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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Daniela Treveri Gennari, Catherine O’Rawe, Danielle Hipkins, Silvia Dibeltulo, and Sarah Culhane, Italian Cinema Audiences: Histories and Memories of Cinemagoing in Post-War Italy, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, pp. 240
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https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
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Reviews / Comptes rendus
2021-11-17
2021-09-21
2021-11-17
2022-12-30
199-201
Cinéma & Cie
Mariagrazia Fanchi
2021/11/17
10.13130/2036-461X/16423
199
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
2036-461X
36/37
en
201
Daniela Treveri Gennari, Catherine O’Rawe, Danielle Hipkins, Silvia Dibeltulo, and Sarah Culhane, Italian Cinema Audiences: Histories and Memories of Cinemagoing in Post-War Italy, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, pp. 240
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16423/14754
21
                                                                                       Daniela Treveri Gennari, Catherine O’Rawe,
                                                                                       Danielle Hipkins, Silvia Dibeltulo,
                                                                                       and Sarah Culhane
                                                                                       Italian Cinema Audiences:
                                                                                       Histories and Memories of Cinemagoing
                                                                                       in Post-War Italy
                                                                                       New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020, pp. 240
                                                                                       DOI 10.13130/2036-461X/16423




                                                                                          Italian Cinema Audiences: Histories and             and appropriation of public space, making
                                                                                       Memories of Cinemagoing in Post-War Italy              productive use of a model with an illustrious
                                                                                       is the fruit of a wide-ranging study funded by         history: from Douglas Gomery to Annette
                                                                                       the Arts and Humanities Research Council on            Kuhn. There is also an anticipation of analysis
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License




                                                                                       Italian film audiences in the 1950s.                   of cinema’s ability to shape identity that
                                                                                          The volume is underpinned by a meticulous           forms the centrepiece of the third section.
                                                                                       reconstruction of the debate and a research            Chapter 3 broadens the concept of the viewing
                                                                                       approach that interweaves various sources:             experience to include non-cinematographic
                                                                                       a field study using questionnaires and video           practices such as reading illustrated current-
                                                                                       interviews with spectators from the period;            affairs magazines or film journals. It reveals
                                                                                       analyses of the specialist and mainstream              cinema’s scope as a generator of imaginaries
                                                                                       media from that period; a comparison                   and shared repertories of knowledge,
                                                                                       with previous studies and data on cinema               lifestyles and ideals that are also accessible
                                                                                       attendance during the decade.                          outside of cinemas and, ultimately, in their
                                                                                          The book consists of three sections,                absence. The study also draws attention to
                                                                                       reflecting and exploring the authors’ different        the web of associations that connect cinema
                                                                                       interests and perspectives.                            with other social and recreational activities
                                                                                          The first outlines the practice of moviegoing.      (like football), underlining its importance for
                                                                                       It foregrounds the forms of cinema experience          Italians in their everyday life and leisure time.
                                                                                       in its various consumption contexts with               This well-delineated scenario produces some
                                                                                       reference to geographical location, urban              particularly original insights. This includes
                                                                                       vs rural environments, and types of movie              the accounts of getting into cinemas for
                                                                                       theatres, classified simply, yet effectively,          free or cheaply, referred to by interviewees
                                                                                       as first-, second- and third-run cinemas.              as portoghesismo. This is a neologism
                                                                                       Within this section, chapter 2, in particular,         based on the colloquial Italian expression
                                                                                       focuses on the role of cinemas as ‘activators          ‘fare il portoghese’ (literally ‘doing it the
                                                                                       of memory’ and drivers of the discovery                Portuguese way’), attempting — sometimes


