"We have everything to learn from the Americans" : film promotion and cultures of consumption in Italy, 1945-1960

The relationship between film promotion and the wider economy has scarcely been studied in Italy. This article explores the influence of American exploitation techniques in the peninsula in the years following World War Two and the responses of the Italian film industry. It is shown that, though many advocated imitating American practices in the fields of advertising and promotion, over time the industry learned not only to appropriate successful techniques but to adapt them in ways that were better suited to products that were often presented as being more ‘cultural’ than ‘commercial’. Attention is paid to the way film directors were drawn into campaigns to underline the cultural value of their works. By the same token, Italian stars were not cast as cheerleaders for the developing consumer economy in the way that American stars had been. Yet linkages between film making and advertising were nevertheless forged through practices of product placement that exploited the loophole of ‘verisimilitude’. Hollywood runaway productions like Roman Holiday set the tone for the insertion of Vespa scooters, automobiles and other goods in feature films. The article evaluates the interplay of the cultural and the commercial in Italy’s postwar economic revival and the role of cinema in its development as a mass consumer society

Mussolini between hero worship and demystification : exemplary anecdotes, petite histoire, and the problem of humanization

Mussolini is considered in this article as a figure around whom narratives have been developed for a century or more. Several biographies were published shortly after he came to power and many others have appeared in the decades since his death in 1945. This article explores the place of anecdotes in the construction of a legendary Mussolini in the 1920s and in the demystification that marked the period after World War Two. It is shown that early biographies were marked not only by hero worship but also by a commercially driven need to humanize and to amuse. After the war, humanization persisted as former Fascists and associates of Mussolini spread stories and anecdotes that made the dictator appear not as an evil tyrant but as a flawed and fallible human being. The agenda here was to make support for Fascism and its leader forgivable. A comparison of the anecdotes shows that both adulatory and demystificatory ones reserved a place for minor stories or petite histoire. The resulting image, which placed some emphasis on his sex life, proved influential. It presented a challenge to historians and found its way into the biographical films that were made for cinema and television between the 1970 and the 2000s. It is suggested that, via anecdotes, Mussolini occupied an ambiguous and continuous place in the moral universe of Italians, functioning variously as a political and a gender exemplar

Art, entertainment and politics : Alessandro Blasetti and the rise of the Italian film industry, 1929-1959

This article explores the role of Alessandro Blasetti in arguing for, and promoting, the development of the Italian film industry before and after the Second World War. Though a prominent film director for more than thirty years, Blasetti was never considered an auteur: he had no distinct authorial style and not did he specialise in any particular genre. Unlike some postwar directors, he never positioned himself in opposition to producers but, on the contrary, worked closely with many of them, winning a reputation for reliability and professionalism. A supporter of Fascism until the later 1930s, he encouraged state involvement in the industry and was the first to use the Cinecittà studios, inaugurated in 1937, to their full potential. After the war, he mediated between opposing political forces to defend the interests of the Italian cinema as an industry and a ‘collective art’. He was responsible for creating several stars, including Gino Cervi and Sophia Loren. Drawing on the Blasetti archive, the article considers the range of the director’s activities, political links and his way of conceiving his role, immersed in rather than against the industry

Bellissima : feminine beauty and the idea of Italy

"Feminine beauty has been more discussed, appreciated, represented in art and associated with national, cultural identity in Italy than in any other country. This study investigates the debates and conflicts the issue provoked. Gundle examines the role of peasant beauty in symbolising the failed hopes of the Risorgimento, and the annexation of this by the establishment in the late nineteenth century; Fascism's failure to mould the ideal modern Italian woman; the politicization of beauty pageants after the Second World War; the symbolic role of film and television stars; and the controversy over the election of the first non-white Miss Italy in 1996." "Although the public discussion of feminine beauty was largely a male affair, the women were caught up in it, and who were seen, on account of their beauty, to embody the nation, were never passive objects. Indeed, they often used or manipulated the tradition of beauty for their own ends. This book explores these issues through the careers and public images of numerous prominent women including Queen Margherita of Savoy, the opera singer Lina Cavalieri, and the film stars Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale and Monica Bellucci."