Film Industry, Moviegoing, and Nonfiction Cinema in Occupied Italy (1943-1945)
Paolo Villa, University of Parma
The German occupation of Italy during the Second World War was a crucial moment in 20th century Italian history. It was a lacerating rift that followed twenty years of Fascism and would give rise to the country’s republican and democratic identity. The period between 8 September 1943 and 25 April 1945 was immediately perceived and regarded as a fundamental watershed in national history, often regarded as the final act in the process of nation-building begun with the Risorgimento. The Nazi occupation of northern and central Italy was inextricably intertwined with the last phase of the Fascist regime, the Italian Social Republic (Repubblica Sociale Italiana), overlapping the experience of a foreign occupation with that of a civil war among Italians aligned on opposing sides, between partisan forces and militias loyal to Fascism, with traumatic and long-standing consequences on the social and memorial fabric of the nation. On the other hand, Italy also experienced the occupation of the Allied powers, specifically of Anglo-American troops, which lasted until 1946, with the proclamation of the Republic.
Cinema constitutes a complex and multi-layered social institution, that both reflects a historical moment and actively acts in and influences it. It is therefore a relevant element to understand not only the cultural, but also the political, ideological and economic dynamics of a period. During the occupation years, the ‘eye of the twentieth century’, as cinema was defined by Francesco Casetti, recorded major historical events as well as less-known incidents and individual micro-histories; it was a tool for propaganda and power, a source of information, a displaced industry weakened by the conflict, and an aspect of everyday life for many Italians. It thus represents a valuable historical source that reveals aspects of past reality otherwise difficult to grasp with the same immediacy and precision. It is also a specific object of study, to investigate in terms of production, receptivity, narrative models and imagery, concrete uses and theoretical discourses, all elements pertaining to the history of the medium that sheds light on the broader contexts surrounding it.
The Second World War is also considered to be a watershed for Italian cinema history. Starting from 1943/1944 – so goes the usual account – directors and screenwriters moved towards the rediscovery of the ‘real’ Italy, abandoning previous production modes and genre patterns. A new phase of Italian cinema, neorealism, arose from the war context. With a renewed faith in realism as an aesthetic foundation for the practice of film-making, Italian directors intended to portray a nation bent by the war sufferings, the Liberation struggles, the aftermath of the conflict. Recent studies have emphasised how the transition from Fascist cinema to neorealism was more gradual than has long been claimed, a transformation catalysed by the war more than a sudden, unpredictable change: the foundations of neorealism can be traced back to the late 1930s, both in the critical debates in film magazines such as Cinema and in the production of films clearly anticipating the later, mature phase of neorealism (The Canal of the Angels [Il canale degli angeli], The Children Are Watching Us [I bambini ci guardano]). Limiting the perspective to the transition from regime film production to neorealism risks overlooking other aspects that are equally relevant to understand how Italian cinema interacted with the exceptional conditions of the historical context between 1943 and 1945.
Moving from Pierre Sorlin’s seminal studies on the relationship between cinema and history and on the complexity of cinema in its multiple sociological levels, as well as from Gian Piero Brunetta’s multifaceted history of Italian cinema, the presentations in this panel examine cinema and films as historic objects within the broader context of the occupation, and as privileged historical sources for investigating the occupation at large. Within the general methodological and theoretical framework regarding the relationships between cinema and/within history, each of the four interventions of our panel will focus on specific perspectives and problems.
The first paper, adopting the perspective of cultural history and production studies, will examine the consequences of the Armistice (8 September 1943) on Italian film production. The displacement of Cinecittà, the main Italian studio, from Rome to Venice, in the newly proclaimed Italian Social Republic, had heavy and long consequences for both the industry and individual directors and film projects.
The second paper, aligned with the New Cinema History’s focus on reception and moviegoing, will investigate the situation of Italian movie theatres during the Allied occupation, the infrastructures of film distribution and exhibition, and the ways in which the audience continued to experience cinema in their everyday life.
The following two papers ground their methodology on the vast academic literature on nonfiction film. The newsreel as a specific film format constitutes the object of the third paper, which focuses on the medium as a means of propaganda, information and education. The analysis of Luce newsreels produced between 1943 and 1945 allows us to examine the role of cinema as a means of propaganda, information and education, especially through a comparison with Luce newsreels of the 1920s and 1930s.
Finally, the last paper adopts the approach of visual cultural studies to examine how nonfiction films and photographs shaped the representation and so the perception of public spaces at a time of restriction of individual and collective freedoms: squares, street, urban environments were mediated through different technological devices and ideological gazes while they were disputed, militarised, and eventually liberated.
Using different but synergetic methodologies, sources and approaches, these papers aim to highlight the intertwining of film history and history seen through the lens of films and cinema: these two mutually reinforcing dimensions enlighten our understanding of both Italian cinema and of the broader experience of World War II occupation in Italy.
Panel speakers and presentations
Chair/discussant: Paolo Villa (University of Parma)
Carlo Ugolotti (University of Parma): Staring into the void: The Italian film industry in the aftermath of the armistice of 8 September 1943
Luana Fedele (Sapienza University of Rome) & Damiano Garofalo (Sapienza University of Rome): Screening Soft Power. The US Military Reports on Movie Theaters in Italy, 1944-1945
Rocco Melegari (Sapienza University of Rome): Italian newsreels during the German Occupation (1943-1945)
Paolo Villa (University of Parma): The disputed piazza. Squares and urban spaces of occupied Italy in nonfiction cinema
Photo credits:
Cover picture: Rome, Italy, March 1944. Luftwaffe General Kurt Mälzer inspecting Italian troops of the X MAS (belonging to the Social Italian Republic Navy, and fighting as allies of the Germans) standing in viale Carso near piazza Bainsizza. This unit was deployed to counter the Allied beachhead at Anzio, south of Rome.
Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-311-0926-09 / Fraß / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Recent Comments