Schermi. Storie e culture del cinema e dei media in Italia
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La sala cinematografica “all’italiana”. Storie e culture di uno spazio architettonico, tecnologico e sociale
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Copyright (c) 2024 Elena Mosconi, Paola Dalla Torre, Giovanna D'Amia, Mariagrazia Fanchi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Luoghi da (ri)costruire. Elementi per uno studio sistematico della storia dei multiplex in Italia
This article explores the phenomenon of multiplex cinemas in Italy, emphasizing their historical and legislative context. Emerging in the 1990s, multiplexes represent a modern form of globalized consumption, distinct from traditional cinemas. Their rapid expansion, driven by large foreign conglomerates, posed significant challenges and opportunities within the Italian market. Through a historical reconstruction using trade magazines, this study analyzes the legislative measures enacted to regulate this growth, the involvement of various stakeholders, and the distinctive characteristics of the Italian multiplex landscape in its preliminary phase.
Copyright (c) 2024 Arianna Vietina https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Storia e analisi dell’esercizio di una sala parrocchiale. Il cinema Coassini nell’Italia tra gli anni Cinquanta e Settanta
The article examines the Catholic “Coassini” cinema run to analyze its internal dynamics in the light of the processes that led to the exponential growth and subsequent decline of parish cinemas in Italy from the 1950s to the 1970s. Among these dynamics, it aims to shed light on the stages of the theater’s design, the reasons behind its technical and aesthetic modernization, and the management of its cinema run, including the relationships with small and large businesses and local and national institutions. The article adopts a microhistorical approach presenting the hypotheses and findings in the context of the period’s broader historical and cultural framework.
Copyright (c) 2024 Steven Stergar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Tra macro e micro-storia: un’analisi dell’esercizio cinematografico in provincia di Pavia, 1940-55
The article focuses on the cinema history of the typical rural territory of Pavia. By using a data-driven approach resulting from an archival research, the analysis suggests the usefulness of considering a geographical framework of inquiry (on a territorial level) which can dialogue between the idiosyn- crasies of local micro-histories and broader, systematic views. For this reason, the province will be divided into its three sub-areas (Pavese, Lomellina, Oltrepò), evaluating their historical trends and local specificities. The analysis, benefitting from maps representing the cinema exhibition network, will compare two moments: the years 1940-41 and the years 1954-55.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sebastiano Pacchiarotti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
"Il magnifico sforzo". Modernizzazione, ingegnerizzazione e disciplinarmente infrastrutturale dei cinema italiani degli anni Cinquanta
The contribution deals with the professional knowledge and material cultures that contributed to innovating the infrastructure of Italian cinemas in the early 1950s and the discursive and regulatory driving forces of the modernisation of movie theatres. On the basis of several sources, those aspects are investigated by focusing on the case study of MESAC (later SAM), a technical service company ac- tive since 1946 in the design and renovation of cinema-theatres and based on an engineering culture connected with several industrial and manufacturing districts.
