Re-Viewing Fascism

by Reich, Jacqueline; Garofalo, Piero

• ISBN13: 9780253215185
• ISBN10: 0253215188
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

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 Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Piero Garofalo
Jacqueline Reich
Acknowledgments	xv
PART I Framing Fascism and Cinema
Mussolini at the Movies: Fascism, Film, and Culture	3	(27)
Jacqueline Reich
Dubbing L'Arte Muta: Poetic Layerings around Italian Cinema's Transition to Sound	30	(53)
Giorgio Bertellini
Intimations of Neorealism in the Fascist Ventennio	83	(22)
Ennio Di Nolfo
Placing Cinema, Fascism, and the Nation in a Diagram of Italian Modernity	105	(36)
James Hay
PART II Fascism, Cinema, and Sexuality
Sex in the Cinema: Regulation and Transgression in Italian Films, 1930--1943	141	(31)
David Forgacs
Luchino Visconti's (Homosexual) Ossessione	172	(22)
William Van Watson
Ways of Looking in Black and White: Female Spectatorship and the Miscege-national Body in Sotto la croce del sud	194	(29)
Robin Pickering-lazzi
PART III Fascism and Cinema in (Con) tests
Seeing Red: The Soviet Influence on Italian Cinema in the Thirties	223	(27)
Piero Garofalo
Theatricality and Impersonation: The Politics of Style in the Cinema of the Italian Fascist Era	250	(26)
Marcia Landy
Shopping for Autarchy: Fascism and Reproductive Fantasy in Mario Camerini's	276	(17)
Grandi Magazzini
Barbara Spackman
The Last Film Festival: The Venice Biennale Goes to War	293	(22)
Marla Stone
Film Stars and Society in Fascist Italy	315	(26)
Stephen Gundle
Selected Bibliography	341	(12)
Contributors	353	(3)
Index	356