggests that the speaker or author creates his or her “unique meaning on the world through language” (1997, p. 25).

The constructionist approach points to the fact that meaning is not already given, nor created by an individual and fixed in language, but it is constructed through systems of representation (Hall, 1997, p. 25). This third approach would suggest that the way the Romani minority is represented in various fields, leads to an overall perception that people have about it. Thus, the stereotypes associated with them have been developed in time, influenced by the different representations.

Focusing less on representations as producers of meaning, Richard Dyer (1993, p. 2), suggests that representations are “presentations, always and necessarily entailing the use of codes and conventions of the available cultural forms of presentation”. Dyer emphasizes that representation depends to a great extent on the cultural, social and political context of the receptor, and the way he or she had learned to interpret certain codes (Dyer, 1993, p. 2). Through Hall and Dyer’s interpretations, we see that representation is a very complex process, which takes time to be created, is subject to changes, due to social and cultural transformations, and it depends on a high extent on the individual reception of it.

According to Richard Dyer, this could also mean that negative images do not have to be read as negative necessarily (Dyer, 1993, p. 2). This is an important point that will be used further in the thesis, in analyzing how some of the negative images associated with the Romani minority have become romanticized or linked with projective identification.

A third issue pointed by Richard Dyer in regards to representation is that representations do not present “directly reality itself but other representations” (Dyer, 1993, p. 2). In this thesis, I argue that the representation of the Romani minority, with its stereotypes, is, indeed, often based on other representations. Although in the case of films this is not a general rule, since there are filmmakers trying to impose their own, original points of view.

The second major concept that I briefly mentioned earlier is that of difference. It follows naturally after discussions of representation, since our world is anything but homogeneous, and representations are, thus, varied and formed in a different way by the different societies. !9

According to Stuart Hall (1997, p. 234) difference is an issue much discussed in cultural studies and is approached by the theorist from four different perspectives: 1. The first perspective is related to the field of linguistics – associated with Saussure.

It states that “difference” is essential because without it meaning could not be created (Hall, 1997, p. 234). This approach, as noticed also by Hall (1997, p. 235) oversimplifies the concept of “difference” and is rather reductionist.

2. “Difference” is studied from a different perspective by another theorist of language, Mikhail Bakhtin, who states that “difference” is necessary in order to construct meaning “through a dialogue with the ‘Other’” (Hall, 1997, p. 235). As such, the “correct” meaning does not belong to any category, but is developed through dialogue and communication. Although this would seem to be an ideal case, even the appearance of a field such as post-colonial studies signifies that communication between two or more groups has often been defective. It seems rather that the preconceived ideas, together with stereotypes and previous representations would help in creating the image of one group from the point of view of another group, but also of the group itself.

Another weakness, signaled by Hall (1997, p. 236) himself in regards to this theory is the fact that meaning cannot be fixed and no group can be “in charge of meaning”.

This suggests that non-Romanies, for example, cannot impose a certain perception of meaning to the non-Romanies.

3. The third perspective comes from anthropology and relates culture to meaning. As such, things are given a meaning “by assigning them to different positions within a classificatory system” (Hall, 1997, p. 236). According to this definition, culture consists of marking difference, and it seems a valid perspective, also when applied to the culture of different ethnic groups living together in a community.

4. The fourth explanation is given by psychoanalysis and states that the “self” is developed by knowing and acknowledging the “other” and it is an important aspect in constructing self-identity. In this thesis, I look at how the non-Romani (or “gadje”, as they are called by the Romani) acknowledge the Romani minority, but also how the Romani minority builds its own identity, in relation with the dominant group. Having to live as a minority means that the Romanies are more aware of the Other, of their culture and habits, and have to adapt to the rules of that majority. If there is hostility between the two groups, it might be that the Romanies would have to make more efforts towards establishing a better relationship with the dominant group.

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Images of the Self and of the Other

Previously, I briefly mentioned the notion of Self and Other. The concept is fundamental in postcolonial studies, and is based precisely on the difference between groups (of particular importance for us are ethnic groups). Dealing with the legacy of colonialism, postcolonial studies, a field that emerged in the 1970s, looks into subjects such as the representation of African Americans, the dominance of the Western ideology, Eurocentrism and the relation between majority and minority groups.

One of the main theorists of postcolonial studies is Edward Saïd, a Palestinian American who criticized Eurocentrism as well as the division of the world between Orient and Occident by Orientalist scholars in his “Orientalism” (1978) – the Occident being generally seen as more powerful and advanced, and thus superior to the Orient. The scholar argued for giving a voice to the “Orientalists” (or the Other).

Although not separated from non-Romanies by geographical barriers, I believe that the Romanies are often treated in the same way as the “Orientalist”.

Another important representative of postcolonial studies is Frantz Fanon, whose works, such as “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952), are also written from the perspective of the Other, Fanon being of African and European descent, born in the French colony Martinique. According to Fanon (1952), African Americans have been alienated, because of their adoption of the language of the dominant group (in his case, French) and struggle to adapt to the dominant culture, although retaining a different mentality – hence the title of the book.

I believe that Fanon’s views can also be applied to the case of the Romani minority, whose members might need to “put” on a mask, in order to gain the acceptance of the dominant group. This division between the culture of the dominant group and their own culture, the language of the dominant group and the Romani language might lead, indeed, to alienation and a negative perception of the self, in the case of the Romani minority.

According to Homi K. Bhabha (2004, p. 46), the Other is always in the position of losing its “power to signify, to negate, to initiate its historic desire, to establish its own institutional and oppositional discourse”. This statement has to be seen as incomplete, because it depends on who is the Other. For the Romani minority, the Other is the dominant group with which they live. From this perspective, the Other is the one establishing the institutional and oppositional discourse.

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Still, according to Bhabha (2004, p. 74), the Other should not be thought of as completely opposed to the Self, but as “the necessary negation of a primordial identity – cultural and psychic – that introduces the system of differentiation”. A similar point of view is expressed by postcolonial studies representatives Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin (2007, p. 10), when referring to the ambivalence in the relation between the “colonizer” and the “colonized”. I believe that this statement could prove to be a valuable tool in discussing the identity of the Romani minority – they are not fundamentally opposed to the group with which they live, but they do have a different culture, language and traditions that have to be acknowledged.

Stereotyping: a representation of difference.

Definitions, characteristics and functions

Definitions

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word “stereotype” means “a widely held but fixated and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing”, or “a person or thing that conforms to such an image”.

Stereotyping is seen by Hall (1997, p. 257) as a signifying practice that is “central to the representation of racial difference”. Thus, the concept of stereotype is strongly connected to notions of representation and difference and, although our interest lies in the representation of ethnic difference and not racial difference, it applies also to the former.

According to the film scholar Jörg Schweinitz (2011, p. 152-153), it is important to take into account the sociological theories when discussing a definition of the stereotype (Schweinitz, 2011, p. 4). He mentions the works of the American journalist Walter Lippmann from the 1920s, who is one of the first scholars to write about stereotypes and analyze the way they appear and affect groups. Lippmann developed broad and general ideas on stereotypes, accentuating the fact that we create an image of the world through the use of stereotypes.

Before proceeding in defining the characteristics and the functions of the stereotypes, a clear differentiation between the two must be made. If the characteristics refer to !12

how the stereotype is, the functions point to how it operates. Knowing the attributes of the stereotype, it is easier to recognize how it acts and how it can influence processes of representation.

The characteristics of stereotypes

Below I made a list of what I think are the most important characteristics of the stereotype (and, therefore, of stereotyping), based the definitions of the stereotype suggested by Hall and Schweinitz. The elements characterizing prejudice and stereotypes described by Taguieff are similar to the ones observed by Stuart Hall, from the perspective of cultural studies. The latter focuses more on the action of “stereotyping”.

It can thus be noticed that stereotypes are: 1. General, reductionist and distorting images. Stereotypes never refer to the particular case. They are general, making all the members of a group or society homogeneous and situated on the same level. Because of its generality, the stereotype cannot perform as a complex tool in describing the characteristics of a specific group or society. Therefore, all these characteristics are reduced to a few general ideas. An implication of this is that the stereotype cannot render an accurate image, which will be, then, distorted.

Stereotypes about the Romani minority (or about any ethnicity) are, therefore, general, simplifying and deforming their portrayal.

2. Connected to issues of power. According to Stuart Hall (1997, p. 258) stereotyping happens if it encounters significant differences of power. Power is also connected to ethnocentrism, and the holder of power will tend to use it against those who are different. Connected to this issue of power and stereotyping is, according to Stuart Hall (1997, p. 263), the fact that the stereotype has its own poetics (“its own ways of working”) and politics (“the ways in which it is invested with power”). Perhaps this comparison could be an equivalent of the comparison between the characteristics and functions of the stereotype.

3. Linked to projective identification. This comes as a consequence of the previous feature of the stereotype. When difference is created and barriers are set, each group will create its own image about the other group based on fantasy. In order to accentuate the gap, all those things considered inferior and damaging the own image !13

will be assigned to the other group, while also projecting on them things which cannot be accomplished in one’s own society, although secretly desired.

Since what is projected on the “other” is always a lack of the “self”, stereotypes will always be twofold: both positive and negative. Such an example would be the stereotype regarding the freedom of the Romani minority, a romantic vision about this ethnicity started (or perhaps just accentuated) in the nineteenth century, as a reaction to the massive industrialization taking place in Europe, and mentioned earlier, in the introduction of this thesis. As some of the Europeans came to see themselves as “trapped” by the rules of the society, obliged to follow a certain behavior, and assisting to the mechanization of life, the vision of the free, wandering “Gypsy” started to take shape.

Taguieff (2001, p. 150-151) briefly mentions projective identification as a characteristic of both prejudice and stereotypes. The concept is analyzed more in detail by Stuart Hall (1997, p. 264), who introduces also notions such as fetishism and disavowal, in relation to fantasy and projective identification.

Fetishism, in Stuart Hall’s view, means the substitution of an object for “some dangerous and powerful but forbidden force” (Hall, 1997, p. 265). Homi K. Bhabha (2004, p. 106-107) seems to agree to an interpretation of the stereotype as a form of fetishism. For the scholar, both fetish and stereotype “gives access to an ‘identity’ which is predicated as much on mastery and pleasure as it is on anxiety and defence”.

This will be discussed further on, when analyzing the films, and seeing whether the Romani or non-Romani filmmakers employ fetishism in representing Self and/or Other.

Functions of the stereotypes

The functions of the stereotypes have been discussed by many social psychologists and representatives of cultural studies. Bellow I made a list of stereotypes’ functions, based on the theories drawn from cultural studies, film studies and sociology.

Although the list should not be regarded as exhaustive, it might be a helpful tool in seeing how the use of stereotypes shapes the representation and self-representation of the Romani minority. These functions are based on the characteristics of the stereotype discussed earlier: 1. Structuring the world according to a pattern

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One of the main functions of the stereotype is that it helps people make sense of the world. Every individual needs to create mental representations and patterns of the world. This does not only help the individual in his or her own understanding of reality, but it also facilitates communication, and the integration within the society.

Stereotypes, with characteristics like generality and reductionism, help people create expectations about another person or group and provide basic representations of the world. Or, as explained by Craig McGarty, Vincent Y. Yzerbyt and Russell Spears (2002, p. 3), stereotypes “aid explanation by saving time and effort”. This statement seems valid, especially today, when everything is happening at a high speed and people are faced with an enormous amount of information that has to be sorted out and made sense of.

Discussions about how, through stereotypes, an individual structures the world according to a pattern, have to be put in relation with the situation of the Romani minority. Because it is not only the non-Romani who use stereotypes for this purpose, but also the Romani people themselves, when making sense of their own world, and the world of the non-Romani.

Again, another characteristic of the stereotypes allows us to understand better the situation: stereotypes are connected to issues of power. This means that, although the Romani people will create their own stereotypes about themselves and about other groups, they will also be aware of the stereotypes associated with them by the Other, since they have to face them most probably daily.

2. Marking difference. This is another fundamental function of stereotypes. As defined by Stuart Hall, the stereotype means representing difference. According to the scholar, stereotyping is a tool used in reducing, essentializing, naturalizing and fixing “difference” (Hall, 1997, p. 258). It sets a clear barrier between “self” and “other” or “us” and “them”.

Dyer (1993, p. 16) shares a similar opinion when stating that the most important function of the stereotype is to “maintain sharp boundary definitions”, but sometimes they “insist on boundaries exactly at those points where in reality there are none”. I believe that these boundaries are set through the marking of difference based on the distortion of images, the characteristic of the stereotype discussed earlier in the thesis.

Thus, the characteristic lays the foundation for the function.

Marking difference is what makes most people who are non-Romani refer to the members of the Romani community as “them”, and often talk about “them” through stereotyped images stemming from various visual representations, literature and

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certain mental representations shared by the members of a community – here, the characteristic of the stereotype as referring to projective identification stands out.

3. Creating identity. The first function of the stereotypes that I mentioned was “structuring world according to a pattern”. Not only does the stereotype help an individual make sense of the world, but it is also an important tool in defining his or her image.

As stated by French philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff (2001, p. 150-151), by creating identity stereotypes also “help the individual accommodate within a group or society”. A similar idea can be found in Lippmann’s theories about stereotypes.

According to the journalist, as quoted by Schweinitz, they can help “individuals come to terms with their surroundings and stabiliz[e] social behavior” (Schweinitz, 2011, p.

9).

Both theorists emphasize the positive influence of the stereotypes, but both reflections refer only to the way stereotypes act in creating the identity of the Self, when the Self is part of the dominant group, but not to the way the individual belonging to the dominated group creates his/her identity. There is no way of measuring the influence of a discriminating attitude towards an ethnic minority in creating the identity of an individual belonging to this minority, or if the stereotypes associated to this minority by the dominant group could be more powerful than the stereotypes created by the minority itself .

Through this function of creating identity, the stereotype also explains behaviors and attitudes, based, of course, on generalizations and reductionism. An example would be the violent character of the Romanies (as a stereotype), which would explain why they are always represented as wearing knives and ready to pick up fights – as we will see in fictional representations.

Counter-strategies when dealing with stereotyped representations

Another issue, fundamental for the purpose of this paper, is the way stereotypes are decoded, process called by Stuart Hall “trans-coding” and defined as a reappropriation of a meaning in order to create new meanings (Hall, 1997, p. 270). Hall observed three strategies regarding trans-coding: reversing the stereotype, substituting “positive” images for the “negative” imagery and contesting representation from within. Although the post-colonial discourse focuses on race issues and Hall takes as examples films made with and by African Americans, we believe that ethnic !16

stereotypes might act in a similar way. The analysis of the selected films will hopefully demonstrate the accuracy of this statement.

The first strategy, reversing the stereotype, means changing the predominantly white successful hero with the black hero, and “assimilating white norms of style, looks and behavior” (Hall, 1997, p. 270). Although the Other becomes the main character, this strategy appeals on a wide extent to the characteristic of the stereotype as being linked to fantasy and projective identification. In dealing with the film analysis, we will see if Romani characters are shown by inverting stereotypes and become the main characters as substitutes of the non-Romani character or are portrayed as authentic characters that develop throughout the narrative of the film.

The second strategy means “reading the negative positively” (Hall, 1997, p. 272) and is related to the “Black is Beautiful” movement. It creates images that widen the range of representations, while also keeping the old stereotypes. This strategy might be applied to Romani characters, as we will discuss later in the paper.

The last strategy discussed by Hall (1997, p. 274), contesting representation from within, is described as a more complex tool, resembling the Russian formalists’ “ostranenie”, a “de-familiarizing” process, making old stereotypes take a different shape or taking them to different level. I believe that this should lead to a representation that challenges the viewer by drawing attention to the stereotypes and even exaggerating them, thus raising the audience’s awareness.

When analyzing the films, I will try to observe whether the stereotypes are emphasized or exaggerated, and if so, if this is done in a serious or humorous way.

Stereotyping in films

In film studies, the concept of “stereotype” is discussed in relation to social psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies. By taking into account the characteristics and the functions of the stereotype already described, it is easier to notice the way it functions in cinema.