Copyright (c) 2024 Simone Venturini https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Sicurezza o Sopravvivenza: una scelta difficile durante le crisi. Cause e conseguenze dell'incendio del cinema Statuto (1983)
Taking care of a film audience means, above all, keeping it safe and protecting its health. This duty has not always been accomplished. In the history of the Italian cinema exhibition, sometimes specta- tor safety conflicted with the financial survival of movie theatres. From the late 1970s, Italy’s exhibition sector suffered from a severe economic crisis due to diminish- ing cinema attendance. While the exhibitors union AGIS tried to ease official security regulations, many theatres gave up caring for their audience in order to survive. The tension culminated most visibly in a tragic fire disaster in Turin. On 13 February 1983 the Statuto Cinema burned down, result- ing in 64 deaths. This case exemplifies the challenging trade-off between adapting modern security standards and maintaining the economic viability of movie theatres. The article analyses the Statuto disaster itself and contextualises the incident within the broader contemporary trade discussion about safety concerns. Light is shed on the negotiations between the safety authorities and the exhibitors union prior to 1983, and the difficult choice between investing or surviving that concerned many exhibitors. Drawing on archival material from the AGIS archive, the article traces how cinema managers experienced this historical period of change and assessed risk for film audiences in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Copyright (c) 2024 Barbara Corsi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
L’impero (americano) colpisce ancora. La conversione forzosa dell’esercizio italiano alla proiezione panoramica
At the end of the Second World War, the American film industry was able to quickly regain the large European market shares it had held in the second half of the 1930s. In Italy, potentially the most lucrative country on the continent, the goal is achieved through the extensive occupation of the ex-hibition chain: first, between 1945 and 1953, by saturating the market with an abnormal number of films, and then, from 1954, by beating the competition with a brand new generation of widescreen products filmed in CinemaScope, VistaVision and the like. However, in order to properly project Holly- wood’s widescreen productions, every Italian cinema had to undergo major renovations, as was the case with the widespread transition to talkies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the successful conversion of the Italian exhibition chain to widescreen technology in the context of Hollywood’s aggressive commercial foreign policy in the 1950s, using a film industry studies approach within the wider field of media industry analysis.
Copyright (c) 2024 Federico Vitella https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Isole nella Laguna. Per un'analisi urbana delle sale cinematografiche di Venezia nel secondo dopoguerra
Closely associated with cinema since its beginnings, Venice represents a case of great interest regard- ing film exhibition history. Its historical, geographical, and demographic peculiarities have shaped the distribution of cinemas and the moviegoing practices. This contribution investigates the history of Venetian movie theatres in the central decades of the 20th century, putting them in relation to the urban and social developments of the city, divided in three main macrozones (historic centre, main- land and lagoon). Other factors such as population movements, industrial and tourist developments, the presence of the annual film festival are also examined, as they have influenced the relationship of the city and its inhabitants with movie theatres and with the practice of moviegoing. From this analysis, Venice emerges as a polycentric metropolis, characterized by dynamics of film exhibition and consumption that differ from area to area.
Copyright (c) 2024 paolo villa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Un palazzo “Modernissimo” per Bologna: architettura, tecnologia e identità urbana nella trasformazione di un teatro e di un cinematografo, tra passato e futuro
The early proliferation of cinema theatres in Bologna is closely linked to the city’s urban modern- ization in the early 20th century. This transformation is exemplified by the Palazzo Ronzani and the Cinematografo Modernissimo, which opened in 1915. The creation of this multifunctional building marked a significant transition to modern urban landscapes, fostering social and cultural interac- tions. This article explores the architectural, technological, and urban identity changes introduced by the construction and operation of Ronzani’s building. The resilience and adaptability of the Cine- matografo Modernissimo during challenging times, such as World War I, highlight its importance for Bologna’s history. This significance was rediscovered with the recent restoration and 2023 reopening of the new Cinema Modernissimo in the same building by the Film Archive of Bologna (Cineteca di Bologna).
Copyright (c) 2024 Elena Nepoti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Dispositivi di comunità, architetture di visioni: la sala cinematografica di Quirino De Giorgio
It is in the 1950s that the figure of Quirino De Giorgio (1907-1997), already a well-known architect of community spaces, comes to the fore in the feverish construction of movie theater that characterised the post-World War II peninsula. The essay investigates De Giorgio’s critical thinking by focusing on a case study devoted to the ‘microphysics’ of the movie theatres, understood as a series of devices, accessories, practices conceived to structure the spectator's cinematic experience (from the environ- mental disciplining of the audience to the construction of specific temporalities of programming), traces and spies of a material culture and a network of relationships.
