Re-viewing fascism : Italian cinema, 1922-1943 / edited by Jacqueline Reich and Piero Garofalo.

ISBN:

9780253109149

9781282062818

Title:

Re-viewing fascism : Italian cinema, 1922-1943 / edited by Jacqueline Reich and Piero Garofalo.

Author:

Reich, Jacqueline, 1965-

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 368 pages) : illustrations

Contents:

Mussolini at the movies : fascism, film, and culture / Jacqueline Reich -- Dubbing l'arte muta : poetic layerings around Italian cinema's transition to sound / Giorgio Bertellini -- Intimations of neo-realism in the fascist Ventennio / ennio di Nolfo -- Placing cinema, fascism, and the nation in a diagram of Italian modernity / James Hay -- Sex in the cinema : regulation and transgression in Italian films, 1930-1943 / David Forgacs -- Luchino Visconti's (homosexual) Ossessione / William Van Watson -- Ways of looking in black and white : female spectatorship and the miscege-national body in Sotto la croce del sud / Robin Pickering-Iazzi -- Seeing red : the Soviet influence on Italian cinema in the thirties / Piero Garofalo -- Theatricality and impersonation : the politics of style in the cinema of the Italian fascist era / Marcia Landy -- Shopping for autarchy : fascism and reproductive fantasy in Mario Camerini's Grandi magazzini / Barbara Spackman -- The last film festival : the Venice Biennale goes to war / Marla Stone -- Film stars and society in fascist Italy / Stephen Gundle.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

Motion pictures -- Italy -- History.

Fascism and motion pictures -- Italy -- History.

Added Author:

Reich, Jacqueline, 1965-

Garofalo, Piero.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2002

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
791.43094509041 21	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

When Benito Mussolini proclaimed that "Cinema is the strongest weapon," he was telling only half the story. In reality, very few feature films during the Fascist period can be labeled as propaganda. Re-viewing Fascism considers the many films that failed as "weapons" in creating cultural consensus and instead came to reflect the complexities and contradictions of Fascist culture. The volume also examines the connection between cinema of the Fascist period and neorealism--ties that many scholars previously had denied in an attempt to view Fascism as an unfortunate deviation in Italian history. The postwar directors Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, and Vittorio de Sica all had important roots in the Fascist era, as did the Venice Film Festival. While government censorship loomed over Italian filmmaking, it did not prevent frank depictions of sexuality and representations of men and women that challenged official gender policies. Re-viewing Fascism brings together scholars from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds as it offers an engaging and innovative look into Italian cinema, Fascist culture, and society.

Author Notes

Jacqueline Reich is Assistant Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Piero Garofalo is Assistant Professor of Italian at the University of New Hampshire.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Reich (SUNY, Stony Brook) and Garofalo (Univ. of New Hampshire) have edited a collection of 12 essays treating Italian cinema during the ventennio, the period of fascist rule. Part 1 addresses the cinema's construction of subjectivity (particularly female), linguistic diversity (which challenged the transition from silent to sound cinema), neorealism, and the role of telecommunications and cinema in the formation of nation. The focus shifts in part 2: David Forgacs suggests new ways of identifying the transgressive aspects of regulated and conservative representation of sex in the cinema; others offer a "recuperative homosexual reading" of Ossessione and an analysis of the colonial discourse of Sotto la croce del sud. Among the essays in part 3 is an examination of the Soviet influence on Italian films of the 1930s; a redefinition of escapist films and their link to contemporary social realities; a reading of Grandi magazzini and the female subject in the context of urban consumerism; a discussion of the 1942 Venice Biennale International Film Festival prize winners and the signs they contain of the "deep contradictions" and weakness of the fascist regime. Each essay makes a point of correcting misconceptions about the cinema during the ventennio, which makes this book a significant contribution to the literature. Upper-division undergraduates and above. S. Vander Closter Rhode Island School of Design