                                                                                       Cinéma & Cie vol. 21 no. 36/37 2021 · ISSN 2036-461X                                            199
successfully, often not — to avoid paying           previous generation.
for something (p. 32). Then there are the             The third part of the book spotlights
unwritten rules of cinema etiquette (p. 59).        cinema’s role in identity-building processes,
This vivid portrait of film-theatre behaviour       teasing out the plurality of forms that the
includes a delightful passage about the social      viewing experience took in those years. The
acceptability (or otherwise) of asking the          analysis concentrates mainly on the male-
person in the neighbouring seat for a match         female dialectic, reflected and brought into
in order to smoke. It confirms the cinema’s         focus both in moviegoing practices (especially
heterotopic nature as a public space where          in the actual likelihood of getting in to watch
some conventions can be waived or amended.          a film) and more broadly in the cinema
Another aspect still is the synaesthesia of         experience. The section has three chapters.
collective memory about movie theatres.             The first pieces together cinema memories
Recollections of movies or, more often,             of girls and young women, highlighting its
movie genres mingle with a more complex             inherent tension, imbued with frustrated
bodily memory — often neglected in the              desire and often prohibition (the film theatre
literature — made of smells, flavours and           as an inappropriate place to visit alone).
even tactile sensations, such as touching the       The next chapter discusses fandom and its
seat upholstery. These all become defining          practices, based on Jackie Stacey’s now-
features of cinemas and their place in              classic taxonomy. The image emerges of a
audiences’ geographies of experience.               new generation of women struggling to relate
   Part two offers a new discussion of various      to the opulent forms and decadent melodrama
data and sources to illuminate the relationship     of Silvana Pampanini, finding their bearings
between audiences and film genres. Chapter 4        instead in the spirit and verve of Sophia Loren,
gathers memories of popular genres, pointing        the svelte modern elegance of Catherine
to the gap between moviegoers’ stories and          Spaak and Audrey Hepburn, and the offbeat
the institutional discourse by the film industry    beauty of Anna Magnani and Giulietta Masina.
and critics (p. 79), probing and highlighting the   The last chapter is about male filmgoers and
diversity of audience experiences. Melodrama,       their idols. It reveals the inextricable link
for example, emerges as an important arena          between the Hollywood hero (Marlon Brandon
for young people’s romantic education after         and James Dean) and its Italian counterpart
the war: a manual of seduction and racy             (primarily Amedeo Nazzari), laying bare the
escapades for male viewers (melodrama as            contradictions of a masculinity that the next
the genre of excess, to quote Linda Williams)       decade would go on to pick apart, as Giacomo
and an appeal to family values and the ethic        Manzoli has so clearly shown. In this section,
of sacrifice for women and girls. Chapter 5         the authors use Graham Dawson’s concept of
spotlights audiences’ ambivalence towards           composure to explain the connection between
neorealism at the time. The authors identify        the memory of past events and the subject’s
two conflicting experiences: that of viewers        (actual or desired) role in their social milieu
with direct memory of the conflict and the          (p. 155). The analysis of queer subjectivity and
civil war who felt uncomfortable watching           cinema (pp. 170-171) is especially original.
neorealist content; and that of audiences           The theme has hitherto been explored partly
without those memories, for whom neorealist         in reference to the politics of representation
films constituted a ‘prosthetic memory’ (p.         but virtually ignored in relation to moviegoing.
101) that helped them feel closer, more             The discussion therefore offers an original
empathetic and understanding towards the            contribution to the history of Italian cinema


200                                                                          Italian Cinema Audiencies
audiences and their experiences.                       called Topics and Issues in National Cinema.
  All told, Italian Cinema Audiences is                This is not without significance, as audience
an important milestone that orders and                 studies were long deemed ancillary to cinema
formalizes a body of research on Italian film          history and trifling in their contribution
audiences that has grown significantly over            to identifying specific national traits. This
the last two decades, adding further value             editorial choice, therefore, indicates a decisive
and legitimacy. The work has four particular           change, validating the importance of audience
merits.                                                studies in Italian cultural and cinema history.
  First, it makes effective use of the new               A final thought. The book has emerged
cinema history paradigm formalized by                  in the midst of a pandemic that has taken a
Richard Maltby, Daniel Biltereyst and Philippe         ferocious toll in particular on the generation
Meers, a recent and mature result of the               whose youth or childhood coincided with the
pivotal historiographical impulse provided by          post-war years. The memories collected in
the Brighton Conference. The volume draws              these pages not only enrich the knowledge
on that paradigm in leveraging the complexity          available to scholars of Italian cinema and
of the empirical data and taking the courage           its audiences, they also offer us the precious
to reckon with that complexity, which cannot           opportunity to see these men and women in
and must not be shoehorned into a simplistic           a different light from that in which the events
reading. This is a rare quality, one that also         of the last year have forcibly cast them. This
shines through in the way the triangulation            is another excellent reason to read this book.
technique is applied: not as a tool for cross-
                                                                                   Mariagrazia Fanchi
checking sources (as in many historical and
                                                                [Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore]
social studies) but rather as an opportunity to
acquire additional viewpoints and reflect the
rich diversity of film audiences’ experiences.
  The work’s second key strength is the care
and sensitivity with which it examines oral
sources, recognizing their layered meanings
and the evolving nature of the remembered
narrative, which reconsiders the past in light
of the present. This powerful perspective
decisively transcends the sterile issue of
the objectivity of the oral sources, making a
crucial contribution to answering the question
‘what did cinema mean to post-war Italians?’
  A third factor is the vivid, richly detailed
depiction of what moviegoing was like, in
relation to the theatres, films, genres and
actors. This achievement is not to be taken for
granted. It reflects a careful historiographical
effort, an ability to listen to the sources, and
a rapport with the subjects that I would go so
far as to term affectionate.
  Finally, the authors have chosen to publish
the book in a Bloomsbury Academic series


Cinéma & Cie vol. 21 no. 36/37 2021 · ISSN 2036-461X                                            201