Copyright (c) 2024 Laura Cesaro https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Di legno e di carne, Pinocchio fra cultura materiale e performance
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La storia dell’esercizio cinematografico di provincia in tre momenti storici. Il caso di Gardone Val Trompia
The article uses a microhistorical approach to Gardone Val Trompia’s movie theatres. Using archives, local newspapers and other sources, it retraces historical change in management’s forms of out-of-the-city exhibitors. The aim is to highlight their radical difference: never cinema-only venues and always entangled with the local administration and civil society. Three particular moments are discussed: the origins of rural cinema among politicized mutualistic societies; the dominance of non-profit venues during the fascist era, especially those managed by Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro; the renewal and ‘professionalization’ in the mid-1950s. It is also discussed how the government license impacted locally on the cinemas’ existence.
Copyright (c) 2023 Virgil Darelli https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Gli accordi Anica-Mpea e l’impiego dei capitali americani nel nostro cinema / Parte 2 – Dal finanziamento dei film al finanziamento dell’Anica
The agreements between the industrial and trade organizations ANICA and MPAA/MPEA regulated Italian-American film relations between 1951 and 1962, promoting the growth of “Runaway productions” and joint productions in Italy, but also supporting the distribution of Italian films abroad by US companies. The article, based on extensive archival research, reconstructs for the first time the development and implementation of these agreements, also following the paths of American money in Italian cinema.
Copyright (c) 2023 Federico Di Chio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Un burattino elastico fra illustrazione e animazione. Il corpo di Pinocchio nelle pratiche artistiche di Gianluigi Toccafondo
The essay investigates the representation of Pinocchio in Gianluigi Toccafondo’s artistic practices, mainly analyzing the figurative motifs. Collodi’s puppet is, indeed, explicitly at the center of several works by Toccafondo, which are interested in painting, illustration and animated cinema. Using his distinctive visual style, Toccafondo contaminates drawings and animations with cinematographic references. This is how the puppet takes the form of Totò while the Cat and the Fox take those of Laurel and Hardy. Through the analysis of the representation of Pinocchio’s body, the essay wants to capture and interpret a significant update of the symbolic elements inherent in the imaginary of Pinocchio in contemporary age.
Copyright (c) 2023 Giacomo Ravesi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Puer digitalis. Il corpo tecnologico di Pixnocchio.
“Pixnocchio” has known as the first computer and digital animation in Italy. Created by Guido Vanzetti and Giuseppe Laganà, this short film shows Pinocchio as a digital body in evolution, formed by geometric volumes and colors. Digital animation allows to create a peculiar style combining traditional technique and computer technology: in this way “Pixnocchio” is nothing more than a hybrid animated film, that fits into the Italian videoartistic context of early ’80. The digital body of “Pixnocchio” seems like the new artistic representation of the contempo- rary italianity.
Copyright (c) 2023 Martina Vita https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Mille canzoni per un burattino che canzonava
The article examines some of the many songs inspired by Collodi’s book, in particular those that are part of film soundtracks. The author distinguishes between the songs about Pinocchio and those song by Pinocchio. Pinocchio does not sing much in the novel, he mainly likes mocking and is easy-go- ing, interested in plays and loves partying. He furthermore pollutes the soundscape with his wooden feet and is altogether a noisy and naughty child. Italian films generally respect Pinocchio’s sponta- neous childish musicality, whereas foreign musical films, such as those produced by Disney and Del Toro have used the episode of Mangiafuoco’s theater to underline Pinocchio’s identity as a showman, who is actually a puppet. Moreover, also the authors of the songs about Pinocchio interpreted and celebrated him in many ways (e.g.the inauguration of the park in Collodi) highlighting the ambiguity and richness of the character and his adventures. Even the music (melodies, arrangements, sounds) are influenced by the bittersweet complexity of the elusive puppet.
Copyright (c) 2023 Serena Facci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Fughe ed epifanie di Pinocchio nell’opera di Virgilio Sieni
The figure of Pinocchio recurs in Virgilio Sieni’s choreographic production, for the imagery the character evokes and for the questions that its dual puppetry and human nature raises. Its variations are analyzed in respect to Sieni’s choreographic cycle on the fairy tale, where Pinocchio appears in multiple performances, and to the piece ‘Pinocchio. Leggermente diverso’ (2012), interpreted by the blind dancer Giuseppe Comuniello. Based on first-hand research, this essay shows the deconstructive variations Pinocchio undergoes in these works and the meta-discursive level traversing these choreographies, which lead to a renewed cultural reading of Pinocchio that shifts its core identifiers from loneliness and diversity to relationality and otherness.
