The folklore of consensus : theatricality in the Italian cinema, 1930-1943

Author(s)

• Landy, Marcia

Bibliographic Information

The folklore of consensus : theatricality in the Italian cinema, 1930-1943

Marcia Landy

（SUNY series, cultural studies in cinema/video）

State University of New York Press, c1998

• : pbk

Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 321-331) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Marcia Landy's The Folklore of Consensus examines the theatricality in the Italian popular cinema of the 1930s and early 1940s, arguing that theatricality was a form of politics—a politics of style. While film critics no longer regard the commercial films of the era as mere propaganda, they continue to regard the cinema under fascism as "escapist," diverting audiences from the harsh realities of life under fascism. The Folklore of Consensus problematizes the notion of "escapism," examining the complexity that redeems the films from frivolity and evasion. It shifts the focus from a preoccupation with cinema as the public and spectacular purveyor of "fascinating fascism" to a more immediate and intimate terrain that bears on formulations about the role of mass culture then and now.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Preface 1. Film, Folklore, and Affect Revaluations of Fascism: Cinema and Consensus 2. Comedy, Melodrama, and Theatricality Folklore, Opera, and "Putting in a Show" • Life as Film • The Everyday and Domestic Diplomacy of Fiction • Formulas for Success • Americanism and Fordism • Typists and "Happiness" • Screwball Comedy, Italian Style • Comedy, Folklore, and the Law • Family as Theater • Domestic Comedy and "Ordinary" People • Home Is Where the Heart Is • Escapism and Carnival • Regarding Friendly Fascism 3. The Uses of Folklore: History and Theatricality Monumental History • Melodrama and Legend • Aesthetics and Folklore • Romantic Nationalism • The Biopic, Machiavelli, and Realpolitik • The Artisit as Doppelganger • The Musician as National Savior • The Operatic in Film • The Melodrama of National Unity • Melodrama and History as Elegy • Italian History and the Western • The Narrative of Conversion and War • The Presentness of the Past 4. From Conversion to Calligraphism A Paradigmatic Text • The Prodigal Son • The Orphans' Return • Machines and Modernity • Martydom, Mourning, and Community Conversions • The Prodigal Father • Surrogate Fathers and Prodigal Sons • The New Man, Conversion, and Colonialism • The Family History, and the Nation • The Tenuousness of Conversion • "Calligraphism" • Fractured Masculinity • The Fictions of Homosocial Conflict • Decadence and Violence Unredeemed • Death in Life • A Portrait of Abjection 5. The Affective Value of Femininity and Maternity The Maternal Machine • Working-Class Divas • The Family Meodrama and Becoming Mother • "Phallic" Femininity • Visual Pleasure as Unpleasure • Return to Mother • Calligraphism and Femininity • Blurring "Boundaries" • Women Beware Women • Sexual Politics, Power, and Femininity 6. Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BA64411042
• ISBN:
  • 0791438031
  • 079143804X
• LCCN: 97044015
• Country Code: us
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Albany
• Pages/Volumes: xxi, 352 p.
• Size: 24 cm
• Classification:
  • LCC : PN1993.5.I88
  • DC21 : 791.43/0945/09043
• Subject Headings:
  • LCSH : Motion pictures -- Italy -- History
  • LCSH : Motion pictures -- Political aspects -- Italy
  • LCSH : Motion pictures -- Social aspects -- Italy
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BA30397756