Chapter 13 - Troubling Progress: In viaggio con Cecilia’s Journeys of Return

The chapter investigates how the reuse of Cecilia Mangini’s documentary films from the 1960s in 2013’s In Viaggio con Cecilia seeks to reconcile and re- invigorate twentieth century ideals of progress with the increasingly apparent impossibility of a future of unlimited industrial growth presupposed by the kind of modernity envisioned by industrial development in the late 1950s and sixties. I argue that the juxtaposition of the older films alongside contemporary interviews, and the foregrounding of the act of watching cinema itself suggests that an ethos of reflection and return is necessary for environmental and social remediation, and fosters a conception of progress that does not view moder- nity as a race to either wealth or death. In viaggio con Cecilia’s use of montage figures looking back, going slowly, and reconnecting to people and place as a vital part of looking forward. It presents the struggle to reconcile the still-un- realized twentieth century desire for social and economic well-being with the twenty-first century realization of the impossibility of “green” growth.