Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema

Italian Fascism's Empire Cinema
Author: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2015-02-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253015669

Ruth Ben-Ghiat provides the first in-depth study of feature and documentary films produced under the auspices of Mussolini’s government that took as their subjects or settings Italy’s African and Balkan colonies. These "empire films" were Italy's entry into an international market for the exotic. The films engaged its most experienced and cosmopolitan directors (Augusto Genina, Mario Camerini) as well as new filmmakers (Roberto Rossellini) who would make their marks in the postwar years. Ben-Ghiat sees these films as part of the aesthetic development that would lead to neo-realism. Shot in Libya, Somalia, and Ethiopia, these movies reinforced Fascist racial and labor policies and were largely forgotten after the war. Ben-Ghiat restores them to Italian and international film history in this gripping account of empire, war, and the cinema of dictatorship.

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present
Author: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 446
Release: 2020-11-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1324001550

What modern authoritarian leaders have in common (and how they can be stopped). Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the "strongman" playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin—enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America and Europe. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future. For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They promise law and order, then legitimize lawbreaking by financial, sexual, and other predators. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power. Vladimir Putin and Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocracies, Augusto Pinochet’s torture sites, Benito Mussolini and Muammar Gaddafi’s systems of sexual exploitation, and Silvio Berlusconi and Donald Trump’s relentless misinformation: all show how authoritarian rule, far from ensuring stability, is marked by destructive chaos. No other type of leader is so transparent about prioritizing self-interest over the public good. As one country after another has discovered, the strongman is at his worst when true guidance is most needed by his country. Recounting the acts of solidarity and dignity that have undone strongmen over the past 100 years, Ben-Ghiat makes vividly clear that only by seeing the strongman for what he is—and by valuing one another as he is unable to do—can we stop him, now and in the future.

Cinema and Fascism

Cinema and Fascism
Author: Steven Ricci
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2008-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520253566

"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." -- Book cover.

Fascist Modernities

Fascist Modernities
Author: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 2004-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520242165

This cultural history of Mussolini's dictatorship discusses the meanings of modernity in interwar Italy. The work argues that fascism appealed to many Italian intellectuals as a new model of modernity that would resolve the European crisis as well as long-standing problems of the national past.

Fascism in Film

Fascism in Film
Author: Marcia Landy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-07
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780691610900

Through her study of the narrative themes and strategies of Italian commercial sound films of the fascist era, Marcia Landy shows that cultural life under fascism was not monopolized by official propaganda. Originally published in 1986. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Mussolini's Theatre

Mussolini's Theatre
Author: Patricia Gaborik
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 327
Release: 2021-05-06
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 1108830595

A vividly written portrait of Benito Mussolini, whose passion for the theatre profoundly shaped his ideology and actions as head of fascist Italy This consistently illuminating book transforms our understanding of fascism as a whole, and will have strong appeal to readers in both theatre studies and modern Italian history.

Fascism in Italian Cinema since 1945

Fascism in Italian Cinema since 1945
Author: G. Lichtner
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2013-05-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137316624

From neorealism's resolve to Berlusconian revisionist melodramas, this book examines cinema's role in constructing memories of Fascist Italy. Italian cinema has both reflected and shaped popular perceptions of Fascism, reinforcing or challenging stereotypes, remembering selectively and silently forgetting the most shameful pages of Italy's history.

Italian Mobilities

Italian Mobilities
Author: Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2015-07-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317677722

The Italian nation-state has been defined by practices of mobility. Tourists have flowed in from the era of the Grand Tour to the present, and Italians flowed out in massive numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Italians made up the largest voluntary emigration in recorded world history. As a bridge from Africa to Europe, Italy has more recently been a destination of choice for immigrants whose tragic stories of shipwreck and confinement are often in the news. This first-of-its-kind edited volume offers a critical accounting of those histories and practices, shedding new light on modern Italy as a flashpoint for mobilities as they relate to nationalism, imperialism, globalization, and consumer, leisure, and labor practices. The book’s eight essays reveal how a country often appreciated for what seems immutable - its classical and Renaissance patrimony - has in fact been shaped by movement and transit.

A History of Italian Cinema

A History of Italian Cinema
Author: Peter Bondanella
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 753
Release: 2017-10-19
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1501307630

The only comprehensive and up-to-date book on the subject of Italian cinema available anywhere, in any language.