Copyright (c) 2023 Rossella Mazzaglia https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Quando Pinocchio incontra Renzo & Lucia. Parodia della Bambina dai capelli turchini nella Fata di Anna Marchesini (in guisa di Gina Lollobrigida)
The papers aims to analyze the performance given by the actress Anna Marchesini (1953-2016) in the television drama “I promessi sposi” (1990), which sees her disguised as the iconic Blue Fairy played by Gina Lollobrigida (1927-2023) within the cult movie “Le avventure di Pinocchio” (1972), directed by Luigi Comencini and based on the homonym novel by Carlo Collodi. The imitation of the well-known star was in fact one of the most important “workhorses” in Marchesini’s comic repertoire. The essay makes use of the contribution offered by the audiovisual document (available in full version on RaiPlay platform) and Tullio Solenghi’s oral testimony, collegue and sidekick in that parodic sketch.
Copyright (c) 2023 Matteo Tamborrino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
OcchioPinocchio. Il Pinocchio apocrifo – e maledetto – di Francesco Nuti
Severely criticized almost unanimously at the time of its release, Francesco Nuti’s “OcchioPinocchio” (1994) represents a rare case of a “cursed” Italian film from the 1990s. It became notorious for its extremely costly and troubled production, whose release was delayed by a year, as well as for the massive flop that followed, so severe that it marked the decline of Nuti’s career and personal life, despite his previous success as a comedian and director. Twenty years after its release, perhaps it is time to reevaluate its worth, if not critically, then at least by scientifically identifying the prominent place it occupies within the myriad of cinematic adaptations of Collodi’s Pinocchio. Nuti’s film is indeed, not only in Italy but also in the international Pinocchio galaxy, the creator of an apocryphal Pinocchio: an adult yet somehow a child due to life’s circumstances, the son of a Geppetto who wants to make him a puppet, forced to flee through a land of toys that is the wildest and most inhospitable America, in love with a dark version of the fairy whom he ultimately helps. A disoriented Pinocchio made of flesh that must learn to discover itself, even timidly encountering sexuality, unable to lie and thus unsuitable for a world of deceitful adults (starting with his father); a Pinocchio thrown brutally into a world of violence, where he must fend for himself without help (no critique has dwelled on the fleeting yet essential moment when he crushes an insect with his shoe while uttering “Fuck you, cricket”, thereby affirming his solitude). Thus, “OcchioPinocchio” juggles various aspects of the Collodian discourse, both diegetically (up to the bad ending), and in terms of the physical and psychological construction of the character, who is hurled from Tuscany to the United States, embodying a specific form of Italian identity.
Copyright (c) 2023 Bruno Surace https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Figura-azioni canzonettistiche del corpo di Pinocchio: ricostruzioni del personaggio replicante nell’immaginario nazionale dalla forma-canzone al musical
In this essay we analyze the figurations of the character of Pinocchio within the Italian song-writing imaginary, studying them from a morphological, transmedia and sociosemiotic point of view, and considering as an epistemological horizon his status as popular and replicating character. From the analysis of this models, it emerges how its nature as a hybrid puppet in transformation represents the narrative shred that guarantees the cohesion of a transmedia ecosystem that evolves into song along a plural path, which manifests itself through relational tensions, visual expansions, and bodily and figurative overlaps, which solicit visual and performative elements. In this way Italian song contributes to the portrait of the transmedia Pinocchio, feeding its ecosystem through new and unprecedented access points and views.