According to the film scholar Jörg Schweinitz (2011, p. 124), many debates regarding stereotypes in films took place in the 1920s, in a period when people were criticizing the “mechanization of life” and cinema was seen (as is still today, although less, due to the invention of the television) “shaped by the mechanisms of standardization or a certain seriality”. !17

By the second half of the 1920, stereotypes were looked upon by film theorists in regards to economic aspects. This is why, as Schweinitz (2011, p. 155) observes, there were discussions about “standardization” and about the “readymade film”. Most of these discussions focused on Hollywood films and the genres that were promoted by the American industry.

Thus, this standardization of the films does not apply to all of them, but mainly to commercial productions, which are supposed to attract a great number of viewers and bring profit. In opposition to these films, art films often have a niche audience and challenge the viewer, aesthetically, through the narrative, or even both. At the same time, commercial films are usually associated with Hollywood films and with the producer, while art films might be produced by independent companies, with low budgets, but presenting the personal view of the filmmaker on a certain topic.

David Bordwell (2002, p. 94) arguments that art film is “a distinct mode of film practice”, based on its own “formal conventions”. Indeed, the purpose of the art film differs from that of the commercial film, which is why it has to work with different tools.

Further on, I will make a general distinction between commercial films and art films, and the way stereotypes function in both.

Commercial films

Commercial films, as stated before, are based on a standardization process. The more profit they bring (thus, the greater number of sold tickets), the more successful they are. Hollywood films, especially, work with standard formulas regarding the narrative, allowing though slightly more freedom in the visual department (and encouraging modern technologies and the use of computer generated imagery – CGI).

As noticed by Bordwell (2002, p. 95), the classical narrative in commercial films has a cause-effect logic, and the characters are always goal motivated. Endings bring clear solutions, and in most cases the main character achieves his or her initial goal, after a series of obstacles. I would add to this that the characters are most often either good or bad, in order to create a contrast between them and emphasize the conflict of the story, and also to direct the sympathy of the audience. This simplification signals the use of stereotypes associated with certain people or groups of people.

Earlier I have discussed how stereotypes are reductionist and very general, and how, due to these characteristics, they can create characters. If I relate this with the !18

characteristics of commercial films, it is clear that commercial films would benefit from the use of stereotypes. The audience gets used to seeing a certain type (or even an ethnic minority) portrayed in a specific way, and the producers tend to adapt to the expectations of the audience, in order to release a successful product, until saturation is reached and a new trend takes over, or if an important social change takes place in society.

As Schweinitz (2011, p. 43) rightly observes, it is important that the audience can identify and relate the characters and situations in the film to real life people and situations. The opposite is also valid: certain images depicted by media can confirm people’s “schemata of thought” and provide it with a visual representation (2011, p.

43).

Stereotypes in commercial films keep the same characteristics as stereotypes in general: they are thus very general, reductionist, distorting images; connected to issues of power; and referring to projective identification.

Commercial films rely not only on the use of stereotypes, but also on specific filmic conventions, that have to be read throughout the different layers of the film: story, acting, image, sound or lighting, as signaled by the film theorist Jörg Schweinitz (2011, p. 42). More than that, the film’s genre can be recognized by using a set of stereotypes associated with each genre.

Art films

Art films, as written previously, are a completely different mode of making films. One reason seems to be the fact that they are not made just to sell tickets, but rather to transmit something to the audience – whether an emotion or the view of the filmmaker on a specific topic, including cinema itself.

According to the film theorist David Bordwell (2002, p. 94), art films were first acknowledged in Europe, after World War II. If earlier I mentioned that in commercial cinema the narrative is based on a cause-effect chain and a hero who must accomplish a goal established in the beginning of the plot, in art films this cause-effect chain is broken and the goal is often ambiguous or even non-existing. Unlike the “readymade” film mentioned earlier in the thesis, the art film can surprise or challenge the viewer, and offers a completely different experience.

I believe that, because of breaking the rules of the classical Hollywood narrative, and because of its focus on complex situations and individualities, the art film depends to !19

a lower extent on conventions and stereotypes. The filmmaker might even try to confront these conventions and stereotypes, by emphasizing and exaggerating them (about this tendency I wrote before, when discussing Stuart Hall’s counter-strategies regarding the use of stereotypes).

I expect thus that some of the filmmakers would try to counteract also the stereotypes associated with Romanies, although the “Gypsy” imagery might seem very offering, from an aesthetic point of view.

In time, Hollywood films have started to be influenced by art films, while art films have drawn inspiration from a few commercial productions (for example, the French directors of the Nouvelle Vague were admirers of the works of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford and Nicholas Ray). There are several hybrid films produced lately and I will call-them “in-between” films, for being neither truly commercial nor artistic films.

Producers have also started to be more interested in this intermediate type of film, since it brings something new and original, while also bringing profit and being strongly advertised. The interest of big production companies (usually associated with commercial films) in small, independent films can be seen more clearly in Hollywood, for example in the case of the Walt Disney Company, the largest media conglomerate in the world, which bought in 1993 Miramax Films, a company dealing with the production of independent and foreign films.

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Stereotypes associated with the Romani Minority in Europe

The existence of the Romani population was first mentioned by Europeans in 1322, by the Irish Franciscan monk Symon Semeonis, according to more sources (http:// www.europeword.com/blog/europe/european-gypsies/). This means that they have been in Europe for almost 700 years, or maybe even more. During all this time, Romanies have not been able to integrate within the European society or, rather, the European society has not been willing to integrate Romanies.

Therefore, the Romani minority has always been the internal Other of Europe. As a group who does not have its own country, but instead a different language, different traditions, and even a different appearance compared to Europeans in general, it is natural that people tend to think first of all about the difference, rather than the similarities between the Romani community and others. This emphasis on difference led to the creation of various stereotypes throughout history.

The stereotypes associated with the Romani minority keep the general characteristics of the stereotype described earlier in the thesis: they are general - otherwise they could not refer to the whole group; reductionist - do not provide as with a complex and nuanced portrayal (which would be impossible since it is a group, and each member has a different background and is a unique human being); distorting images – related to the previous characteristic, the representation and self-representation of the Romanies is always subjective and therefore rendering an inaccurate portrayal; relatively fixed – similar images can be found throughout a long period (see for example the variations on “Carmen” in cinema, and “The Gypsy and the Gentleman”); referring to a lack and linked to fantasy and projective identification – this is mainly the case of the positive stereotypes and is the characteristic that led to the romanticized and exotic image of the Romanies; connected to issues of power – although some of the depictions of the Romanies include positive stereotypes, the general impression is that “we” (the non-Romani) are better than “them” (the Romanies), and this is also linked to the last characteristic; ambivalence – the positive stereotypes are always accompanied by a negative side, a characteristic of the stereotype that will prove to be fundamental later in the thesis.

As for the functions of the stereotypes associated with the Romanies, I believe that they are the same with the ones mentioned earlier: structuring the world according to a pattern – the stereotypes that I will mention later help the non-Romani, but also the Romanies, in creating, confirming, or perhaps even demolishing expectations and mental representations about the Romani community; marking difference –these stereotypes are clear tools in accentuating the difference between Romanies and non!21

Romanies; creating identity – this is reflected more on an individual or personal level, and it depends on how much influence do these stereotypes play in the life of a person (Romani or non-Romani); defining people as characters – a member of the Romani community is described by another person in terms of how “they” (the Romanies) are, being perceived through a set of easily recognizable and defining features; explaining behavior and attitudes – whenever a Romani ethnic behaves according to the stereotype, he or she is fulfilling the expectations of others, and if the behavior is against the stereotype, discussions of assimilation or loss of authenticity might arise.

An important remark made by the Dutch anthropologist Mattijs van de Port (1998, p.

164) is that “Every Gypsy image has its anti-image, every statement about Gypsies has its counterstatement”. The researcher goes further in saying that all the fantasies shaped by the non-Romani about the Romani community emphasize the paradoxes and ambiguities of existence (1998, p. 169).

With this being said, I will try to outline some of the stereotypes associated with the Romani minority. The next classification will show these stereotypes by putting in relation both positive and negative aspects, which are due to the ambivalent character of the stereotype, and also to illustrate van de Port’s idea regarding the “Gypsy” imagery.

1. Romanies are free/ Romanies do not follow any rules and laws

The unity of the family and the group, and the reluctance to be part of the society, lead to the formation of both positive and negative stereotypes. Starting with the nineteenth century, their image was romanticized, due to the anti-industrialization movement, and Romanies were associated with freedom – a classic example comes from Aleksandr Pushkin’s poem “The Gypsies” (1824), where the “Gypsies” are portrayed as the epitome of freedom. But this freedom, seen from a different perspective, becomes a negative characteristic, because it points to a tendency to avoid rules and formalities, and to break the law. In the same poem, one of the characters, the “Old Man”, warns the Russian Aleko not to fall in love with his “Gypsy” daughter Zemfira: “We are wild and have no laws”.

Becky Taylor (2011), Lecturer in History at the University of London, writes about this freedom from responsibilities and evasion of the “law and the codes of behavior” when referring to the stereotypes associated with the “Gypsy travellers” in Great Britain. !22

The lawlessness associated with the Romanies is also interpreted sometimes as a sign that they do not want to integrate into the society. Becky Taylor (2011) draws attention to the fact that it is mostly the popular press and politicians portraying Romanies as “anti-social” and unable to integrate. As mentioned in our discussions about the stereotypes, they can be means of manipulating the majority group (and the minority group), in order to exaggerate the difference between them.

Also the film scholar Anikó Imre (2003, p. 17) observes that Romanies are seen as “genetically averse to hygiene, education, and to Enlightenment ideals of progress within the democratic nation state”.

I believe that these stereotypes, regarding the freedom/lawlessness of the Romani people, are the most important and powerful in the representation of the Romani people, which is why most of the following stereotypes would seem to derive from them.

2. Romanies are natural born performers/ Romanies are liars

Romanies are considered skilled performers, always playing a role, especially in situations where they have to relate to non-Romani. A good example of this is Carmen, one of the most famous Romani characters from Prosper Mérimée’s novel, “Carmen” (1845), later adapted into an opera by Georges Bizet. Carmen is shown as a woman who is able to “fool” non-Romani, always playing a role in front of them.

This stereotype associated with the Romanies is twofold. On one hand, it creates a positive and playful image of performers – and also talented artists (known especially for their music and dancing), fortune-tellers, animal trainers (especially horses), skilled traders and circus folk – jobs which, according to Matthew J. Gibney and Randall Hansen (2006, p. 526), involve a willingness to travel with the whole family and to be self-employed, but, on the other hand, this also leads to a negative image of people who are good at cheating and doing tricks and, thus, not to be trusted.

Romanies were seen as not being able to get a “proper” job, because of their laziness and “refusal” to work. Even the Serbian social psychologist Bora Kuzmanović (1992, p. 120-121) writes that Romanies are “lazy workers who get tired easily”, clearly a generalizing and reductionist view of the ethnic group, and thus a stereotype.

Alaina Lemon also points to this stereotype in her study of the Romani community living in Russia. The scholar observed how most of the Romanies are playing a role when interacting with non-Romani, either for creating a distance or as a game which !23

leads to the confirmation of the stereotypes from the part of the non-Romani.

Nicholas Saul and Susan Tebbutt (2005, p. 5), also mention that “Gypsies are labeled by outsiders as petty criminals, spies or quite simply dishonest”.

3. Romanies are passionate/ Romanies are aggressive and violent

Literature provides us with the image of passionate and attractive Romani women like Carmen, Pushkin’s Zemfira (from the previously discussed poem “The Gypsies”), or Victor Hugo’s Esméralda from “Notre-Dame de Paris” (1831). When exaggerated, passion becomes violence and aggressiveness, two features that are often used when describing Romanies, and included in the narrative – in “Carmen”, obsessive passion leads to crime.

It is interesting to notice that for the Dutch anthropologist Mattijs van de Port, violence is the result of impulses, therefore it does not have a cause or a purpose, while for Ian Hancock, who is himself a representative of the Romani community, violence is the result of suppressed anger, which is caused by a society that does not want to accept Romani in it. Van de Port associates this passion to what he calls “boundless waste” (1998, p. 159) – a need for immediate consumption, a greed for life and for indulging in the “present”.

4. Romanies are always travelling/ Romanies are expelled

Another stereotype associated with the Romani community is that of the travelling “Gypsy” – derived from the “freedom” stereotype. Going from village to village to trade various things or just for the pleasure of travelling, this stereotype has been highly romanticized, especially in the nineteenth century. We find this stereotype not only in literature (for example “Carmen” and “The Gypsy”), but also in painting.

Vincent van Gogh painted “Encampment of Gypsies With Caravans”, a work of art showing the “Gypsies” lying on the grass, near their caravans.

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Vincent van Gogh: Encampment of Gypsies With Caravans (1853)

On the other hand though, Romanies are also being expelled from every place where they would try to build a home. They are the unwelcomed guests, always disturbing the peace and creating troubles for the locals. The “Law on Wandering Gypsies”, enforced in 1927 in Czech Republic, for example, stated that Romanies need to ask for permission if they want to stay somewhere overnight. And it happened not only before and during World War II, but also more recently, in 2010, when France deported more than 1200 Romanies back to Romania. This image is not seen that often in representations of Romanies by the Other, but mostly in self-representations, such as “Korkoro”, the film directed by Tony Gatlif in 2009.

5. Romanies own gold/ Romanies are poor

Other contrasting stereotypes are that of the Romanies who make and own gold, and the image of the poor Romanies, wandering on the streets and begging for money. The American children’s author Betsy Byars (1970, p. 9-10) writes in the poem “Rama the Gypsy Cat” how the kitten Rama gets an earring made of gold, like all Romani kids do. Esmeralda, the “Gypsy” from Disney’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame”, is shown walking barefoot, but having many gold bracelets, earrings and coins used for decorating the scarf around the waist.

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Images of Romani girls wearing golden jewelry and of old men with golden teeth, chains and rings, contradict images of starving Romani children, walking barefoot in the mud, half naked.

! morecoolpictures.blogspot.com – “Not So Romantic Lives of Gypsies”

The chances of finding an image in between these two opposites are very low. Alaina Lemon has a similar view of the stereotypical image of Romani. For the scholar, Romani are represented as both primitive and poor on one hand, and “draped in jewelry and coins, and full of schemes to swindle people” (Lemon, 2000, p. 159), on the other.

6. Romanies are very persuasive/ Romanies are all swindlers and thieves

Another stereotype associated with the Romani minority is that they are very persuasive, managing to sell the objects that were either bought for a much cheaper price or made by themselves. Not only this, but Romani women are seen as being able !26

to manipulate non-Romani men, a good example of this being Carmen, who manages to convince Don José to do whatever she wants.

If on one hand they are seen as persuasive, on the other Romanies are also perceived as swindlers and thieves, always trying to find naïve people who will believe anything they are told. There are images of them trying to sell potions, dancing or singing, while other members of the family easily manage to pickpocket the non-Romanies.

Such an image is offered by Georges de la Tour, in the painting entitled “The Fortune Teller” (1633-1639).

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Georges de la Tour: The Fortune Teller (1633-1639, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

7. Romanies are traditionalist and very attached to their families/ Pre-arranged marriages at very young ages

A stereotype associated often with Romanies is the fact that they are very traditionalist, and often conservative. Adam Bartosz wrote in a guidebook for an exhibition on “Gypsy” life and culture in Tarnow (Poland) that most Romanies guide their lives according to a traditional “Gypsy code” – a set of rules establishing relations between Romanies, Romanies and non-Romanies, the relation between men and women, as well as the “purity” of food and of their environment.

Related to this view of the traditionalist Romani member is the unity of the family.

Families often live together (sometimes in a very small space), travel together, or even marry within the same family. In Prosper Mérimée’s “Carmen”, the narrator mentions how loyal are the members of the family, and how they would do anything to help each other.

