| Goodbye Uncle Tom | |
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 Japanese DVD cover | |
| Directed by | |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Cinematography |
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| Edited by |
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| Music by | Riz Ortolani[1] |
Production company | Euro International Films[1] |
| Distributed by | Euro International Films[2] |
Release date |
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Running time | 136 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
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Goodbye Uncle Tom (Italian:Addio Zio Tom) is a 1971 Italianmondodocudrama co-directed and co-written byGualtiero Jacopetti andFranco Prosperi with music byRiz Ortolani.Based on true events, the filmmakers explore antebellum America, using period documents to examine in graphic detail the racist ideology and degrading conditions faced byAfricans underslavery. Due to the use of published documents and materials from the public record, it is labeled a documentary, though nearly all footage is restaged using actors.[3]
The film was shot primarily inHaiti, where directors Jacopetti and Prosperi were treated as guests of Haitian dictatorPapa Doc Duvalier. Duvalier supported the filmmakers by giving them diplomatic cars, clearance to film anywhere on the island, as manyextras as they required, and even a weekly dinner with Duvalier himself.[3] Hundreds of Haitian extras participated in the film's various depictions of the cruel treatment of slaves, as well as white actors portraying historical characters (includingHarriet Beecher Stowe).
Scenes were also shot in the U.S. states ofMississippi,Louisiana andFlorida.
The film was confiscated in Italy and re-released the following year, 1972, in a cut version bearing the different titleZio Tom.[2]
In France, the film was released asLes Négriers, in Germany asAddio, Onkel Tom![2]
The directors' cut ofAddio Zio Tom draws parallels between the horrors of slavery and the rise of theBlack Power Movement, represented byEldridge Cleaver,LeRoi Jones,Stokely Carmichael, and a few others. The film ends with an unidentified man’s fantasy re-enactment ofWilliam Styron'sThe Confessions of Nat Turner. This man imaginesNat Turner's revolt in the present, including the brutal murder of the whites around him, who replace the figures Turner talks about in Styron's novel as the unidentified reader speculates about Turner's motivations and ultimate efficacy in changing the conditions he rebelled against. American distributors felt that such scenes were too incendiary, and forced Jacopetti and Prosperi to remove more than thirteen minutes of footage explicitly concerned with racial politics for American and other Anglophone audiences.
The film has frequently been criticized asracist, despite directors Jacopetti and Prosperi's claims to the contrary. InRoger Ebert's 1972 review of the shorter American version, he asserts that the directors have "Made the most disgusting, contemptuous insult to decency ever to masquerade as a documentary."[4] He goes on to call the film "cruelexploitation", believing that the directors degraded the poor Haitian extras playing slaves by having them enact the extremely dehumanizing situations the film depicts virtually as they occurred.Gene Siskel put the film second (behindThe Last House on the Left) on his year-end list of what he called the sickest films he saw in 1972.[5] CriticPauline Kael called the film "the most specific and rabid incitement to race war".[6]
The directors denied charges of racism; in the 2003 documentaryGodfathers of Mondo they specifically note that one of their intentions in makingAddio Zio Tom was to "make a new film that would be clearly anti-racist" in response to criticism by Ebert and others over perceived racism in their previous filmAfrica Addio.[7]
The film was a commercial failure.[3] It is now considered a cult classic.[8]
Italian film criticMarco Giusti calls it "not bad" and remembers that the numerous scenes in the nude "made a certain effect back then".[2]
The film was scored by Italian composerRiz Ortolani[2] and is notable for the theme "Oh My Love" sung byKatyna Ranieri,[2] which would later be used in the soundtrack to the filmDrive (2011). Ortolani also collaborated with directors Jacopetti and Prosperi on their previous films,Mondo Cane, andAfrica Addio.