The Italian colonial cinema: Agendas and audiences

Modern Italy

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 49-63

  Ben Ghiat, Ruth ^a  

^a NEW YORK UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 51849112634     PISSN: 13532944     EISSN: 14699877     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1353294032000074070     Document Type: Article

References (87)

1. Cohn, Bernard S., and Dirks, Nicholas B., 1988. 'Beyond the Fringe: The Nation State. Colonialism, and the Technologies of Power". Journal of Historical Sociology, 1 (2): 224–229.
2. Dirks, Nicholas B., ed. 1992. Colonialism and Culture, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
3. Wright, Gwendolyn. 1991. The Politics of Design in French Colonial Urbanism, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4. Stoler, Ann Laura, and Cooper, Frederick, eds. 1997. Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley: University of California Press.
5. Chowdhry, Prem. 2000. Colonial India and the Making of Empire Cinema, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
6. Slavin, David. 2001. Colonial Cinema and Imperial France (1919-39), Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
7. Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. 1996. 'Envisioning Modernity: Desire and Discipline in the Italian Fascist Film'. Critical Inquiry, 23 (I): 109–144. 127–144.
8. Oksiloff, Assenka. 2001. Picturing the Primitive, New York: Palgrave.
9. Shohat, Ella. 1991. 'Imagining Terra Incognita: The Disciplinary Gaze of Empire'. Public Culture, 3 (2): 41–70.
10. Labanca, Nicola, ed. 1992. L'Africa in vetrina. Storie di musei e di esposizioni coloniali in ltalia, Treviso: Pagus. On the visual culture of Italian colonialism, see above all the essays in
11. GiIi, Jean, and Brunetta, Gianpiero. 1989. L'ora africana nel cinema italiano, Rovereto: Rivisto di studi storici. On Italian colonial film, see
12. Hay, James. 1985. Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy, 181–200. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
13. Dubow, Jessica. 2000. 'From a View on the World to a Point of View in it: Rethinking Sight. Space, and the Colonial Subject'. Interventions, 2
14. Crary, Jonathan. 1992. Techniques of the Observer, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
15. Mayne, Judith. 1993. Cinema and Spectatorship, London: Routledge.
16. Williams, Linda, ed. 1995. Viewing Positions: Wa\s of Seeing Film, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. For a collection of newer approaches to spectatorship. see the essays in
17. Stoler, Ann Laura, and Strassler, Karen. 2000. 'Castings for the Colonial: Memory Work in "New Order" Java'. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 6
18. Reich, Jacqueline, and Garofalo, Piero, eds. 2002. Re-Viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-/943, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. On the place of cinema within fascist strategies of mass re-education
19. Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. 2001. Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945, Berkeley: University of California Press.
20. Hay. 1986. Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy; and Marcia Landy: Fascism in Film. The Italian Commercial Cinema, 1930-43, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
21. Lombrassa, Giuseppe. 1935. 'Il senno dei tigrini'. Lo schermo, November: 12 Quotations from
22. Rava, Maurizio. 1936. 'I popoli africani dinanzi allo schermo'. Cinema, I 10 July: 9–11. 10
23. Roberti, Vero. 1938. "Le corazzate con Ie rotelle …". Lo schermo, April: 26
24. Ferbo. 1937. 'If film coloniale'. Lo schermo, October: 26
25. Marcellini, Romolo. 1936. 'I nostri negri'. Lo schermo, October: 20–22. 2120
26. Cappelletti, Franco. 1939. 'Attori primitivi'. Cinema, 76 25 August: 139
27. MacDougall. Transcultural Cinema 262
28. Pickering-Iazzi, Robin. “ 'Mass-Mediated Fantasies of Feminine Conquest, 1930-40 ”. In A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-Unification to the Present, Edited by: Palumbo, Patrizia. Berkeley: University of California Press. Such contradictions within Italian fascist colonial films have been addressed by Ben-Ghiat, 'Envisioning Modernity'
29. Gundle, Stephen. 2002. “ 'Film Stars and Society in Fascist Italy" ”. In Re-Viewing Fascism. Italian Cinema, 1922-43, Edited by: Reich, Jacqueline, and Garofalo, Piero. 315–339. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. forthcoming. On film stars and their audiences in fascist Italy, see