While the traditionalism and unity of the family can be seen as positive characteristics, there is a counter-image that has been spread, especially in the last years. It is that of the pre-arranged marriages, where the groom’s father pays a certain !27

amount of money (or jewelry, various valuable objects) for the bride. An article from CBS News drew attention to a case from 2009: the self proclaimed “King of the Gypsies”, Ion Cioabă, from Romania, forced his 12-years old daughter, Ana Maria, to marry a 15-years old boy. She was filmed and photographed running out of the church, crying out that she does not want to be married, but had to return and proceed with the ceremony as if nothing had happened (according to Romanian law, marriages are not allowed if one of the spouses is not 18, but marriages between people from the Romani community are “tolerated”).

Although the hierarchy within the Romani community is complex and there are many different types of Romani groups, their image in arts (and in all other fields) has been narrowed down to these few stereotypical representations. According to Romani scholar Ian Hancock (2003, p. 63), notions such as racism, religious intolerance, outsider status, the exclusionary culture of the Romani minority, and the imaginary created by literature, provide the historical basis of anti-Romani prejudice in Europe.

For Hancock, one reason for marginalizing the Romani community would be its Asian origin and a culture and language resembling the Indian culture and language. As proved by researchers, Romani arrived in Europe from India, and have kept many elements of the Indian culture and traditions, including a social system based on castes and on the “Rromanija” (romanipen) – a set of rules and “pollution laws”, which are transmitted orally and are important guidelines for most members of the Romani community. These rules refer to their traditions, culture, the notion of purity (physical and spiritual – for example, there have to be separate towels and soap for the upper and lower parts of the body, and menstruation is seen as a shame, which is why the women have to wash their clothes separately, avoid cooking food or touching men with their skirts during menstruation), the notion of time (which, according to the romanipen, flows horizontally and not vertically) and health. According to romanipen, all outsiders (non-Romani) have to be seen as “unclean”. This can only lead to the accentuation of the gap between Romani and non-Romani.

I believe that some of Hancock’s arguments are rather incomplete, since the Indian origin of the Romanies was discovered rather late, and Europe is, after all, a mix of languages and cultures. Some peoples came from Asia as well, and settled in Europe centuries ago. Still, appearance is one important actor that might have set a stronger barrier. Romanies have darker skin, which makes them easily recognizable (in opposition to most Europeans). As in the case of the African Americans in the U.S., the fact that they look different from the majority group might have brought much more discrimination and prejudice as their language and culture. !28

Hancock (2003, p. 55) also noticed that Romani do not have their own country, which means that they “must forever be guests in another’s homeland, and at worst unwelcome intruders”. As Homi K. Bhabha (2004, p. 13) states, “To be unhomed is not to be homeless, nor can the ‘unhomely’ be easily accommodated in that familiar division of social life into private and public spheres”. This describes exactly the situation of the Romani minority. Although they might have an actual “home”, their power of decision and initiative is restricted by the majority group. Besides, if the stereotypes associated with them are mostly negative, the difference is marked stronger and, thus, there will be fewer benefits for them.

An interesting perspective on this topic is provided by Alaina Lemon (2000, p. 4), who remarks that members of the Romani community do not see themselves as guests, but as a combination of Romani and other ethnicities, since most of them are born and live among people of a different ethnicity. The scholar rightly observes that if members of the Romani community do not act according to the stereotypes, if they, for instance, have other occupations than playing music, telling the future, or begging, it is often perceived as if they have been assimilated or as if they are no longer authentic. Assimilation receives here a negative connotation and it shows how difficult is the relationship between two groups who do not share an equal position in society and tend to reinforce each other’s differences.

A similar approach can be seen in Anikò Imre’s observations of the Romani minority in Hungary. The scholar discusses the politics of assimilation and the need for “tribal, nomadic, primitive Gypsies”. Once assimilated, the Romani become non-Romani, they lose their authenticity, but also the nation loses its scapegoat and the sense of superiority and power against an unprivileged social category (Imre, 2003, p. 17).

This position is reinforced by Shohat and Stam (1994, p. 24), when they refer to the complementary procedures of racism: denial of difference and denial of sameness.

Denial of difference is a process much debated these days, because of talks of equality and political correctness, and while differences might be diminished, a sense of sameness cannot be reached among dominating and dominated groups within a society. In my view, sameness would imply complete assimilation and would lead to a homogeneous culture, therefore “erasing” the culture of the minority group, culture that might be an inspiring and resourceful source of communication.

For the Dutch anthropologist Mattijs van de Port (1998, p. 6-7), the “Gypsy” imaginary was created by non-Romani as a way of escaping their own “regulated” lives, and of satisfying the “thirst for the wilder pleasures of life” – as mentioned previously, when talking about the stereotype as projective identification. This statement refers to the stereotype as projective identification. I believe that the members of the Romani community could be tempted to appropriate this imaginary in !29

their self-representations, in order to attract the sympathy and approval of the Other (in this case, the European).

The reaction of the Romani groups to the stereotypes and prejudice against them differs. As put by Hancock (2003, p. 68), Romani can react in two ways to the treatment of non-Romani. They either avoid any contacts with non-Romani, or adopt the stereotypes and act according to them, especially if there are any financial advantages that could be drawn from it.

The scholar draws attention to the fact that Romani have been slaves in some regions of Europe (for instance in Romania) for hundreds of years, which makes them want to establish good connections with non-Romani people. This might make them act according to the stereotypes, although it “does not encourage self-determination or personal initiative” (Hancock, 2003, p. 97). Previously we have mention this appropriation of the stereotype, when discussing the concept of the stereotype, but also in relation to van de Port’s observations regarding the pleasure gained by nonRomani in hearing the romanticized stories about this group. It is a strategy of great importance for our purpose, and we will pay close attention to it, when analyzing the films, in the second part of the paper.

CASE STUDY

In this part of the thesis, I will analyze films made about the Romani community by non-Romani and Romani filmmakers from Europe. As mentioned earlier in the thesis, I have chosen Europe because it is the “home” of most of the Romanies.

Europe has been politically and culturally divided between Western and Eastern Europe for a long time. For many years, the West has been associated with democracy and capitalism, while the East was dominated by communism and under the influence of the Soviet Union. After the fall of communism, the gap between Western and Eastern countries continued to exist – and it still does, although the enlargement of the European Union and the inclusion of Eastern European countries would seem to be a progress.

After many years of oppression and censorship, Eastern European countries are still dealing with the legacy of communism: poorness, corruption and a complex of inferiority in front of the Western countries. These factors are reflected on a cultural !30

level, which is why I decided to divide the representations made by non-Romanies in countries from Western Europe and in countries from Eastern Europe.

Dina Iordanova (2001) wrote about the representation of the Romanies in Eastern Europe, emphasizing that they are depicted in a positive light in Eastern Europe because of projective identification with them - the Romanies being in Eastern Europe what the Eastern Europeans are in Europe in general: the Other. This constitutes another argument in choosing to divide the films made in Eastern Europe with those made in Western Europe.

In each category I have chosen three films – more films would exceed the scope and size of the paper and fewer films would not cover the variety of genres and styles of the filmmakers. Besides, I have chosen films made in different periods of time, in order to observe how these representations have changed and how the political context might have influenced the representations (for example the film “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, was made in Moldova in a time when the country was part of the Soviet Union).

As written previously in the thesis, several stereotypes associated with the Romanies stem from the art of the nineteenth century. In both Western European and Eastern European categories, I have included adaptations of an opera (“Carmen”, by Georges Bizet) and, respectively, literature (“Makar Chudra” and “Starukha Isergil”, by Maxim Gorki) from the nineteenth century.

I was not able to do the same in the case of self representations because I could not find a film made by a Romani filmmaker based on literature or other type of art perhaps because their culture based on orality.

Each of the categories features one film where the Romanies are not the main characters, or where they play a less significant role in the story. The motivation for this choice is that the filmmaker might give the main characters more individuality and complexity, while smaller parts could put more emphasis on stereotypes and conventional, as they are just “helping” the main character in reaching his or her goal.

At the same time, I tried to include commercial films, art films and in-between films in all categories since, as I wrote earlier in the thesis, they have different characteristics and purposes, as well as a different approach to stereotypes. Again, regarding the self representation part, the thesis is limited by the lack of available resources, which is why all the films in this category are art films. This lack of self representations points to a problem: the European cinema needs more Romani filmmakers to address their own representation, through various genres and stylistic means. !31

The stereotypes associated with the Romanies, described previously in the thesis, will be taken one by one and discussed in relation to the three categories of films selected: Eastern European, Western European and self representations. The comparison between the films and the way stereotypes are used in them will provide the basis for the conclusion of this thesis.

Western European Cinema

The first portrayal of the Romanies in cinema comes from France, as mentioned earlier in the thesis. Western Europe does not lack representations of Romanies and one Romani character that has been represented several times in cinema is Carmen.

An interesting fact is that there seem to be no representations of Carmen in the cinema of Eastern Europe.

Of all the representations, I have chosen Francesco Rosi’s adaptation of “Carmen” (France/ Italy, 1984), based on the opera composed by Georges Bizet. It is one of the most known, and it features well known opera singers like Placido Domingo. The film was nominated for the Golden Globe and won ten awards at different festivals, for best film, best film direction, costume design, editing, cinematography and production design.

Another film focused on the life of a Romani character is the French “Le Gitan”/ “The Gypsy”, produced and played by the famous French actor Alain Delon in 1975, and directed by the Corsican José Giovanni, himself a gangster who was sentenced to death in 1948 and, with the help of his father, released in 1956. I chose this film because it was slightly more popular than other commercial productions and, compared with, for example, “Alma Gitana” (Chus Gutiérrez, 1996), it does not focus on dance and music, which was something that I wanted to avoid, as I have already selected “Carmen”. At the same time, a film like “The Gypsy and the Gentleman” (Joseph Losey, 1958), portrays the female protagonist as the seductive Romani woman breaking the hearts of non-Romani men, a character repeating the pattern set by Carmen. A Romani character that would not seem to resemble Carmen is Martha, played by (surprisingly) Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s favorite filmmaker.

Riefenstahl finished “Tiefland”/ “Lowlands” in 1944 (and it was shown in 1954).

Although I was able to see only a fragment, it seems that the character is a pure and innocent Romani woman, working as a beggar dancer and depicted in a very positive light.

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The last film that I have chosen as an example for this category it not centered on the life of Romanies, who are secondary characters, but they do play a large part in it – “Snatch” (Guy Ritchie, UK/USA, 2000). While there are other films made in Western Europe that feature Romanies as secondary characters, some of them refer to World War II (“The Man Who Cried” – Sally Potter, 2000; “Train de vie”/ “Train of Life” – Radu Mihaileanu, 1998), a situation that I tried to avoid, since war is an extraordinary situation when the people are acting irrationally sometimes and their conditions of living are changed – it would also require a separate chapter, given the persecution faced by Romanies in World War II. Other films with Romanies as secondary characters range from the thriller-horror “Blind Terror”/ “See No Evil” (Richard Fleischer, 1971) or the romantic “Chocolat” (Lasse Hallström, 2000), to the Norwegian family film “Yohan – Barnevandrer” (Grete Salomonsen, 2010).

Still, these films did not acquire the cult status that “Snatch” has obtained. Guy Ritchie gathered some of the most famous actors (Brad Pitt in the role of the Romani, Jason Statham, Benicio del Toro, Dennis Farina and Alan Ford) and the film registered a record profit, one week after its opening: 3 million GBP (imdb.com).

I will start by discussing “The Gypsy”, which is the oldest of all three. It is a commercial film with plenty of action, making a parallel between Hugo Sennart, the Romani played by Alain Delon, who escaped from prison, determined to take his revenge on all those who have harmed him, and Yan Kuq, a French gangster, the best in breaking safes, hunted by the police for many years, without being able to gather any proofs of his crimes.

Interestingly, the film contains scenes when the status of the Romanies is discussed, either by the police or by the Romanies themselves. It condemns generalizations and it points to some of the stereotypes discussed previously, as I write more in detail below.

All the situations in the second film, “Carmen”, an example of an art film, are subordinated to Bizet’s libretto. The four acts are followed strictly, and the freedom of the director is in a way limited, because of its desire to stay true to the opera. Rosi places the action in the nineteenth century Spain, in spaces that resemble a theatre stage where the actors can perform freely. The story revolves around Don José’s love and obsession for Carmen, a Romani “femme fatale”, who loves freedom more than anything else and whose love affairs never last more than six months (according to the toreador Escamillo, Don José’s rival).

“Snatch”, although involving criminals and gangsters in modern London, has a very different tone, compared with “The Gypsy”. The film, through its construction, seems to be situated between art and commercial films and has acquired a cult status among !33

some cinema-goers. Although a box-office success, the film does not follow the classic pattern of the commercial film, the filmmaker choosing to play creatively especially with the editing, creating an alert rhythm and using flashbacks, freeze frames, distorted images and sounds in order to emphasize the impact of the situations or to heighten the emotional frame of mind of its characters.

The narrator is also the main character – a British man called Turkish. He and his friend Tommy deal with unlicensed boxing games, for which they will need the help of Mickey, a Romany box fighter who is able to knock out any opponents in record time, although he is supposed to lose the games. The story is combined with that of an 84 karats diamond hunted by all sorts of people from London and New York. The film seems to play with stereotypes, not only about Romanies, but also about Russians or even about London (in the sequence when Avi Denovitz says that the 84 karat diamond was found in London, he resumes London to “Fish, chips, cup of tea, bad food, worse weather, Marry-Fucking-Poppins”. The stereotypes are exaggerated, in order to create caricature characters and generate the humor of the film. These exaggerations are, I believe, signs that the film distances itself from commercial films.

Of these three films, “Snatch” emphasizes editing and dialogue, while in “Carmen” obviously prevails the music and in “The Gypsy” the narrative. In “Snatch” but mostly in “The Gypsy”, Romani music is used to induce the atmosphere of a Romani camp. In the later the jazz manouche (also called Gypsy jazz), a style of jazz started by the Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, seems also to create a rather romantic view of the camp and Romani lifestyle.

Further on, I will take each of the stereotypes associated with the Romani minority described earlier in the thesis and see if and how they are used in the three films selected.

1. Romanies are free/ Romanies do not follow any rules and laws

In “The Gypsy”, Hugo is a fugitive, running for two years from the police. In this sense, he is a condemned man, whose freedom has been taken away. At the same time, he lives according to his principles and manages to escape the police all the time, as if his freedom could not be completely taken.

There is one sequence where the wish for absolute freedom seems to be suggested, namely the one where the seagulls are shown flying while the viewer hears jazz manouch. José Giovanni does not just show this sequence for a couple of seconds, but !34

seems to insist on it. The camera follows the seagulls, revealing soon Hugo’s head. He looks at the seagulls as if he would wish to have their freedom.

The negative side of the stereotype is obvious from the beginning of the film, when the police are looking for him the Romani camp. After, we see his picture projected in a police office, where the inspector tells his employs about his escape and provides them with a general description of the Romanies – “plague stricken animals”.

It must be noticed though that in this film he is not the only one breaking the law. In fact, most of the characters are either “hunted” by the police, or part of the French police. Still, Hugo is an outcast, more than the others. When his non-Romani accomplices, Jacques and Jo the Boxer, tell him that they should go abroad, he replies that he is already abroad. The way he is dressed, always with a leather jacket, a hat and a scarf around his neck, contrasts with the suits worn by his partners.

At the same time, he prefers riding a motorcycle instead of driving a car and, while riding a motorcycle is not (at all) associated with the Romanies, it becomes an element in his construction as an outcast, because all of the other characters use cars.

In “Carmen”, the freedom of the Romanies is introduced by Carmen herself, when she promises Don José that he will know what freedom is, if he follows her and the other Romanies into the mountains and starting living like them. She repeats this twice, in the sequence where Don José comes to the tavern, after spending one month in prison because of her. For Don José, perhaps because he is not a real Romani, joining them doesn’t reveal him what real freedom is. His obsession for Carmen is too strong, and will eventually lead her to death.

The negative side of this stereotype is also emphasized in “Carmen” and, again, is confirmed by the protagonist when she sings that “Love is like a Gypsy who doesn’t know any rules”. The Romanies are shown in this film as not caring for social conventions but acting on impulses, a characteristic that Don José seems to adapt to after falling in love with Carmen. They go to the mountains and hide there, planning different crimes. Here the women have a major part, distracting the possible victims with their charms.