Copyright (c) 2023 Luca Bertoloni https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Quando a calcare le scene è il Pinocchio noir di Zaches Teatro
Zaches Teatro’s work on “Pinocchio” places at the center of its reflection (and creation) the puppet as an “idea”, an object of research by the company that from its origins, investigating the union between different artistic languages (contemporary dance, use of the mask, vocal experimenta- tion, the relationship between plastic movements, live-electronics, up to biomechanics), has found a key element in the artificial figure and fertile ground in what we define as “figure theatre”. “Pinocchio” becomes the engine of a quest that brings to the stage, in a dark and eventful journey, the sense of death, violence and the unknown that Collodi synthesized in images within a completely expressionist epic.
Copyright (c) 2023 simona agnese scattina https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
I pubblici cinematografici dell'emigrazione italiana nel mondo
Copyright (c) 2022 Morena La Barba, Mattia Lento, Enrico Gheller, Adrienne Tuart, Sabine Schrader, Antonio Salmeri, Federico di Chio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Introduzione. Alla ricerca dei pubblici della diaspora italiana
Copyright (c) 2022 Morena La Barba, Mattia Lento https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
«PUTTING ITALY BACK ON THE MAP» DIASPORIC CINEMA AUDIENCES IN POSTWAR SYDNEY
In April 1961, the Sydney screening of Federico Fellini’s latest film La dolce vita (1960) broke all box office records, and the associated scandals attracted the attention of Sydney cinemagoers and the migrant and local press. Over two hundred thousand Italians had migrated to Australia by this time, creating a local demand for Italian film. This article examines the central role that film plays within the social and cultural lives of diasporic audiences and their perceptions of change to show the importance of cinema, not only in cultivating and maintaining cultural and national identity, but in establishing a sense of italianità in 1960s Sydney.
Copyright (c) 2022 Adrienne Tuart https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
«Sophia is there. She is going to help you»
«What would Sophia Loren do?» is a question that Nancy Kulik, daughter of Italian immigrants, asked herself many times in her life. Even at a young age, Loren has served her not only as a compass for important choices, but also to create an emotional connection with her Italian heritage. Through its personal approach, the documentary «What would Sophia Loren do?» makes us understand how Kulik is thus representative of a nostalgic migrant’s view of the Italian-American diaspora. This short cinematic homage gives the opportunity to reflect on Sophia Loren’s cult of the star from the perspective of the “transatlantic-gaze” (Carolan McDonald, 2014), gender and time-image (Deleuze, 1991), and not least, “italianità” and “americanità” against the backdrop of the Italian-American migration experience.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sabine Schrader, Antonio Salmeri https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Gli accordi ANICA-MPEA e l'impiego dei capitali americani nel nostro cinema / PARTE 1 – I primi due accordi e la promozione del cinema italiano all'estero
From 1946 to 1962, the producers’ share of the rentals of US films in Italy was blocked in Italy. The specific use-cases of these funds – both in the film industry and in other sectors – were codified in a series of agreements which involved both governments. For the first time, all six understandings between the trade organizations ANICA and MPAA/MPEA are studied in detail. Based on archival research, the article reconstructs their development and implementation. The agreements, which regulated Italian-American film relations from 1951 until 1962, promoted joint productions and supported the distribution of Italian films by US Studios.
Copyright (c) 2022 Federico Di Chio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Un cinema «fuoruscito». Esuli italiani in Francia e ricezione del Neorealismo (1945-1950)
According to an established historiography, post World War II Italian cinema owes much of its international success to the French intellectual milieu. In this process of reception, the work carried out by exiled Italian intellectuals, who were responsible for promoting neo-realism on the other side of the Alps for diplomatic purposes but without neglecting questions of an aesthetic nature, deserves attention. By relating certain aspects of the socio- historical context with the analysis of some critical texts, this article aims to reconstruct some trajectories of reception of neorealist cinema in the Italian-French press between 1945 and 1950.
Copyright (c) 2022 Enrico Gheller https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0
Per una storia del cinema in rapporto alla sessualità nell'Italia del secondo dopoguerra