30. Stacey, Jackie. 1994. Star Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship, London: Routledge. An excellent discussion of the mechanisms of female spectatorship can be found in
31. Pickering-Iazzi, Robin. “ 'Ways of Looking in Black and White: Female Spectatorship and the Miscege-National Body in Sotto Ia croce del sud' ”. In Re-Viewing Fascism Edited by: Reich and Garofalo. 194–222.
32. Ben-Ghiat. 'Envisioning Modernity". 135–142.
33. Landy, Marcia. 1998. The Folklore of Consensus. Theatricality in the Italian Cinema, 1930-43, 197–200. Albany: SUNY Press.
34. Goglia, Luigi. 1989. Colonialismo e fotografia. Il caso italiano, Messina: Sicania. On the relationship of photography and Italian colonialism, see
35. 1983. Rivista di Storia e Critica delta Forografia, 4 (5) the special issue of
36. Labanca, Nicola. 1997. “ 'Fotografia e colonialisme) italiano' ”. In Alberto Angrisani, lmmagini dalla guerra di Libia. Album Africain), Edited by: Labanca, Nicola, and Tomassini, Luigi. 25–68. Manduria: Lacaita. Triulzi (ed.), Fotografia e storia dell'Africa: and, for an overview of how colonial photography has been assessed as an historical source by scholars
37. Mignemi, Adolpho. 1995. "Fotografia e ideologia coloniale" ”. In Fotografia e storia dell'Africa, Atti del convegno internationale Napoli—Roma 9-11 Settembre 1992, Edited by: Triulzi, Alessandro. 52–58. Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale. On the importance of photography for the fascist state and the notion of photography as an archive of colonial identity, see
38. Pinney, Christopher, and Indica, Camera. 1997. The Social Life of Photographs, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. For more general discussions of the uses of photography by colonial powers, and for theorizations about the nexus between photography and anthropology, see
39. Edwards, Elizabeth, ed. 1992. Anthropology and Photography, 1860-1920, New Haven: Yale University Press.
40. Green, David. 1984. Classified Subjects: Photography and Anthropology". Ten-8, 14: 30–37.
41. Banta, Melissa, and Hinsley, Curtis. 1986. From Site to Sight: Anthropology, Photography and the Power of Imagery, Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum Press. and the special issue of Rivista di storia e critica dell fotografia, 2, 1981
42. Campassi, Gabriella, and Sega, Maria Teresa. 1983. 'Uomo bianco, donna nera. L'immagine della donna nella fotografia coloniale". Rivista di storia e critica delta fotografia, 5: 54–62.
43. Surdich, Francesco. 1979. La donna dell'Africa orientale nelle relazioni degli esploratori italiani 1870-1915, Genova: Bozzi.
44. Pinkus, Karen. 1995. Bodily Regimes. Advertising under Italian Fascism, 22–81. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Such practices continued long after the empire fell: moreover, as Ruth Iyob has noted, colonial-era erotic images of African women continued to circulate in post-colonial East Africa, which reminds us once again that tendencies toward female objectification and commercialization transcend politics and culture
45. Iyob. 2000. 'Matlamismo and Beyond: The Construction of Eritean Women". Nineteenth-Century Contexts, 22: 217–238.
46. Angelo, Piccioli. 1940. 'La razza e l'impero". Etiopia, September
47. Pankhurst, Richard. “ 'The Political Image: The Impact of the Camera in an Ancient Independent African State" ”. In Anthropology and Photography Edited by: Edwards. 234–241.
48. Campassi and Sega. "Uomo bianco, donna nera'. 59 It would of course be mistaken to posit a uniformly negatively reaction among African women to the act of being photographed: women were often paid for their portraits, especially those shot in studios; moreover, as Elisabetta Bini points out, many photos were taken in the context of a relation of collaboration between African women and Italian men (such as of those that which immortalized madamas)
49. Bini, Elisabetta. 'La rappresentazione delle donne nere nelle fotografie coloniali italiane". paper prepared for a graduate seminar on Italian Colonialism. autumn. pp. 13New York University. unpublished
50. Triulzi, ed. “ 'Fotografia e storia dell' Africa" ”. 152
51. Sontug, Susan. 1977. On Photography, New York: Dell. For photography as a violation of its subject, see
52. Ortner, Sherry. 1995. "Resistance and Ethnographic Refusal'. Comparative Studien in Society and History,: 173–193. For an overview of concepts of resistance and the "everyday forms" it can assume, see