In “Snatch”, freedom, although not highly emphasized, is pointed at in the way the Romanies in the camp site live and in the way Mickey behaves. He is told to lose the match in the fourth round twice, and never complies with the order. Unlike the other characters, he knows more than we (the viewers) do. We only find out about what he has really done by the end of the film, through Turkish’s voice-over.

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The lawlessness of the Romanies is inferred, but lawlessness is also part of Ritchie’s general depiction of London in this film. All the characters are breaking the law, either by participating in unlicensed boxing, or dealing with diamonds.

At the same, the film gathers characters of different races and ethnicities, and all of them seem to be treated in the same ironic, humorous way, through an emphasis on stereotypes. When Avi finds out that Boris has stolen the bag with the diamonds, his first reply is “Russians. I should’ve known”.

When sent by Turkish to buy a new caravan as an office from the Romanies, Tommy repeats twice “I fuckin’ hate pikeys”. The same phrase is repeated by another character, near the end of the film. “Pikey” and “gypo” are pejorative terms used for the Romanies and Irish travelers in the UK, and both terms are used frequently in this film.

The issue regarding the integration of the Romanies in the British society receives here a different connotation, since all of the characters are criminals, gangsters, or dealing with unlicensed boxing, and are, thus, not part of the “fish, chips, cup of tea, […]” London described by Avi. Still, the fact that the Romanies are shown living in caravans, ignoring even the rules of the underworld sets them further apart from the rest of the characters.

2. Romanies are natural born performers/ Romanies are liars

“The Gypsy” refers to both sides of this stereotype right from the beginning. The police is looking for Hugo Sennart in the Romani campsite – an occasion for the viewer to be introduced to that ambient. Every time the film shows images from the camp, the filmmaker has chosen to emphasize the moment by adding jazz manouche, revealing thus the strong relation between the Romanies and music.

Not only that, but as the police officers inspect the area, we see some of the members of the community playing music outdoors, looking defiantly at the unwelcomed guests. Later in the film, we also see Hugo making a violin for his son.

The officers go into Hugo’s father caravan and ask him about his son. Very natural, he tells them that he is always there, in his heart, although he hasn’t seen him in a very long time. After the police goes, Hugo steps out of the closet where he was hiding the whole time.

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On the overall though, the film gives the impression that lies are used only when interacting with the non-Romanies, but not with the other members of the community.

Dialogues between them have a rather serious tone and they often reflect on the relationship between Romanies and non-Romanies.

Performance is also emphasized in “Carmen”, where the protagonist becomes the center of attention when she sings and dances. Not only that, but also in the second act, in the Romanies’ camp and inside the tavern of Lillas Pastia, we see singing and dancing Romanies, performing not only for the non-Romanies. In Lillas Pastia, a young Romani girl with a red flower in her hair – perhaps a future Carmen – dances on the table, while the adults surrounding her sing and clap.

If the positive side of the stereotype is emphasized, the negative is slightly ambiguous. Carmen, with her always defiant attitude, promises Don José to love him if he helps her escape from prison. Already from the beginning, her love is conditioned by interest. The ambiguity arrives when she is asked to join the Romanies in the mountains and she refuses, saying that she is in love. The other Romanies tell her that they have heard this phrase before, and do not consider it more than a trifle.

Later in the film, we see her declaring her love to Escamillo and saying to Don José that she does not love him anymore. Her sincerity can be questioned because of her pauses in speech and because of her scared and worried face expression, before facing Don José. She might have that expression because she feels her death is coming, or this is a moment when she accepts her fate and does not wish to prolong the moment, even though she has to lie.

In “Snatch”, Mickey is a performer, although here music does not seem to play such a great part. His actions seem rather theatrical when he is preparing for his first boxing match. Although his rival has already started to punch him, he does not defend himself until he takes off, meticulously, his jacket and shirt.

He enforces the negative side of the stereotype – that Romanies are liars. While he agrees to lose the match in the fourth round, he always ends up winning, bringing the anger and despair of Brick Top, Turkish and Tommy.

Even if not always lying, he is often hiding the truth and changes completely the turn of the situations. Mickey is the only character who knows more than the viewer and arranges everything so that he gets what he wants.

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3. Romanies are passionate/ Romanies are aggressive and violent

While “Carmen” and “Snatch” both depict Romanies as passionate people, in “The Gypsy” they seem to be rather calm and sad, a sadness due most likely to their marginality. In a sequence where Hugo is discussing with two other Romanies, they keep their voices low and express their angst regarding the future.

Hugo is described by his partners, Jacques and Jo, as a person seeking only revenge and not interested in “clothes or women”. While Jacques keeps trying to draw his attention to various women and has sarcastic remarks about the way he is dressed, Hugo looks at him with an almost paternal smile, as if he would have been through that phase but has become more mature and wise in time.

Still, there is one sequence in the film when Jacques reminds Hugo that once he said that he would like to shout and asks him what made him say that. Enigmatically, Hugo replies that one feels like screaming when realizing that some things cannot be changed by one man and this is amplified when the others are not willing to change either. I interpret this as a reflection on the Romanies’ condition as marginalized minority and the character’s struggle to change mentalities.

Regarding the aggressiveness and violence associated with the Romanies, Giovanni’s intention seems to be the portrayal of a man who has violent impulses, but is trying to control them. In one sequence, Jacques provokes Hugo and the later pulls the knife from his belt and puts it at Jacques’ throat. Realizing what he has just done, he tells Jacques to go.

He also tells chief inspector Blot that he is not a murderer, when using him as a hostage in order to run away from the police. His aggressiveness might be latent and it seems to be explained as the frustration of a man who encountered prejudice all the time because of his ethnicity.

In “Carmen” passion seems to be what dominates most of the character’s lives. It is revealed through the songs, dances and attitude of the Romanies portrayed in the film, especially Carmen, who is constructed in opposition with the innocent Micaela.

Black, wild hair, revealing outfits and a very straight forward attitude contrast with Micaela’s fair face, blonde hair kept tight, austere clothes and shy behavior.

While passions seems to be a characteristic of the Romanies, Don José, obsessed with Carmen (perhaps more obsessed with her than in love with her) becomes also a passionate character, his later behavior contrasting to a large extent with his first depictions in the film. !38

Violence is also an important part of the story. It is shown when Carmen picks up a fight with another woman, making all the other workers call the soldiers. Don José is assigned to take her to prison and later she convinces him to help her escape, by offering her love in return. Later, they have violent fights and Don José will end up killing her, as predicted by Carmen herself.

In “Snatch”, the passionate character of the Romanies can be mostly seen in the scene where they are at the funeral of Mickey’s mother. They drink and dance in a chaotic and fast tempo, the filmmaker making use of distorted, blurred images, weird shooting angles and a music that emphasizes the atmosphere.

Violence occupies though a much larger space of the film. Mickey is, after all, a champion in boxing. The violence in the boxing matches is exaggerated through editing devices: slow motion, freeze-frames, upside-down frames and a very fast cutting, close-ups from various angles and distorted punch sounds, amplified in order to increase the tension of the situation.

Violence is not only a characteristic of the Romanies, since all the characters are part of London’s underworld. Still, Mickey, although at first he doesn’t look like, is the one who can kill anyone the fastest and without even using a weapon.

4. Romanies are always travelling/ Romanies are expelled

This stereotype is present in all three films selected. In “The Gypsy”, Hugo never stays too long in one place, since he is hunted by the police. The chief-inspector Blot tells the other members of his team that they have to catch a man who does not sleep two nights in the same place.

Hugo’s route is coincidentally the same as Yan Kuq’s, although they do not meet until the end of the film, when Yan hosts Hugo and they seem to communicate easily with each other, from the very beginning.

An interesting aspect of the film is that the place where Hugo’s family lives in caravans is located right next to the railway, as if in case of emergency, they could also just jump on the train.

Close to the end of the film, his family is expelled by the French police and, as stated not only by Hugo’s brothers, but also by the chief-inspector, hunting Romanies is a very popular thing to do. His brothers tell him how there have been news of the Romanies chased by the French people in the North of the country – a situation that is !39

real even 37 years after the film was made (I discussed the expulsion of the Romanies by the French government earlier).

In “Carmen”, the four acts of the opera adapted on screen follow the path of Carmen and Don Jose. They move from the town, passing through Lillas Pastia’s tavern, up to the mountains, and then in Sevilla, at Escamillo’s invitation.

They seem to change place according to what could make their living easier – where they can find a source of income, and moving does not seem to be a hassle. Rosi offers us an aerial view of the Romani camp in the second part of the film, where we see the Romanies living in tents, gathered around the fire and singing.

While the viewer does not actually see them being expelled, he or she knows that if they would be caught by the police officers in the mountains, they would probably be sent to jail. Here, like in Hugo’s case, traveling is associated with running of the law.

In “Snatch”, the nomadic nature of the Romanies is revealed when we first see their establishment: somewhere in the outskirts of London, a group of caravans. The caravan in itself is a symbol of the traveller and is a popular “home” for Romanies in the UK. In the film, the Romanies are not expelled though, but rather they have to run because they kill all the men sent by Brick Top to murder them, in case Mickey does not follow his rules during the boxing match. The police is there the next day, investigating the case. The camp is left with a broken stove and various other things, filled with mud.

5. Romanies own gold/ Romanies are poor

Regardind this fifth stereotype, in “The Gypsy” the image of Hugo contrasts slightly with that of the other Romanies in the camp. In the camp there are many children, some of them running barefoot, half naked or with oversized clothes. Poorness gives the filmmaker an opportunity to show exotic images of women dressed in bright dresses, dragging their children along – and there seem to be many children in the camp.

On the other hand, Hugo is usually wearing a shirt, a white scarf, sunglasses (especially when riding his motorcycle), and a leather jacket. If he is not wearing his motorcycle helmet, than he is usually putting on a black hat, a typical Romani accessory. Another detail that makes his appearance different from that of the other !40

characters is a piercing on the left ear, and a knife always carried by him under the shirt.

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Alain Delon as Hugo Sennart, in “The Gypsy”

After some robberies, Hugo gets shot in the back and ends up in the house of doctor Weiss, a veterinary with high morals and no prejudice against Romanies. The doctor takes care of him and gives him back the gun, before his departure. In gratitude, Hugo opens a bag full of money, but the doctor replies that a handshake would be appreciated more by him. When asked about his reasons for helping him out, without expecting anything in return, the doctor tells Hugo that he used to live in colonies with different types of people, where he learned about various customs and about the sacredness of home. This seemed to bring him a sense of humanity and of the equality of all people.

This sequence, besides defending the non-Romanies, who are not all against this minority, shows us that Hugo is, in fact, rich. The money probably goes to his family, as stated by the chief-inspector in the beginning of the film, when he remarks that he steals in order to feed his children (throughout the film, we see two children who might be his, although it is not clearly stated).

In “Carmen”, the Romanies are portrayed most of the times wearing simple clothes, in contrast with the clothes worn by the toreador and his wife. In the first part, almost all the women, including Carmen, wear white dresses.

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Scene from Carmen

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Compared to this first part, the sequence happening at Lillas Pastia’s tavern show the women wearing more colorful dresses and jewelry. A high contrast is set also with the last part of the film, when Carmen wears an elegant red and black dress and her curly hair is put up and hidden with some accessories. I interpreted it as a sign of an emotional transformation from the easygoing and carefree woman into a stronger, yet more anguished woman. It is also possible that she is richer than in the first part, perhaps after all the thefts in the mountains.

In “Snatch” both sides of the stereotypes are associated with the Romanies as well.

The Romanies are shown walking in the mud, in oversized, worn out clothes, while broken things lay all around the camp.

Even if they seem to have poor living conditions, both Mickey and his mother wear many necklaces, bracelets and rings that seem to be made out of gold. As stated before though, exaggerations of various stereotypes are used in “Snatch” for their comic effect.

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Brad Pitt in the role of Mickey, in “Snatch”

6. Romanies are very persuasive/ Romanies are all swindlers and thieves

“The Gypsy” shows Hugo as a mysterious and powerful man, the leader of his “band” (he always works with Jacques and Jo the Boxer, two French men who were sentenced to 20 years of prison for robbing a bank).

When the opportunity comes for them to choose between two operations, Jacques wants to impose his preference but, lacking the self-confidence and persuasiveness of Hugo, he will have to drop his own plans and follow Hugo.

At the same time, Hugo is indeed a thief. Giovanni portrays him as a sort of Robin Hood of the Romanies, who robs banks and takes from the rich, in order to help his

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family. Otherwise, he is always honest with his non-Romani partners, as well as with Yan Kuq, whom he even tries to save from the police officers.

Carmen is also described as a persuasive woman. Her power resides in her beauty and daring attitude. She persuades Don José, a character who seemed very sober and obedient in the beginning of the film, to help her escape from prison, by singing, dancing provocatively, and promising her love.

Two Romani men ask her and two other women to join them in the mountains. In their songs, the men say that when it comes to thievery and trickeries, it is much easier when there are also women. This is why they are asking for their help. She will also persuade Don José to follow her into the mountains and become a thief and an outcast.

Persuasiveness does not seem to be a characteristic of Mickey, who does not need to convince anyone of anything, but rather he has to be convinced by Turkish and Tommy to help them. He seems to take whatever opportunity he gets and he knows that the two men depend on him, which is why he asks them to buy an expensive caravan for his mother.

Regarding the negative side of the stereotype, it is emphasized early in the film, when Tommy goes to the camp in order to buy a caravan for Turkish. The Romanies sell him a broken caravan – it breaks down as soon as the engine starts, but they refuse to give the money back, saying that they do not take back broken caravans, situation which leads to Mickey’s first fight, the one with Gorgeous George.

7. Romanies are traditionalist and very attached to their families/ Pre-arranged marriages at very young ages

Regarding this last stereotype, its positive side seems to be emphasized more in “The Gypsy” and “Snatch” then in “Carmen”.

In the first film, Hugo is a character whose close relationship with his family is accentuated many times, not only in his interactions with them, but even by the chiefinspector, who tells his team that the reason why he steals and robs is to feed his children. He seems preoccupied with everything that is going on in his community, listens to the stories of his family, who tell him that the French state wants to force them to send their children to school, while the children do not want to go there, because of the way they are treated by the non-Romani children. !43

He is also shown playing with his son and visiting his father, always returning home from time to time.

The other Romani characters play a very small part in the film though, we do not know much about them, except that they are wearing colorful clothes and like to play music. While there are no actual depictions of pre-arranged marriages, there are images of young mothers, smoking casually while dragging their children after them, in the first part of the film.

In “Carmen”, one of the first sequences of the film shows a religious procession which gathers many Romanies. This sequence and the way they are dressed, as well as the way they sing and dance, seems to show a portrayal of traditionalist Romanies.

At the same time though, we (the viewers) do not know if Carmen has a family or any relatives. The Romanies that she travels with are not given a background, so they could be either friends or relatives. Carmen seems to be too independent to hold on to the traditions of a family and too strong tempered to obey any rules.

In this film, as in “The Gypsy”, I did not find tracks of the negative side of the stereotype, with abusing parents who force their children into early marriages.

As for “Snatch”, family plays a very important part in the world of the Romanies depicted in the film – perhaps due to the previously mentioned emphasis on stereotypes in general. Mickey does not want anything for himself when he accepts to take part in the unlicensed boxing matches, but he wants a new caravan for his mother, followed by another request for one more caravan, again for his mother, this time bigger and more expensive, for his second match.

Before accepting if he will fight or not, he consults with seven other Romanies (who might be his brothers, relatives or just members of that community) and they pass the portrait of Mickey’s mother from hand to hand, until it gets to Turkish.

Mickey protects the community and tricks everyone (including the viewers) by making them (and us) believe that his mother was, indeed, killed by Brick Top’s men.

By the end of the film though, Turkish recalls that Mickey did not seem to be too affected by the news of his mother’s death, as he would have expected. This is another proof that Mickey knows more than anyone, without revealing the truth.

