This study considers Italian filmmaking during the Fascist era and offers an original and revealing approach to the interwar years. Steven Ricci directly confronts a long-standing dilemma faced by cultural historians: while made during a period of totalitarian government, these films are neither propagandistic nor openly "Fascist." Instead, the Italian Fascist regime attempted to build ideological consensus by erasing markers of class and regional difference and by circulating terms for an imaginary national identity. Cinema and Fascism investigates the complex relationship between the totalitarian regime and Italian cinema. It looks at the films themselves, the industry, and the role of cinema in daily life, and offers new insights into this important but neglected period in cinema history.
Cinema and Fascism Italian Film and Society, 1922–1943
About the Book
Reviews
“Illuminating. . . . Ricci’s book offers a significant contribution to a more nuanced and historically specific view of cinema under fascism.”—Film Criticism
“This is a book of large ideas, supported by solid, close readings.”—CHOICE
“The most important book on this subject published in English.”—Visual Studies"Italian Fascism was full of paradoxes, one of which concerned the cinema. Why did this self-styled totalitarian regime adopt such an apparently laissez-faire attitude towards this major art form and medium of entertainment? And if Italian cinema in the Fascist period was rarely propagandistic, was it nevertheless permeated by Fascist values in other ways? Steven Ricci approaches these and related questions both knowledgeably and with a refreshingly open mind, eschewing all the usual cliche and coming up with surprising and fascinating answers."—Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, editor of The Oxford History of World Cinema
"Steven Ricci sheds new light on the ventennio nero, the 'twenty black years' of Fascism in Italy, presenting a wealth of historical research on film in the context of society, national identity, industrialization and political economy. In his persuasive argument that propaganda and escapism were not the only forces at work in the media, Ricci offers us a compelling view of this seminal historical period. As he redefines national cinema, Ricci reshapes the national body, vividly reviving for us the cult of the body in sports and leisure, and the fascination for the male body in film. Mass tourism and means of transportation, especially the train, are understood as vehicles for cultural transfer and socio-sexual movement. While transiting from the local to the global, this provocative study of Fascism looks at Italy in relation to Hollywood and America, accounting for mediatic lure and media control-issues of both great historical significance and relevance for our times."—Giuliana Bruno, Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction
1. Amnesia and Historical Memory
"Soulless Shadows": The Cinema under Fascism Didn't Exist
Cinema and Industrialization
Cinema and National Identity
2. The Political Economy of Italian Cinema, 1922-1943
Fascism Makes Cinematic History
The Impact of the Regime's Regulation(s)
3. Leisure Time, Historiography, and Spectatorship
Fascist Sports: Historical Narration and the National Body
Travel, Pleasure, and Class Difference
4. Italy and America: Fascination and (Re)Negotiation
Authorial States: Mussolini and MGM March on Rome
Partnership and Competition with Hollywood
5. The Fascist Codex
Fascist Heuristics: Major Codes of Readership
Dissolution of Fascist Order, Antifascism, and/or Neorealism
Epilogue. Resistance and the Return of the Local
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index