53. Ambrosino, Salvatore. 1990. "Cinema e propaganda in Africa Orientale Italiana'. Ventesimo Secolo, I: 138–139.
54. 1940. "Il cinema degli soldati in AOI. Cinema, June Programming and audiences for the "Cinque maggio' theatre in Addis Abeba is given in
55. 1938. L'Azione coloniale, 29 September Notice of this cinema is given in
56. Vasudevan, Ravi. 1995. 'Addressing the Spectator of a "Third World" National Cinema: The Bombay "Social" Film of the 1940s and 1950s'. Screen, Winter: 324
57. Ambler, Charles. 2001. 'Popular Films and Colonial Audiences: The Movies in Northern Rhodesia'. American Historical Review, 106 (2) February: 89
58. Roberti, Vero. 1938. 'Le corazzate con Ie rotelle …'. Lo schermo, April: 26
59. Mattia, Ettore. 1940. 'Pubblico etiopico'. Cinema, 90 25 March: 171–172.
60. Ambler. "Popular Films and Colonial Audiences'. 100 Parallel views and practices are related in
61. Lombrassa. 'Il senno dei Tigrini'. 31
62. Roberti. 'Le corazzate con Ie rotelle…'. 26
63. Croce, Giuseppe. 1936. 'In AOI con reparto fotocinematogratico dell'Istituto Nazionale LUCE'. Lo schermo, July: 13–14. 13
64. Rava, Maurizio. 1936. 'I popoli africani dinanzi allo schermo'. Cinema, 1 10 July: 9–11. II Maurizio Rava uses the term 'boomerang" in
65. Balestrazzi, Luigi. 1939. 'La cinematogratia e I'Impero". Rassegna sociale dell' Africa italiana, 8 For these debates, see Rava, "I popoli africani dinanzi allo schermo'
66. Mussolini, Vittorio. 1939. 'Cinema per gli indigeni'. Cinema, 64 25 February
67. Ambrosini. 'Cinema e propaganda'. 137 who quotes from a 26 April 1938 letter of Colonello Gigante to the Comando Truppe Regie complaining about the projection of 1860
68. Ambrosini. 'Cinema e propaganda'. 136
69. Ambler. 'Popular Films and Colonial Audiences'. 89 Both Ambler and Vasudevan conclude that spectatorship in situations of linguistic blockage resembles the visceral and interactive viewing modes of the silent screen's 'cinema of attractions'
70. Vasudevan. 'Addressing the Spectator of a "Third World" National Cinema". 319
71. Gunning, Tom. 1990. "The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, its Spectator, and the Avant-Garde' ”. In Early Cinema: Space, Frame, Narrative, Edited by: Elaesser, Thomas, and Barker, Adam. London: BFI. for the concept behind it
72. Roberti. 'Le corrazzate con Ie rotelle …'. 26
73. Marcellini, Romolo. 1936. 'I nostri negri'. Lo schermo, October: 21
74. Cappelletti. 'Attori primitivi'. 139 Mattia, 'Pubblico etiopico'; Rava. "I popoli africani dinanzi allo schermo'
75. Capelletti. "Attori primitivi'. 139
76. Pratt, Mary Louise. 1992. Imperial Eves: Travel Writing and Transculturation, 7New York: Routledge.
77. Bukhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and His World Indiana. Bloomington See as examples of this work, which owes much to
78. Davis, Natalie Zemon. 1975. Society and Culture in Early Modern France, London: Duckworth.
79. Burke, Peter. 1978. Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe, New York: New York University Press.
80. Passerini, Luisa. 1982. Torino operaia e fascista, Turin: Einaudi.
81. Ambler reports that audiences in Northern Rhodesia also laughed at 'inappropriate' moments, but he contends that this was less an expression of opposition than of derision at the overdone emotion displayed in melodramatic Hollywood scenes. "Popular Films and Colonial Audiences', p. 98.
82. Fuller, Mia. 1999. "Agency, Innocence, and Blame'. paper delivered at the American Historical Association. January6-91999. On the complexity of daily relations under Italian colonialism, see
83. Taddia, Irma. 1996. Autobiografic africone, Milan: FrancoAngeli.
84. 1988. Lu memoria dell'impero, Lacaita: Manduria.
85. Diawara, Manthia. 1988. 'Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance'. Screen, Autumn: 66–76. who also notes that the phenomenon of audience identification with negative media portrayals of them has not been fully explored; also
86. Fiske, John. 1989. “ 'Movements of Television: Neither the Text nor the Audience' ”. In Remote Control: Television, Audience, and Cultural Power, Edited by: Seiter, Ellen. 56–78. London: Routledge. Chowdry's Empire Cinema shows how such 'resisting spectatorship' can transmute into public and violent opposition to colonialism
87. Of Mimicry and Man. 1984. The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse". October. 28: 125–133. Mattia. 'Pubblico etiopico'. Homi Bhabha's insightful analysis of mimicry as both 'resemblance and menace' is relevant here: see his