Except for Mickey, just like in “The Gypsy”, the other members of the community are not prominent. They enhance the stereotype regarding the unity of the Romani family, but cannot be taken as complex characters. The stereotype regarding pre-arranged marriages is not depicted in “Snatch” and, surprisingly, in none of the three films selected. !44

As it can be seen, these three film use most of the stereotypes associated with the Romani minority. The only exception is the last stereotype, regarding the pre-arranged marriages within the Romani family. Significantly, only “The Gypsy” actually depicts the Romanies as they are expelled, while the others, although using the travellers’ motifs, do not necessarily focus on that. After all, it would mean criticizing the nonRomanies’ attitude.

Eastern European Cinema

If one does not take into account all the adaptations of “Carmen” (of which I could not find an Eastern European version), it seems that the number of films portraying the Romanies as main characters is bigger in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe. This might be the result of a bigger number of Romanies living in the Eastern part of Europe. On the other hand, I found more Western European films portraying the Romanies as secondary characters. I believe that this could also be affected by a weaker distribution of Eastern European films, perhaps also because of language barriers, small budget productions and a less familiar cast – less visibility of these films makes them harder to be found, especially if the Romanies are not the main characters.

For the analysis of stereotypes associated with the Romani minority in films made in Eastern Europe by non-Romanies, I have chosen three distinct films, made in different countries and in different periods of time: “Tabor ukhodit v nebo”/ “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” (Moldova, former USSR, 1976), “Dom za vesanje”/ “Time of the Gypsies” (former Yugoslavia, UK, Italy, 1988), and “Gyerekgyilkosságok”/ “Child Murders” (Hungary, 1993).

While the first two films focus on the life of Romanies, the later portrays a member of the Romani community as a secondary character. All three films belong to different categories. “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, based on Maxim Gorki’s stories “Makar Chudra” and “Starukha Isergil”, would seem to have adopted some of the traits of commercial films, with its goal oriented characters and lack of ambiguities. It proved to be very successful with the audience of the former communist countries, and According to Edouard Chilline (2003, p. 36), many critics consider the film one of the “finest” films about the Romani minority, and it is the second made by Moldovan director Emil Loteanu on this subject, after “Lautarii”/ “Fiddlers” (1973).

The film presents a love story between two Romanies: Zobar, a horse thief, and Rada, a young Romani witch. Their love for each other is no greater than their love of !45

freedom, which will lead both of them to death. The film contains extremely picturesque and exotic images, amplified by the scenes where the Romanies are singing and dancing. Although most of the plot follows a linear narrative, there are also moments of flashbacks, when certain frames are repeated in order to emphasize their importance in the story.

As for “Time of the Gypsies”, it is one of the most famous films about the Romani minority, directed by the popular Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica. Like Emil Loteanu, Kusturica made two films about Romanies, the second being “Crna macka, beli macor”/ “Black Cat, White Cat” (1998). “Time of the Gypsies” is a film belonging to the “in-between” category, with its cause-effect chain of actions combined with dream sequences and surrealist scenes, and a lack of ambiguity mixed with quotations from cinema. The film received a positive feedback from both critics and audience.

In “Time of the Gypsies”, we see the story of Perhan, a half-Romani boy (as we find out during the film, his father is Slovenian and his mother is of Romani ethnicity) who ends up working in Italy for Ahmed Dida, a Romani man who buys and sells children, and forces them to steal and beg on the streets of Milano. By the end of the film, Ahmed dies killed by Perhan, and Perhan dies as well, shot by Ahmed’s (already) widow.

The film can be read through a postmodern perspective. It is self-reflective and often reflects on the history of the Romani people, and also on the history of film – for example, the dream sequence where the Romanies are bathing in the river, a ritual similar to the Indian tradition of spiritual and physic purification in the river Ganges; quotations from Charlie Chaplin’s films; a poster with Orson Welles’ face on it; and a striking resemblance of Ahmed with Marlon Brando’s character in “The Godfather”, after he suffers an accident and decides to name Perhan as successor of his affairs.

These two films share a similar circular construction – or, rather, a spiral construction since, throughout the story, the point of departure is enhanced and developed, acquiring new meanings by the end of both films. In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, the film begins with a sequence showing two horses, one white and one black, tied at the ankles, and it ends with the same horses (now the viewer knows that one is Zobar’s and the other one belongs to Rada), running free while the sun is going down.

One of the first sequences in “Time of the Gypsies” shows one Romani man, a sort of “fool of the village”, who tells the story of God who came on Earth but could not get along with the “Gypsies”, so he decided to go back to Heaven. At the end of the film, Perhan’s uncle, Merdzan, goes into a little chapel, where he finds an upside-down !46

Jesus on the cross. Merdzan, already drunk after his nephew’s funeral, suggests a dice game to Jesus after putting the cross back in its place, moment when the cross falls down again and the credits sequence begins. I interpreted it as a sign that, indeed, God cannot deal with the “Gypsies”, a return to the fool’s idea.

Another similarity between the two films is the presence of this “fool”, a character who seems to hold the truth, but no one really pays attention to them. In “Time of the Gypsies” we are warned by the fool that not even God can deal with “Gypsies”, while in “Gypsies are Found Near Heaven” the character of the “fool”, Bucha, warns Zobar that Rada is a witch and that nothing good can come out of his love for her.

Compared to these two films, “Gyerekgyilkosságok” is a very somber, black and white, art film, which tells the story of a Hungarian boy, called Zsolt, living in the periphery of Budapest, who befriends a young, pregnant Romani woman, Juli. She delivers a dead baby and is denounced to the police by Ibi Tratller, a girl who is always teasing Zsolt and who seems to be very jealous of his friendship with Juli.

After being taken to the hospital, Juli commits suicide, which will lead to Zsolt killing Ibi, by throwing her in the Danube. The filmmaker, Ildikó Szabó, focuses more on the psychological motivation of the main character, and creates a story about how a cruel society, lacking any humanity, can destroy a child and take his innocence in a brutal way.

I have chosen this film because the way it is constructed varies greatly from all the other films I have seen, offering a completely different perspective on the Romanies.

Looking at other films made in Eastern Europe, such as “Skupljaci perja”/ “I Even Met Happy Gypsies” (Aleksandar Petrovic, former Yugoslavia, 1967), “Ko to tamo peva”/ “Who Sings Over There” (Slobodan Sijan, former Yugoslavia, 1980), or “Romani kris”/ “Gypsy Lore” (Bence Gyöngyössy, Hungary, 1997), I found that these shared a certain similarity with the imagery of “Time of the Gypsies”, although lacking Kusturica’s surrealist scenes. This was another reason for choosing “Child Murders”.

As in most art films, the main character is not just good or evil; he is a complex human being, affected by everything that surrounds him. He is a murderer, but he seems more of a child who was deprived of any joy or affection, while his victim, Ibi, is shown as a mean and cruel girl. Of course, this is not to say that Zsolt is free of guilt, but the film seems to invite the viewer to think beyond the plot and raise questions about the world we live in.

Further on, I will try to see how the stereotypes mentioned earlier work in the three films selected. !47

1. Romanies are free/ Romanies do not follow any rules and laws

In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” not only does the title suggest the freedom of the Romanies, but there are also many other symbols of freedom used by the filmmaker and, most importantly, freedom plays a fundamental part in the development of the story.

On a narrative level, it is the love of freedom that leads both Zobar and Rada to death.

In a frame that will be repeted twice in the film, Rada looks at the sun setting and, with arms seeming to embrace the sun, tells Zobar that she loves freedom more than she loves him.

She also tells him that he will kneel down in front of the whole community and ask her to marry him, after kissing her right hand. Although he seemed to be willing to give up his freedom for her, he refuses to kiss her right hand, and instead takes out a knife and kills her. Her father, in a moment of despair, stabs him to death as well.

A symbol of freedom that appears frequently in the film is the horse. As mentioned before, the film opens and ends with an image of two horses, but there are many more throughout the film, since Zobar steals horses in order to make a living and is described (by himself and by others) as the best horse thief in the world.

Regarding this emphasis on freedom, I believe that the film’s popularity in Eastern European countries was also due to the political context. Being under the communist regime, freedom is what the people were lacking. Therefore, projective identification with the free Romanies seems very plausible. And it shows how the political or social context can give more meaning to representations.

Not only do the Romanies in this film love freedom, they are also often breaking the law, fulfilling therefore both sides of the stereotype. Zobar is a horse thief and is chased by the police officers, who are willing to give money to those who would report him. Still, horse thieving is made to look like a romantic occupation, nothing that would outrage the audience.

At the same time, they are seldom interacting with non-Romanies. A character that appears more times is the man who buys horses from Zobar and his friends, and will eventually kill one of them. Another non-Romani whose role in the film is to emphasize Rada’s independence and freedom is a rich man who falls in love with her !48

and tries to persuade her to marry him. He brings her gifts, including a new dress which she gives Bucha to try on, making everyone laugh and insulting the nonRomani.

In “Time of the Gypsies”, the “fool of the village” is the one who makes the remark that the others (probably the non-Romanies) have tried to cut his wings. Because the film makes frequent allusions to the history of the Romanies, and because of the prophetic role of this character, I believe that his statement can be interpreted as the attempt of the non-Romanies to “cut the wings” of all the people of Romani ethnicity, to deprive them of the freedom that is so important. Again, as in “Gypsies are Found Near Heaven”, the fact that Yugoslavia has been a communist state might be reflected in the construction of the film, and the reference to the lack of freedom might apply not only to the Romani minority, but to all the people living in former Yugoslavia.

Here, the association made by Dina Iordanova between Romanies and Eastern Europeans seems to be valid, although it is not necessarily the intention of the filmmaker to create such an assumption.

The whole film seems to show the viewer how the poor “Gypsies” have no choice but to give up their freedom, and obey the rules of the rich Ahmed, who, indeed, seems to be free, in the sense of not obeying any rules and laws.

He buys children and sends them to work, and when the police finds them he manages to arrange everything, as if with his money he would be able to solve anything, whether in Yugoslavia or in Italy.

Later, Perhan will also do the same, using children for making money, escaping all the laws, but also breaking Ahmed’s rule that he is not allowed to go back to Yugoslavia, when he is sent to look for another wife for him.

This lawlessness seems to be a sign of the unwillingness of the Romanies to integrate into the society, the non-Romanies being shown only seldom. They are either victims (like the Italian woman who accepts to buy cigarettes for a little Romani person, while he steals money from her purse) or they easily bought by the Romanies (the doctor who tells Daca, Perhan’s sister, that she has to go through an operation, which is why she has to stay in the hospital and Perhan must go with Ahmed; the police officers who are paid by Ahmed, so that they do not end up in jail).

Compared to “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and “Time of the Gypsies”, “Child Murders” presents the Romanies in a rather ambiguous and vague way. Juli, the only Romani character in the film, seems to be hiding in the train carriage. The filmmaker chose not to reveal anything about her past, so the viewer can only assume that she might have been chased away, perhaps by members of her own community, because !49

the father of the baby she is carrying might not be a Romani man – here I made an assumption based, of course, on stereotypes.

In her case, freedom is ambiguous and is linked to the way the other characters are portrayed. While most of the other characters seem to be resigned with their lives, full of hatred and hard feelings, she is shown in one sequence singing and dancing, on her way back home. Her joy seems to be a sign of a freedom of the spirit in an almost claustrophobic world, although this freedom should not be taken as absolute since, after all, she is forced to live in an abandoned train carriage, as an outcast.

As for lawlessness, it would be hard to observe, since most of the film focuses on the emotional development of Zsolt, development that is marked by his relationship with Juli. One might say that she is staying illegally in that carriage, but as the film suggests, she would not be welcomed in the middle of the non-Romani community, which is why she has to hide. Not only is this community unwelcoming, it is also an ill society, one that makes the audience relate rather with Juli, than with all the other characters in film.

2. Romanies are natural born performers/ Romanies are liars

Regarding the second stereotype, the positive side of it can be noticed in all three films, although to different extents. In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” this is obvious when the Romanies are singing and dancing, like the sequence when Zobar visits for the first time the Romani community where Rada is living, and is greeted by singing and dancing women. The Romani music emphasizes the exoticism of the scene, and the bright clothes of the Romani women add color to the already idyllic scenery.

The negative side of the stereotype does not appear in Loteanu’s film. On the contrary, the Romanies portrayed here seem to always speak the truth, even if it is an unpleasant one – Rada tells Zobar that he will die because of her, while he admits openly that he is a horse thief.

In “Time of the Gypsies” Perhan’s hobby is training a turkey and playing the accordion, while his uncle, Merdzan, impersonates Charlie Chaplin. It would have been interesting to see more scenes where the Romanies interact with non-Romanies, and if they perform also in front of them. The only clue that Kusturica gives us is when the little person working under the command of Ahmed pretends to be helpless, so that he can take the wallet from a woman’s purse. !50

In contrast with “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, there are several examples of scenes where the Romanies are lying. An important moment in the film is when Perhan, doubting that Azra is pregnant with his baby, tells his grandmother that since he caught himself lying he cannot trust anyone anymore.

Kusturica constructed here an antinomy between the poor, honest Romanies, and the rich, dishonest Romanies, of which Ahmed is the epitome. He lies about treating Perhan’s sister, Daca, and sends her to beg on the streets of Italy, he tells Perhan that he is building a house also for him in their village in Yugoslavia, while he is only building one for himself, and makes Perhan believe that he is taking care of everyone and helping him in finding his way in life.

In “Child Murders”, the only times when we see Juli perform are when she is singing (a very brief scene) and right before she gives birth, when she’s beating a rhythm in a metallic object near the river bank. Otherwise, since she is only interacting with Zsolt, she does not have a motivation for performing.

On the other hand, Zsolt’s alcoholic grandmother, Bizsu, is always performing, preferring to live in the past, when she was a “prima donna” of the Budapest theatre (according to Zsolt), rather than facing a dull reality. Every day she follows the same ritual of heavy make-up, puts on a blonde wig, smokes and drinks whisky. Zsolt joins her in her performance, preparing written texts that say whether the break is following or not, and addressing her as “Madame”.

At the same time, because of the filmmaker’s intention to portray Juli as a mysterious person, the stereotype regarding the dishonesty of Romanies does not find a place in “Child Murders”. The viewer does not know enough about her in order to draw such conclusions and, compared to the other two films, the action here takes place during a shorter period of time and it implicates less characters.

3. Romanies are passionate/ Romanies are aggressive and violent

This stereotype, with both its positive and negative sides, can be easily noticed in “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and in “Time of the Gypsies”, while “Child Murders”, as a film that does not adhere to conventions, seems to stay away from it.

A symbol associated with passion is fire. In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, fire is not only present in the Romani camp every night, but it is emphasized in the love !51

scene between Zobar and Rada, in the way the cinematographer frames the characters.

While they are both in the background, a fire fills the foreground of the frame, accentuating the love between the two characters.

This passion becomes destructive and turns into violence when Zobar stabs Rada in the heart. Not only that, but also her father immediately takes out his knife and kills Zobar. This mix of passion and aggressiveness is also shown in the sequence when Zobar visits Rada’s community, when all the Romanies are dancing and singing, and one of them takes out his knife and dances, balancing the knife above his head.

“Time of the Gypsies” also offers several depictions of the passion and, at the same time, violence associated with the Romani minority. In the beginning of the film, the viewer learns about Merdzan’s passion for gambling, while throughout the film the audience sees also Ahmed’s and to a certain degree Perhan’s passion for power and money. The way the Romanies are shown dancing can also be interpreted as a passion for life, although it is most often motivated by drunkenness.

A scene which shows the violent nature of the Romanies is the one when Perhan gets drunk in a bar after finding out that Azra is pregnant and suspecting that the baby is not his. Driven by anger, he breaks a glass with his hands, cutting his hand. He also puts down a cigarette on his own arm in the same scene, even if his neighbor tries to persuade him not to do it.

Among Ahmed’s people, there are always men with knives, ready to pick up a fight, and Ahmed himself resorts to violence when the people working under his command do not obey his rules or if they are caught hiding money, instead of giving everything to him.

In both films, passion and violence are strongly linked to each other, reveal temperamental people. In “Child Murders”, however, Juli seems to be one of the most balanced characters, although after giving birth to a dead baby she decides to take her life.

Still, there is nothing violent or aggressive in her portrayal, compared to Ibi for example, who starts fighting with Zsolt in the backyard, and whose look expresses hatred and jealousy most of the times.

Ildikó Szabó, both director and writer of the film, constructed Juli’s character mainly for her outcast status, in deep opposition to all the others, except for Zsolt, who also seeks to be an outsider, also by looking for her company.

Juli is shown defending Zsolt from the other kids. She takes care of him and gives him food, always carrying a friendly smile and ending her life quietly. Her silent !52

crying contrasts with the characters in “Time of the Gypsies”, who cry loudly and accompanying their sadness with alcohol.

4. Romanies are always travelling/ Romanies are expelled

A stereotype that is largely acknowledged by all the films selected in this category, it uses symbols such as the caravan and the train (or the car, in “Time of the Gypsies”).

“Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and “Time of the Gypsies” exploits this motif in order to show various locations, while in “Child Murders” the action takes place in the same area, but the train and the railways still remain an important tool in the story.

In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, early in the film the viewer is introduced to Rada’s community, travelling in caravans across the fields. An aerial perspective shows the big number of caravans, while close-ups are used to show their beauty and ornamentation, most of them being decorated with flowers by the Romani women.

Throughout the film, Zobar travels from place to place, trying to steal and to sell horses. He goes to see his family in their camp, goes to the city where he has a mistress, visits Rada’s community and travels from Bucovina to Transylvania.

An important remark made by Rada is that she will go to an end of the world and then to the other, for the sake of travelling. She seems to associate travelling with freedom, reason why she cannot decide to settle down. This shows the tight connection between the freedom and travelling stereotypes.

At the same time, Zobar’s family is forced to move to a different place when the police officers come to the camp, looking for Zobar, and put the tents on fire.

Therefore, travelling is not always done just for the sake of travelling, but also because the Romanies are expelled by the non-Romanies.

In “Time of the Gypsies”, travelling is important, although not for all the characters. It receives a negative connotation when it is associated with a desire for money and power. In Perhan’s village, people seem to have lived there for a great number of years. They live in houses, although in poor conditions. Perhan moves to Italy, convinced that he will be able to earn money, pay for his sister, Daca, and throw a big wedding party for him and Azra.

The people hired by Ahmed beg in front of the Dome of Milan. The Dome appears also in one of Perhan’s dream, when his grandmother plays in front of it with a red wool ball, followed by the Dome’s transformation into a miniature. In the dream, !53

although he is now rich and powerful, his grandmother and his sister Daca avoid him and reject his gifts.

Instead of dreaming of exploring other lands, Perhan is mostly motivated by the thought of his return home, situation which shifts the stereotype of the travelling Romani, giving it a different meaning from the one revealed in “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”.

Expulsion is also a topic that appears in Kusturica’s film. In one sequence, Perhan is woken up by a police officer. The trailers are surrounded by officers and while the others are being questioned, he manages to escape through the window.

In “Child Murders”, the situation is rather ambiguous. Because of the short time span, Juli would not even have had the time to travel too much. We see her near and inside the abandoned train carriage which she made her home, and in the hospital, where she will commit suicide.

Still, I interpreted the fact that the carriage is her home as a sign of impermanence. It is a rather temporary accommodation, and the reasons why she lives there are left to be interpreted by the viewer. A possible explanation could be that she was expelled, either by non-Romanies, or even from her own community, because of the pregnancy.

She does not want to be seen by others (she asks Zsolt if he told anyone about her living there), which could also be interpreted as a sign that she does not expect to be accepted by the other members of the community where Zsolt is living.

5. Romanies own gold/ Romanies are poor

Regarding this stereotype, I found that both sides are revealed by “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and “Time of the Gypsies”, while “Child Murders” would seem to use the negative side, although this might be inappropriately said, since all the characters in the film are poor, living in the outskirts of Budapest. the women), always wearing golden jewelry and smoking pipes. The effect is amplified in the dancing scenes when, under the always blue sky, all the women are dancing, wearing flowered skirts, bright blouses and scarves, and many accessories.

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Scene from “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”

While always dressed up, the Romanies also live in tents and wander around, walking barefoot and looking for ways to make their living. Although never complaining of being poor, the fact that the non-Romani man who wants to marry Rada promises her a rich and careless life suggests that they are not rich. Loteanu does not focus on this, but prefers to show a romantic image of poor but happy Romanies, who do not seem to need anything more than their freedom.

In “Time of the Gypsies” the contrast between these two sides of the stereotype is made bigger from the beginning of the film, when the viewer is introduced to the community where Perhan is living. There is mud everywhere and the children wear old, oversized clothes, and outworn shoes.

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Scene from “Time of the Gypsies”

When Ahmed comes to the village, he shows up in an expensive car, dressed in a suit (which will later become a dress code also for Perhan), and wearing golden necklaces and rings. He gives away money (to whomever is asking), and has a carefree, although superior attitude towards the others. The paradox comes when the viewer sees his “home” in Italy: a few trailers in the outskirts of Milan.

Their living conditions are not much better than in the village and, in an ironic sequence, we see the children running and fighting barefoot in the mud, while we hear

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Perhan’s voice-over, reading aloud a letter for his grandmother, saying how wonderful is life in Italy and how great everything seems to be working out.

In “Child Murders”, no one is rich, and Juli’s appearance does not make her stand out from the others. She is shown wearing a simple white dress in the beginning, changed with a similar dress, this time in black, after the death of her baby. Her hair is cut short, a striking detail, especially when compared to the other two films, were Romani women are shown having long, flowing hair (perhaps also an association with their freedom).

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Scene from “Child Murders”

A similar white dress is worn by Ibi and her sister throughout the film, as if Szabó was trying to keep the “costumes” as simple as possible, not to distract the audience from the emotional struggles of the main character.

Since most of the time representations of the Romanies are similar to the ones from “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and “Time of the Gypsies” (for example in “Who Is Singing Over There” or in “I Even Met Happy Gypsies”), I believe that in “Child Murders” the filmmaker avoids the stereotypes associated with the Romani community on purpose, drawing attention to the complexity of each human being instead and focusing on individuality rather than the general.

The feature that remains, though, is that Romanies are seen as outcasts, living separately from the non-Romani community.

6. Romanies are very persuasive/ Romanies are all swindlers and thieves

Again, both sides of the stereotype appear in “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and in “Time of the Gypsies”, while “Child Murders” makes an exception.

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In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, Rada does not need to put too much effort when trying to convince others to do what she wants them to do. After all, she is referred to as a witch, whose beauty cannot go unnoticed by both Romanies and nonRomanies.

When she first meets the non-Romani rich man who falls in love with her, he rapidly agrees to let her take care of the carriage, and they go across the narrow streets in speed, with all the other Romani girls joining them.

She proves to be persuasive also with Zobar, who follows her and asks her to marry him, declaring in front of all the community that he gives up his freedom for her, just as she suggested to him.

The negative side shows up when the Romanies are caught stealing or cheating. One relevant sequence takes place at a fair, where one Romani is trying to sell a horse, saying that it is a pure Arab horse. Another man from Rada’s camp takes a look at the horse and says that last year he bought a horse from him. After, he pours a bucket of water on the horse and a thick layer of black paint starts dripping of the horse. The trick is revealed and the two men start a fight.

Bucha is also caught stealing hens, at the same fair, and is rescued by Zobar, who tells him that he brings shame to their people and that he should steal horses or women.

“Time of the Gypsies” portrays Ahmed as a very persuasive man as well. He manages to keep Perhan with him, while pretending not to care too much about his decision.

With an air of indifference, he tells Perhan that if he leaves he will not be able to cure his sister, or make the wedding with Azra, but if he decides it, he is free to go. After giving it a second thought, Perhan agrees to stay with Ahmed, later on becoming his successor.

Thievery seems to be a very common thing among the male characters of “Time of the Gypsies”. Ahmed’s people steal money from the Italians, Perhan steals the money that he was supposed to give to Ahmed and hides them, and, in one of the ending sequences, when Perhan is dead and all the relatives and friends gather to say farewell, Perhan’s son breaks the window near Perhan’s face and steals the two coins placed on his father’s eyes as a sign of good luck.

In “Child Murders”, the director avoids such stereotypes. Juli is shown as a quiet and inoffensive young woman, who does not seem to try to gain something from Zsolt, nor does she try to steal something from him or the other non-Romanies. On the contrary, she offers Zsolt food and, most importantly, her friendship and company.

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7. Romanies are traditionalist and very attached to their families/ Pre-arranged marriages at very young ages

As for the last stereotype, its positive side appears in Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and in “Time of the Gypsies”, while the negative side of it does not seem to be associated with the Romanies portrayed in these films.

In “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, families are travelling and living together.

Rada, even if she loves her freedom so much, is always travelling together with her community and most of the times we see her surrounded by other people. Zobar, because of his occupation, travels frequently only with some friends, but visits his family regularly. He seems to have a quite close relationship with his sister Rosalina, and hires a painter to do her portrait during a city fair.

At the same time, the film’s emphasis on freedom leads to the portrayal of strong, independent characters who do not follow the advice of their friends and family.

Rada’s father lets her choose whether she wants to marry a non-Romani or Zobar, although he does reply in a scene that, since his wife died, Rada is the most important person in his life.

In “Time of the Gypsies”, Perhan has a very close relationship with his grandmother and with his sister Daca. They show up also in his dream, as a warning for him to go back home and forget about the power and money he can gain in illegal ways.

While he is so attached to his family, not the same can be said about other members of the community. Ahmed, bored of his wife, asks Perhan to find him another one and near the end of the film he does marry another woman.

In another sequence, Azra’s mother starts screaming at her husband, accusing him of lacking any interest in anything. This comes after Perhan pays them a visit, asking for Azra’s hand. While not saying much, Azra’s father grabs her by the neck and hangs her on the outside wall of the house, leaving her cursing and talking to herself.

Perhan will manage to obtain the approval of Azra’s mother only after he becomes rich and pays a large amount of money for his wife. Although Azra also wants to become Perhan’s wife, the way this is negotiated with her family makes it look like a business deal, in the advantage of the one who will pay more.

In “Child Murders”, the fact that Juli lives alone in the train carriage is striking. While the independent Rada never leaves her family, this young pregnant woman is shown taking her life in her own hands and, although we do not know too much about her life, it seems like Zsolt is her only friend. !58

The ambiguity of the character and the lack of information about her life make her an enigmatic character, defying most of the stereotypes associated with the Romani minority.

As the analysis shows, there is a strong difference between “Child Murders” and the other two films. Even the fact that it was shot in black and white sets it apart from the others, and the costumes and hair accentuate this difference. The film’s lack of stereotypical associations might challenge the viewer, as well as the unexpected twist of situations (there are not too many moments of suspense, the filmmaker preferring not to emphasize the cruelty of some scenes – although they do become the more shocking in this way).

Compared to “Child Murders”, in “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” the viewer can guess from the beginning of the film that Zobar is going to die, judging by the contracted look on his face when his friend Chudra tells him that he should stay away from money and women because they will betray him.

The portrayal of the Romanies in this film is highly stereotypical, the only stereotypes which I could not identify here being the ones regarding the dishonesty of the Romanies and the pre-arranged marriages at early ages (which lacks from all three films).

“Time of the Gypsies”, although dealing with a different topic, does not differ too much from “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” regarding its use of stereotypes.

Except for the fact that the Romanies depicted here, especially the rich ones, are often caught lying, and that freedom does not play such a great part (perhaps it is mostly about the lack of freedom, especially when the greed for money comes up) as in Loteanu’s film, all of the other stereotypes seem to work in the same way. As I have said previously, there are other films made in Eastern Europe that slightly resemble “Time of the Gypsies”. I would expect them to make use of the same stereotypes as in these two films.

Self Representations

While representations of the Romani minority are easily found in films made by Europeans from both Eastern and Western Europe, the difficulty arrives when it comes to films made by the Romanies themselves. The number of self representations in cinema is small and, unfortunately, most of the films are not widely distributed and are hard to be found. !59

Films like Miodrag Popovic’s “Burdus” (1970), made in former Yugoslavia, are less likely to have had a wide international distribution because of the political context and also because of the language barrier. Of course, the lack of self representations might also be due to the fact that most of the Romanies in Europe live in poor conditions and not all of them have access to education. This is why there were not too many films made by the Romanies themselves to choose from in my case study.

The French filmmaker Tony Gatlif is the only acknowledged filmmaker of Romani ethnicity. Born in Algeria, Gatlif moved to France early in the 1960s. Before becoming a filmmaker, he worked as an actor in various theatrical productions (and played a few parts also in films, even after his career as a filmmaker started).

The first film made by Tony Gatlif is “La tête en ruines” (1975) and the director has made films every two or three years since, reaching an impressive number of 19 titles.

Although most of his films focus on the life of Romanies (“Canta Gitano”, 1982; “Les princes”, 1983; “Latcho Drom”, 1993 – his only documentary; “Mondo”, 1995, “The Crazy Stranger”, 1997, “Je suis né d’une cigogne”, 1999; “Vengo”, 2000; “Swing”, 2002; “Transylvania, 2006; and “Korkoro”, 2009), he also depicts immigrants from Algeria (“Exils”, 2004), or the life of French people (“Gaspard et Robinson”, 1990).

Gatlif has become a popular director, especially in France, and won many awards, not only in Europe, but also in the USA, in Canada, Brazil or Turkey. Most of the awards were achieved for “Gadjo Dilo”/ “The Crazy Stranger”, a film that I will analyze in this thesis.

The three films that I am analyzing in this part are Bob Hoskin’s “The Raggedy Rawney” (UK, 1988), Tony Gatlif’s segment “Paris by Night”, part of the film “Visions of Europe” (2004) and the most famous film made by Gatlif, “The Crazy Stranger”/ “Gadjo Dilo” (Romania/ France, 2007). The classification made in the previous categories between commercial, art and in-between films was impossible in this part, because of the lack of resources. All the films shown here are art films and this is shown, I believe, by the twist of situations, a focus on relations rather than situations and a certain atmosphere captured by the two filmmakers.

The reason why I have chosen to include “The Raggedy Rawney” in this part of the paper is that Hoskins, although Romani only from his mother’s side, has co-written the story (together with Nicole De Wilde) and directed this film as his first project, and chose not only to represent a Romani community, but also to play an important member of that community – Darky, the man who seems to be in charge with the most important decisions in the camp. He depicts the Romani camp with sympathy and overall in a positive light, a reason more to select it as a case of self-representation. !60

Their life is seen through the eyes of Tom, a young army recruit who decides to desert and ends up living in a Romani camp, pretending to be a mad woman. The action takes place during a war – perhaps World War II, but Hoskins does not tell much about the context or referring to real events. Tom falls in love with Jessie, Darky’s daughter, but they keep their relation secret, in order to hide Tom’s identity. Since Tom has joined them, the Romanies go through hard times, especially the death of Jessie’s step-brother, the mentally disabled Simon. The boy falls down the river after a fight with Tom, when he discovers that Tom and Jessie are having a secret relationship. Darky starts to think of the Rawney as a curse in his life, for not marrying Simon’s mother, Elle. In the end he will accept Tom in his family and will let him escape together with Jessie and the youngest members of their community, when faced with a large army coming into their direction.

The second film is only five-minutes long and it is part of a bigger project, involving 25 well-known directors from 25 European countries, who were asked to show their vision of Europe in a very short film. I have chosen it because here the Romanies, although not the main characters, can be recognized instantly as being Romanies, only because of the use of stereotypes well known by most of the people. The main characters of “Paris by Night” are a brother and sister who emigrated illegally from Algeria to Paris. Three months after their arrival, they send a postcard to their family with a picture of them in front of Moulin Rouge.

As for “The Crazy Stranger”, the film tells the story of Stéphane, a French man looking for a Romani singer in Romania, who finds a new home in a small Romani village in the heart of Transylvania. He slowly adapts to all the customs of the Romanies, falls in love with a Romani woman, Sabina, and finally decides to part with his life as a Westerner and become a Romani. I have chosen this film because, as mentioned previously, it is the most popular among Gatlif’s films and it was acclaimed also by the critics – 10 awards and 4 nominations for categories like best film, best actress, best actor, best music and audience awards.

There is a similarity that can be noticed between “The Raggedy Rawney”, “The Crazy Strangers”, and also other films made by Tony Gatlif (“Swing” and “Transylvania”): the Romani community is seen through the eyes of strangers. Referring to “The Crazy Stranger”, Anikó Imre (2003, p. 20) observes that Gatlif “self-consciously reflects on his own position as a privileged Frenchman in relation to poor Romanian Gypsies”. If this is the case, I tend to believe that he might also have a distorted image of the Romanies in Romania, based on stereotypes used by the media or other representations.

I should mention that this is also the case in “Transylvania” (2006), a film that gives a highly inaccurate image of the region based on stereotypes. I lived most of my life in !61

a town in Transylvania and, from my very personal and subjective point of view, the film shows a place which I can’t recognize as my homeland only to a very low degree. Transylvania includes 14 counties and has, therefore, 14 cities with a population ranging from around 40.000 to 306.000 and many other smaller towns and villages. Still, in the film it seems that Transylvania is a village, or a few villages, separated by empty, vast fields, a wild and savage place where the time stood still. It shows people who believe in superstitions, a place where witchcraft might still exist and all the traditions are kept alive. It is a very narrow depiction which made think if he does not adopt stereotypes also in his depiction of Romanies in “The Crazy Stranger”.

Even the fact that the events in film take place in Romania, a country that has a much lower living standard than France and is relatively unknown, might have given Gatlif an opportunity to look for picturesque and exotic images and adopt, as stated by Imre, the attitude of the “privileged Frenchmen” – although portraying the Romanies in a positive light.

Below, I will analyze the way these three films use (or not) the stereotypes described previously, analysis which will enable a final comparison between representations and self-representations.

1. Romanies are free/ Romanies do not follow any rules and laws

In “The Raggedy Rawney”, Hoskins depicts a world of war and chaos. The Romanies cannot be free, since they are always hiding in the forests, going from place to place, and preparing hideouts in case the army crosses their way and forces the men to join them. Shown looking through the trees as the tanks pass, or preparing their caravans to run, suggests the opposite of freedom. Still, the context of the story matters for the way the characters are depicted and it would be improbable to emphasize freedom in any films about wars.

Regarding the negative side of the stereotype, it cannot be observed in the film. In general, war situations lead to chaos and the breaking of rules by everybody. In this film though, the members of the army seem to be the ones who break rules, by forcing people to join the army, beating them and also killing people, including the innocent, old Romani man who has chosen to stay behind and stop running from the army.

In “Paris by Night”, the few moments when the Romanies appear on screen give the viewer a sense of freedom. While the two Algerian brothers are still anxious about !62

their future in Paris and worried about their status as illegal emigrants, a Romani bride and groom pass on the bridge, followed by Romani musicians. The bride and the groom are dancing and singing loudly, perhaps a sign that in Paris everyone is welcome.

As for lawlessness and breaking the rules, the sequence is too short and does not provide us with information. One could make the assumption that, since the two brothers and the African American who are seen first are all three illegal immigrants, the Romanies (especially because the bride is shouting “Viva Romania”) could also be illegal immigrants from Romania, a sign of hope for the two brothers that the future might be brighter.

In “The Crazy Stranger”, freedom can be interpreted in different ways and is, therefore, slightly ambiguous. In a sequence like the one from the end of the film, when Stéphane seems to have his last test before becoming a Romani himself, he buries the tapes and the scores with Romani music, pours vodka on the ground and starts dancing, hearing in his mind the songs that he has recorded and destroyed. This could be interpreted as a freedom from material possessions, a freedom of the spirit, and a celebration of life.

A framing that would seem to represent freedom shows Izidor in his room, while through the window we see the profile of a white horse, a symbol used also in other films (such as “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”) for freedom.

On the other hand though, this freedom seems to be restricted by the Romanians, with whom the Romanies have a tense relationship. The filmmaker shows the latent hatred carried by the Romanians, a hatred that culminates when they burn the Romani village.

The event that leads to this revolt against the Romanies takes place in the bar where Adrian, Izidor’s son, recently released from prison, smashes a glass in the head of a Romanian who calls him a “dirty Gypsy”.

Adrian seems to be the only one who breaks the law and has to spend six months in prison, although, according to Izidor, it is not his fault and he was set up by others.

2. Romanies are natural born performers/ Romanies are liars

As in many of the films already analyzed, “The Raggedy Rawney” also depicts images of talented Romanies, who sing together and even seem to move !63

synchronically when harvesting the crops of the farmer who hires them. Filmed in a low angle shot, we see Darky in front, followed by the rest of the members of the family.

The scene where two members of the community get married, proves once more how gifted are the Romanies in dancing and singing. Some of them play the violin, the accordion, the whistle, but there are also some strange instruments like the one played

by Elle, Simon’s mother. All the community takes part in the celebration, even the old Romani, who flirts with the farmer’s wife and looks at the people dancing.

Hoskins does not depict here the Romanies as liars. The only time when someone lies is when Jessie says that Simon has raped her and she is expecting his child, but this is probably done in order to protect Tom’s identity.

In “Paris by Night”, the small part of the Romanies shows them singing and dancing.

It seems as if their freedom is enhanced by their music. Behind the newly wedded couple, we see a man playing the accordion, while the bride sings a song about Paris which we hear throughout the sequence.

The negative side of the stereotype does not appear here.

“Gadjo Dilo” also emphasizes this stereotype of the Romanies as natural born performers. Violins, cellos and accordions are instruments that appear in all Romani houses. Izidor even keeps his violins on the wall, while Stéphane improvises a sort of gramophone where he can play the record of his favorite Romani musicians. After all, music is the reason that makes Stéphane go to Romania, searching for his father’s favorite Romani singer.

Music seems to play a very important part in their lives. They earn their living by singing at weddings, they play music and dance in both happy and sad times, and they easily start crying when hearing a sad song. While talented at music, they also seem to perform in front of Stéphane. Izidor’s large gestures sometimes give the impression that he is slightly exaggerating, only to amuse Stéphane.

As in “The Raggedy Rawney”, the Romanies are depicted as honest people, which is why there are no examples of situations when they are lying.

3. Romanies are passionate/ Romanies are aggressive and violent

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Passionate Romani characters like Carmen or Rada, who are both based on nineteenth century literature, seem to be lacking in “The Raggedy Rawney”. The members of the community are shown as being hard working, superstitious people, exuding joy and happiness more than passion.

In special situations, they do become violent and aggressive, as in the sequence where Darky starts beating his brother, thinking that he raped Jessie and that she is carrying his child, or when the same Darky grabs a knife and wants to stab Tom, near the end of the film, when he brings her back to her family in an army car. His actions are justified though by his intention to protect his daughter and the emotional wear caused by the war.

In “Paris by Night”, passion can be guessed in the Romani couple’s behavior – after all, it is not that usual that the newly weds run on the streets of a big city, accompanied by music. The positive short depiction of the Romanies does not give room for aggressiveness or violence.

As for “The Crazy Stranger”, the passion is revealed mostly in the sequences where the Romanies sing and dance, as in the sequence when Stéphane is recording the songs played by some musicians who he has found with the help of Izidor, while Sabina dances, trying not to make any sounds.

The passion here seems to be a passion for life, which makes the Romanies go to extremes, from very happy to very sad, and most often helped by alcohol. Izidor is usually drinking vodka and will make Stéphane drink as much as he does, although in the beginning of the film he was trying to refuse politely, saying that he does not drink.

The passion does become violence and aggressiveness in “The Crazy Stranger”. The most obvious example is when Izidor’s son gets into a fight with the Romanians, soon after he was released from prison. Violence seems to be part of the tradition, as we see in the wedding sequence, when the groom comes with the musicians to ask for the hand of the bride, and is welcomed by the father who threatens him with an axe, until the groom puts down a box full of alcohol and they share a glass of vodka, moment when the two hug each other and the feast starts. Stéphane, although confused in the beginning, realizes that this is just a custom that the Romanies have probably had for a long time.

4. Romanies are always travelling/ Romanies are expelled

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The traveling Romani is a theme that appears in all three films. In “The Raggedy Rawney”, the Romanies are forced to move from place to place because of the war.

They are seen packing their belongings and hiding food, in case they meet the army.

Their travel in wagons and carriages pulled by horses, but also with cars.

In time, they lose one wagon which gets broken, and have to rearrange everything, so that everyone can find a place somewhere. The only place where they stay for a longer period of time is in the courtyard of the farmer’s property. Even if the farmer has a big house, they prefer to sleep in their wagons, as if they would always have to be ready to leave.

The Romanies depicted in the film seem to travel not only because they need to make a living, but also because they are running from the army. The soldiers are portrayed as merciless human beings, driven by a pleasure for violence, as in the sequence where they surround the newly wedded Romani couple in the forest.

In “Paris by Night”, the bride’s exclamation “Viva Romania” can be interpreted as a sign that she is from Romania and has travelled to Paris, looking for a better life. The conditions of her departure are not known, which is why it would be hard to say whether she has faced the abuse of non-Romanies, or if she was chased away.

As for “The Crazy Stranger”, the Romanies, although they have their own houses in the village, they travel to many places, especially because they are asked to play music in many parts of the country. This will give Stéphan the opportunity to travel with them and experience many of the customs of the Romanies in Romania.

An interesting sequence takes place at the bar of the village, where Izidor introduces Stéphan to the rest of the people, obviously proud of his foreign friend. He starts talking about France as if he has been there and tells the Romanians about the wonderful life that the Romanies have in France. Izidor says that the French never accuse the Romanies of being thieves, but love the Romanies, statement met with amusement by the Romanians, who ask him why he doesn’t move there if he likes France so much. Discouraged by his “audience”, Izidor tells them that he will. His idyllic view of France is ironic today, after the episode with the expulsion of the Romanies by the French Government, documented largely by the European media.

The film depicts also the negative side of the stereotype – after the fight with Adrian, the Romanians burn the Romanies’ village, living them on the road and killing Adrian, who was inside of one of the houses that burned.

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5. Romanies own gold/ Romanies are poor

In “The Raggedy Rawney”, Bob Hoskins does not show the Romanies wearing bright, colorful clothes, or heavy golden necklaces, seeming to avoid this stereotype which can be found in many of the representations made by non-Romanies. Perhaps because of the war and their simple way of living, all the characters are wearing clothes that do not stand out, the only one making an exception being Tom, who pretends to be a mad woman, wears a bright red dress and uses ember to paint his face.

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Scene from “The Raggedy Rawney”

Even in the wedding sequence, the Romani girls wear simple, white dresses and headbands. The exaggerated abundance seen in other representations (like in “Time of the Gypsies”) lacks from “The Raggedy Rawney”, showing a rather intimate and happy atmosphere.

The Romanies of this film are depicted as living in poor conditions though. Darky has to go fishing in the river to find food and their food resources are also confiscated by the army. It is a historical time that does not allow abundance or richness, everything seeming to be perishable and temporary.

In “Paris by Night” it would be hard to interpret the social status of the Romani characters, since their appearance is so short. The bride wears a white wedding dress and the groom seems to be wearing a suit, but they are shown in a large frame, the camera never getting closer. This is also because the viewers see them through the eyes of the illegal emigrants who are sitting on the bench.

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Scene from “Paris by Night”

In “The Crazy Stranger”, Tony Gatlif enhances both sides of the stereotype.

Reminding slightly of “Time of the Gypsy”, the viewer sees a car approaching the Romani village. The guests are rich Romanies wearing suits and many earrings, and who came looking for Izidor to ask him to play music at a wedding.

At the wedding, which takes place in one of the “Gypsy palaces” in Romania, the viewer sees expensive interiors and decorations and Romanies who seem to be very rich. The bride, dressed in a white dress, has to walk around with a big necklace made out of golden coins. After the wedding, Stéphan goes with the other Romanies to Bucharest, driven by a young, rich Romani. The boy shows off his wealth when, asked by a cyclist if he has a cigarette, he gives him many banknotes, leaving the cyclist astonished.

While everything seems exuberant at the wedding, the Romani village where Izidor, Sabina and Stéphan live is marked by poorness. Big families stay in small rooms, there is no electricity, and the Romanies have to improvise a solution in order to have light, they bath in the river or by filling a large basin with water, and they were oversized, worn out clothes.

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Scene from “The Crazy Stranger”

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6. Romanies are very persuasive/ Romanies are all swindlers and thieves

Persuasiveness is a characteristic of the Romanies emphasized by Hoskins in “The Raggedy Rawney”. An example that illustrates it is the scene when Darky first meets the farmer, who is pointing a gun at him, scared that Darky might do something. Not scared of the gun, Darky keeps talking and advances towards the farmer. He tells him that he just wants to take a look at the house, in case there’s something to be done about it.

Still not convinced, the farmer replies: “Gypsies! Don’t make me laugh!” At this point Darky, appearing to unleash the frustration that everyone has a stereotypical image of the Romanies, without considering the individual cases, asks the farmer if he has ever met a Romani person and tells him very convincing that they “good, hard working people” like anybody else.

I interpreted this dialogue as another sign showing that the film is a selfrepresentation rather than just a representation. More than Darky’s voice, it seems to be the voice of Bob Hoskins himself, defending an ethnicity that is always regarded with suspicion.

In the end, Darky persuades the farmer to let him go inside, they both get drunk with the farmer’s apple brandy and the second day the farmer and his wife notice that all the caravans are now in their courtyard and the Romanies, are indeed, working hard.

Because the filmmaker depicts the Romanies as “good, hard working people”, there are no scenes where they try to steal or swindle non-Romanies. The negative side of the stereotype is, thus, not valid in this case.

The stereotype does not apply to the Romanies portrayed in “Paris by Night”, Gatlif showing the most known stereotypes, in order for the viewer to identify them as Romanies in the very short time they are shown in the fragment.

In “The Crazy Stranger”, an example of persuasiveness shows up early in the film, when Izidor convinces Stéphan to finish the bottle of vodka together. Although in the beginning he refuses, the way Izidor insists does not leave room for a “no”. Later, he will also insist that Stéphane stays at his place, using his weakness – music. Later, as their relation becomes closer and Stéphane falls in love with Sabina, his reasons for staying become even stronger. He has already seen many of their customs and is willing to change his lifestyle and give up all the privileges he might have had back in Paris.

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As in “The Raggedy Rawney”, the Romanies depicted in this film are not thieves or swindlers. They make their living by singing and dancing, and it seems like they would be the ones who think of non-Romanies as thieves, as shown in the sequence when Stéphane wakes up in Izidor house, after they have been drinking vodka the whole night, and all the Romanies are gathered at the window, looking at the “strange” person sleeping in Izidor’s bed.

While he is preparing to leave, they discuss that he might be a thief, someone spreading the rumor that he must have come there to steal their hens. As we see Stéphane carrying only a very small bag, it would be impossible for him to try to hide the hens inside. And I believe that through this situation Gatlif puts the Romanies in a bad light, as they all rush to accuse him of stealing the hens, impulsively and without even thinking of checking the validity of that supposition. Individuality in this scene is cancelled, all of them acting as a group.

7. Romanies are traditionalist and very attached to their families/ Pre-arranged marriages at very young ages

In “Raggedy Rawney”, Hoskins depicts a group of Romanies that seem to go through many difficulties. Simon’s mother does not even speak to Darky in the beginning, although he gives her the fish that he has caught. She avoids him most of the time and only when Simon is dead we find out that he is Simon’s father and that he regrets that they did not get married, and believes this could be the reason why he is cursed.

Later, there are also the problems with Jessie’s pregnancy – Darky persuades Elle to help him by provoking an abortion and getting rid of a baby whom they think is Simon’s. By then end of the film though, the unity of the family is reestablished through a dramatic event: Darky and the older Romanies will stay to fight with a whole army coming towards them, while Tom, Jessie, the newly wedded couple and the children are sent with a wagon to run away and try to save their lives. While they are in the wagon, they hear the shotguns and the sound of exploding bombs. The chances of survival of the ones who stayed are very low.

The unity of the family and keeping the traditions seem to be important. Darky did not marry the woman who gave him a son, although he always took care of them and he might have broken a Romani tradition in this way. This could be a reason why he thinks he is cursed.

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Regarding the pre-arranged marriages, there is nothing to take as an example in “The Raggedy Rawney”.

As for “Paris by Night”, a clue regarding the importance of the family could be the fact that there is a newly wedded couple in the scene, but this does not necessarily have to be interpreted as a symbol of the importance of the family for Romanies. The bride is a sign of luck in some cultures, and I believe that it is more likely to interpret their appearance as a sign of luck or hope for the three fugitives.

In “The Crazy Stranger” the importance of the family in the Romani community is exemplified many times, especially in the scenes involving Adrian, Izidor’s son who had to stay in jail for six months, returns to the family, but is killed shortly after by the Romanians who burn his house. When Adrian comes back from jail, all the Romanies run towards him and hug him, and his father easily starts crying whenever he talks about Adrian.

As for their traditionalism, a good example is the wedding sequence discussed previously. It can be noticed also in the clothes worn by the Romanies, the women wearing long, flowing skirts, bright colored shirts and long braids or scarves on the head. The men have moustache and Izidor wears the typical “Gypsy” hat, no matter the occasion.

Overall, the use of stereotypes in these three films differs slightly. The fact that the scene about the Romanies in “Paris by Night” is so short limits the possibilities of introducing too much information about the characters. One thing is sure, though: they can be recognized as Romanies because of the emphasis put on the most important stereotypes (only in their positive side): freedom, performance and passion.

Another issue that gives a different use of the stereotypes is the fact that in “The Raggedy Rawney”, the background of the story is a war. As I stated earlier in the thesis, war brings out irrationality and changes in the way people live. Although I have tried to avoid it in the other categories, it was impossible here, since it was the only film available (as self representation) except for Tony Gatlif’s films.

Freedom, the most important stereotype associated with the Romanies, lacks in “The Raggedy Rawney” and is rather ambiguous in “The Crazy Stranger”, the filmmakers trying to show perhaps that this freedom is just a product of the non-Romanies’ imagination. In these two films, freedom is mostly restricted by the non-Romanies.

As expected, characteristics like lawlessness, dishonesty and theft are not associated with the Romanies in these self representations. Lawlessness appears in “The Crazy Stranger”, associated with Izidor’s son, Adrian, but it is immediately justified as self !71

defense or as a set up. The stereotype regarding the pre-arranged marriages is lacking also from all the films in this category.

Aggressiveness is present in both “The Raggedy Rawney” and in “The Crazy Stranger”, but it is motivated either by an attempt to protect the family, or as an act of defending their honor, responding to an offense.

While “The Raggedy Rawney” creates peaceful and romantic images of the caravans in vast fields or in the forest, Gatlif shows in “The Crazy Stranger” highly temperamental and impulsive people (obviously, in a positive light). The great emphasis put on the music and the “happy go lucky” attitude of the characters, appears to me as a weakness of the film and a factor that diminishes the authenticity of the representation. It can be spotted also in the short part in “Paris by Night” where the Romanies are depicted.

CONCLUSION

After reviewing the examples selected and their use of stereotypes associated with the Romani minority, it is easy to see that most of the films enforce both sides of the stereotypes. The only stereotype that does not appear in any of the films is the one regarding the early marriages, arranged by the parents for their children.

The stereotype regarding Romanies as performers is exemplified in all the nine films selected. Music plays a big part in all of them, especially in “Carmen”, “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and “Gadjo Dilo” (therefore in a film from each category). The talented Romani musician is everywhere, almost as a trademark of this ethnicity.

“Carmen” and “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” share many similarities, most probably because they are based on an opera and, respectively, a novel written in the nineteenth century. The image of the Romanies depicted in these films is highly romantic and tragic at the same time.

Almost all of the stereotypes are exemplified in these two films, except for the one regarding the pre-arranged marriages at early ages and the one regarding the dishonesty of the Romanies (as I wrote before, the situation in Carmen is slightly ambiguous). Negative stereotypes such as lawlessness and a violent behavior are both present, but they not condemned or judged, emphasizing instead the exotic nature of the Romanies and subordinating them to their positive sides: freedom and passion. !72

These two films are the ones that emphasize the most the freedom of the Romanies, either by the characters themselves (in “Carmen” as well as in “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”), or by repeatedly using a visual symbol like the horse (in “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”).

While there is a certain similarity between these adaptations, I did not find a shift of perspective from the older films to the newer ones. “The Gypsy” is the oldest film in the selection, made in 1975, but the scenes where the characters discuss the situation of the Romanies seem to be the same as today: children who are forced to go to school by the state, but suffer from the discrimination of the other children, police hunting them and expelling them, poor conditions of living and, 37 years later, still not integrated in the European society. Besides, it seems to be the film that refers the most to the social realities, and the relation between Romanies and non-Romanies, and it even gives a sign of hope in the end, when Hugo’s boy tells his father that the police officers are taking them into a house and he will have to go to school. Hugo encourages him to go to school, telling him that after he will be free and perhaps realizing that both sides have to make a compromise and there are positive things to learn from both.

To a certain degree, “The Gypsy” seems to use the first counter-strategy described by Stuart Hall – reversing the stereotype – Hugo taking the place of a “white”, European Robin-Hood of modern times.

While the boundaries between art film and commercial film tend to be blurred sometimes, a difference still exists and, from all the films selected, the Hungarian “Child Murders” is perhaps the best example of how art films can come with an original perspective, freed from stereotypes. Of all the films, “Child Murders” is the one that avoids most of the stereotypes associated with the Romani minority, while the others are slightly ambiguous. I have explained previously how freedom, passion and the nomadic nature of Juli are not explicit, leaving room for the viewer’s interpretation.

The only stereotype that appears here is the one about the quality of the Romanies as natural born performers (in this case, their gift as musicians). Even so, it is not exaggerated and its function is not to impress the viewer, or create a very picturesque image. It is used as a tool in constructing the relationship between Juli and Zsolt.

Comparing the films that have the Romanies as main characters or as secondary characters does not affect too much the way they are portrayed (of course, “Child Murders” is an exception, because of its status as an art film). The stereotypes are still enforced and if (as in “Paris by Night”) their role is very small, the emphasis is put on the most known stereotypes. !73

As for the relation between Eastern European films and Western European films, the result is surprising and perhaps affected by the number of films selected. The differences are not too big in the way stereotypes are used in most of these films.

Comparing “Time of the Gypsies” and “Snatch”, I observed that there are many similarities: both films exaggerate stereotypes in order to create a comical effect.

“Snatch” does not use the theme of children trafficking or portray the poor Romanies as victims of the rich Romanies, but they both emphasize a certain joy of living and I believe that there is a certain similarity between Mickey, the Romani boxer in “Snatch”, and Merdzan, Perhan’s uncle in “Time of the Gypsies” in their carefree and temperamental attitude. The two films seem to refer to Stuart Hall’s third counterstrategy when dealing with stereotypical representations – contesting representation from within, with their augmented and humorous portrayals of the Romani community.

All the films selected here show an overall positive depiction of the Romanies, even though the negative sides of the stereotypes are also enhanced. I did not find the analogy described by Dina Iordanova between Romanies and Eastern Europeans to be true in the films I selected, but this could have differed if the number of films selected was higher.

Regarding self representations, while the portrayals of the Romanies are made in the same positive light as in the other films (most of the time), the negative side of the stereotypes is often missing. In all three films, the Romanies are not breaking any laws (as I wrote previously, in “Crazy Stranger” Adrian is sent to prison, but according to Izidor it was not his fault and he was set up by the Romanians), are very honest and do not try to swindle or steal anything. Still, both “The Raggedy Rawney” and “The Crazy Stranger” seem to dismiss the stereotype regarding the freedom of the Romanies, blaming instead the non-Romanies for restricting it.

If “The Raggedy Rawney” seems to relate especially to “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven”, through the imagery – (especially the landscapes and the warm colours) and the romantic tone of the film, “The Crazy Stranger” relates to “Time of the Gypsies” and “Snatch” in the construction of its characters – carefree, loud and exuberant, always doing unexpected things.

It seems that these films and also “Paris by Night” have appropriated the positive sides of the stereotypes, except for the one regarding the freedom of the Romanies (in “Paris by Night”, Gatlif might use this stereotype just so that the characters could be easily identified by the viewers - who are, most probably, non-Romanies). The negative sides, if depicted, are given an explanation and an excuse.

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Self representations, as shown by this analysis, seem to employ what Stuart Hall calls “reading the negative positively” – a sort of “Romanies are beautiful”. Even the nonRomanies want to become like them: Tom, in “The Raggedy Rawney”, wants to join the caravans, the three immigrants in “Paris by Night” want to be, although not explicitly, like the singing Romanies crossing the bridge, while Stéphan decides to stay in Transylvania, with Sabina and Izidor.

The Romanies are aware of the stereotypes associated by the non-Romanies to them, and probably have their own stereotypes about non-Romanies – since stereotypes help in creating identities. As I mentioned in the theoretical part of the thesis, stereotypes are also connected to issues of power and the dominating group influences the minority group. The Romanies, as the internal Other of Europe, are not only influenced by the representations made by non-Romanies about them but, because of their status, they need to use the same type of representations when interacting with them.

In cinema, where the future of a filmmaker depends also on the number of tickets sold, knowing what the audience wants to see can be a helpful tool, in particular in commercial film. Besides, if the stereotypes that you use are not the same with the ones known by the audience, the result might be confusion and a lack of sympathy for the characters. This means that the Romanies would take a great risk if they would make films using their community’s stereotypical associations, when the majority of the viewers are, typically, non-Romanies.

Given the fact that films like “Carmen”, “Snatch”, “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” and “Time of the Gypsies” have been so popular, it means that the audience is attracted to this type of characters and it could be a reason why Romani filmmakers would choose to perpetuate them.

While difference between Romanies and non-Romanies keeps being emphasized (even if only as a way of delimitating Self and Other), Romani filmmakers seem to rely on the characteristic of the stereotype as instrument of projective identification and perpetuate the positive sides of the stereotypes, at the same time trying to offer explanations or dismissing the negative sides of the stereotypes.

Personally, I would like to see a greater variety of the subjects approached by filmmakers when dealing with representations of the Romani minority in fiction films, especially in the case of self representations. While there are, for sure, talented Romani musicians and artists, there are also persons who graduate universities and make a career in a specific field. Although not as colorful and picturesque as the poor musicians living in the cities’ outskirts, they could be subjects of films focusing on the complexity and individuality of the human beings (no matter the ethnicity). !75

Such a demarche, not necessarily aimed at breaking box-office records, would require a lot of support and a strong motivation, not to mention an efficient distribution system and an open minded audience, but the effort would enrich the European cinema and, perhaps, make the viewer more aware of the complexity within the Romani community.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashcroft, Bill, Griffiths, Gareth and Tiffin, Helen: “Post-Colonial Studies. The Key Concepts” (Routledge, 2007); Bhabha, K. Homi: ”The Location of Culture” (Routledge, 2004); Bordwell, David: “The Art of Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice” (in “The European Cinema Reader”, Routledge, 2002); Bordwell, David, Thompson, Kristin: “Film Art. An Introduction” (University of Wisconsin, 2004); Byars, Betsy: “Rama the Gypsy Cat” (Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1970); Chiline, Edouard: “The Celluloid Drom: Romani Images in Russian Cinema” (special issue of Framework magazine, “Romanies and Cinematic Representation”, 44.2, Fall 2003); Dyer, Richard: “The Matter of Images: Essays on Representation” (Routledge, 1993); Fanon, Frantz: “Black Skin, White Masks” (Grove Press, 1952); Gibney, J. Matthew and Hansen, Randall: “Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present” (ABC Clio, 2006); Hall, Stuart: “Representation. Cultural Representations and Signifying Practics” (Sage Publications, 1997); Hall, Stuart: “Cultural Studies: two paradigms” (in “Media, Culture and Society”, 2, 1980); Hancock, Ian: “We Are the Romani People” (University of Hertfordshire Press, 2003); Imre, Anikó: “Screen Gypsies” (special issue of Framework magazine, “Romanies and Cinematic Representation”, 44.2, Fall 2003); Iordanova, Dina: “Cinema of Flames. Balkan Film, Culture and the Media” (BFI Publishing, 2001); Iordanova, Dina: “Editorial” (special issue of Framework magazine, “Romanies and Cinematic Representation”, 44.2, Fall 2003);

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Lemon, Alaina: “Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory From Pushkin to Post-Socialism” (Duke University Press, 2000); Matras, Yaron: “The Role of Language in Mystifying and Demistifying Gypsy Identity” (in “The Role of the Romanies. Images and Counter-Images of ‘Gypsies’/ Romanies in European Cultures”, Liverpool University Press, 2005); McGarty, Craig, Yzerbyt, Y. Vincent and Spears, Russell: “Stereotypes as Explanations: The Formation of Meaningful Beliefsabout Social Groups” (Cambridge University Press, 2002) Mérimée, Prosper:”Carmen” (1845, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2465/2465-h/ 2465-h.htm) Pushkin, Aleksandr: “The Gypsies” (1827, http://www.pushkins-poems.com/); Saïd, Edward: “Orientalism” (Penguin Books, 1978); Saul, Nicholas and Tebbutt, Susan: “The Role of the Romanies. Images and CounterImages of ‘Gypsies’/Romanies in European Cultures” (Liverpool University Press, 2005); Schweinitz, Jörg: “Film and Stereotype: a challenge for cinema and theory” (Columbia Press University, 2011); Shohat, Ella and Stam, Robert: “Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media” (Routledge, 1994); Taguieff, Pierre-André: “The Force of Prejudice: on racism and its doubles” (University of Minnesota Press, 2001); Taylor, Becky: “Britain’s Gypsy Travellers: A People on the Outside” (in “History Today”, vol. 61, Issue 6, 2011); Van de Port, Mattijs: “Gypsies, wars and other instances of the wild: civilization and its discontents in a Serbian town” (Amsterdam University Press, 1998); Zanger, Anat: “Desire Ltd: Romanies, Women and Other Smugglers in Carmen” (special issue of Framework magazine, “Romanies and Cinematic Representation”, 44.2, Fall 2003).

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FILMOGRAPHY

“Alma Gitana” (Chus Gutiérrez, 1996); “Blind Terror”/ “See No Evil” (Richard Fleischer, 1971); “Carmen” (Francesco Rosi, 1984); “Chocolat” (Lasse Hallström, 2000); “Crna macka, beli macor”/ “Black Cat, White Cat” (Emir Kusturica, 1998); “Dom za vesanje”/ “Time of the Gypsies” (Emir Kusturica, 1988); “Exils” (Tony Gatlif, 2004); “Gadjo Dilo”/ “The Crazy Stranger” (Tony Gatlif, 1997); “Gaspard et Robinson” (Tony Gatlif, 1990); “Gyerekgyilkosságok”/ “Child Murders” (Ildikó Szabó, 1993); “Korkoro” (Tony Gatlif, 2009); “Ko to tamo peva”/ “Who Sings Over There” (Slobodan Sijan, 1980); “Latcho Drom” (Tony Gatlif, 1993); “Le Gitan”/ “The Gypsy” (José Giovanni, 1975); “Mondo”, (Tony Gatlif, 1995); “Paris by Night” (part of “Visions of Europe”, Tony Gatlif, 2004); “Romani kris”/ “Gypsy Lore” (Bence Gyöngyössy, 1997); “Skupljaci perja”/ “I Even Met Happy Gypsies” (Aleksandar Petrovic, 1967); “Snatch” (Guy Ritchie, 2000); “Swing” (Tony Gatlif, 2002); “Tabor ukhodit v nebo”/ “Gypsies Are Found Near Heaven” (Emil Loteanu, 1976); “The Gypsy and the Gentleman” (Joseph Losey, 1958); “The Man Who Cried” (Sally Potter, 2000); !79

“The Raggedy Rawney” (Bob Hoskins, 1988); “Tiefland”/ “Lowlands” (Leni Riefenstahl, 1954); “Train de vie”/ “Train of Life” (Radu Mihaileanu, 1998); “Transylvania” (Tony Gatlif, 2006); “Vengo” (Tony Gatlif, 2000); “Yohan – Barnevandrer” (Grete Salomonsen, 2010).

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