Sample Chapter

Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Con t en t s
List of Figures
vii
Note from the Series Editors
ix
Acknowledgments
xi
Introduction Trouble Men: Masculinity, Stardom,
and Italian Cinema
1
Part I
Crisis and the Contemporary Italian Man
1 Mad About the Boy: Teen Stars and Serious Actors
23
2 Comedy and Masculinity, Italian Style
45
3 Boys Don’t Cry: Weeping Fathers, Absent Mothers,
and Male Melodrama
69
Part II
History, Nostalgia, Masculinity
4 The Last Real Men: Romanzo criminale
97
5 Brothers in Arms: History and Masculinity in
the anni di piombo
117
6 Impersonating Men: History, Biopics, and Performance
139
Afterword
163
Notes
167
Bibliography
201
Index
223
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN CINEMA
Copyright © Catherine O’Rawe, 2014.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–1–137–38146–0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O’Rawe, Catherine.
Stars and masculinities in contemporary Italian cinema / Catherine
O’Rawe.
pages cm.—(Global masculinities)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–1–137–38146–0 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Masculinity in motion pictures. 2. Men in motion pictures.
3. Male actors—Italy. 4. Motion pictures—Italy. I. Title.
PN1995.9.M34O83 2014
791.43⬘65211—dc23
2013039980
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: June 2014
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
I N T RO D U C T I O N
Trouble Men: Masculinity, Stardom,
and Italian Cinema
Masculinity/Crisis
The 2013 “Power List” of Italian cinema published by popular mainstream film magazine Ciak was notable for the lack of female stars,
directors, and producers included. The “Talent” section, which indicated the most influential current figures in the industry, included
only three actresses (out of twenty-five stars) and was dominated by
male stars and directors.1 The male dominance of the film industry is
not unusual, but it has gone unexamined and has been assumed to be
natural, apart from ritualistic gestures of dismay from observers at the
lack of strong female roles. However, the male dominance of Italian
cinema is not just restricted to its personnel, but also encompasses a
representational economy dominated by the concerns of masculinity.
In fact, Italian cinema since the new millennium has been marked by
strong performances by a range of charismatic male stars, often working together, and by representations of troubled masculinity across
a surprisingly wide range of genres, including the teen film, comedy, melodrama, biopics, and political dramas. In particular, Michele
Placido’s 2005 film Romanzo criminale (figure 0.1) showcased to an
international audience a new generation of stars, including Riccardo
Scamarcio, Kim Rossi Stuart, Pierfrancesco Favino, Elio Germano,
and Claudio Santamaria, along with the more established Stefano
Accorsi. Although most of them had been working steadily for years
prior to Romanzo criminale, the ensemble nature of that film was
instrumental in foregrounding many of the features of current mainstream Italian cinema production: its emphasis on homosocial bonding, its turning towards the past—particularly the contested period of
1970s terrorism, the anni di piombo—and its use of charismatic male
performers, often working together repeatedly.
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
2
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
Figure 0.1 Michele Placido’s Romanzo criminale (2005), featuring Riccardo
Scamarcio, Kim Rossi Stuart, Claudio Santamaria, and Pierfrancesco Favino
Yet male stars have received little critical attention in Italian film
studies: in contrast, much work has been done on the female stars of
postwar Italy such as Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida and their
relation to changing conceptions of national identity, with Stephen
Gundle arguing that feminine beauty has long been identified with
Italy, and that “feminine beauty came to enjoy a near-monopoly of
representational functions, symbolic purposes and popular manifestations” (2007: xviii and xix).2 Feminine beauty has also been closely
paired with the promotion of Italian cinema, not least in the many
academic books that use pictures of female stars to sell the text.3 The
reason why male stars have been comparatively neglected may be due
to their perceived universality, in the sense that masculinity is presumed to be invisible or transparent while femininity is the marked,
overly visible category. The naturalizing of the connection between
femininity and beauty (and, indeed, between femininity and women),
and the marginalizing of male beauty have allowed masculinity and
male stardom to be taken for granted and to elude analysis.
The trope of masculinity as invisible has become a central one to
recent academic masculinity studies, as it is precisely masculinity’s supposedly unmarked status that has permitted it to stand as universal and
unscrutinized. If man has been positioned as the “invisibly gendered
subject” (Whitehead 2001), then masculinity has been largely read
as “unmarked, neutral and ‘naturalized’” (Ross 2010: 171) during
decades of feminist and gender studies thought and analysis.4 While
much work has focused on the study of women in Italian cinema, the
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
3
unpacking of hegemonic masculinity is necessary in order to reveal the
conditions in which both masculinities and femininities are produced,
and to undo the occluding of masculinity, which has stood as the sign
of that hegemony: in Brod’s terms, “The unmarkedness of the superordinate is precisely the mark of their dominance” (2002: 166).
Although the last two decades have witnessed a flourishing of the
academic study of masculinity in the Anglophone context, Italian
work on masculinity has been marked by its lateness, and indeed this
“lateness” is another prominent trope in Italian masculinity studies:
scholars such as Bellassai and Malatesta (2000), along with many others, have commented on masculinity studies’ arrival in Italy in the
late 1990s, and on its prior absence.5 This absence is generally attributed to the “failure to institutionalise gender studies” (Tota 2001:
176) in Italian universities, where the lack of dedicated gender studies
departments has meant that gender and sexuality studies have enjoyed
the “precarious status of being ambiguously dentro/fuori [within and
without] university disciplines” (Ross 2010: 165). However, although
it was only in the late 1990s that masculinity studies can be said to
have begun to establish itself as a field of research in Italy, heavily
influenced by Anglo-American gender studies, the 1970s had already
witnessed the arrival in Italy of men’s consciousness-raising groups.
Influenced by contemporary Italian feminist practice, and by men’s
groups in the United States, some left-wing men began to interrogate their relationships to feminism, to patriarchy, and to established
gender roles. The 1977 volume L’antimaschio (The Antimale), edited
by Stefano Segre, was a key text in this regard, and collected testimonies from individuals and men’s groups in Italy, the United States,
Germany, and England. The introduction to L’antimaschio makes
clear that the influence of feminism had led to a practice of “male
consciousness-raising” that inspired unsystematic but heartfelt reflection on the construction of masculinity, on fatherhood, on male sexuality, and on the difficulty of negotiating heterosexual relationships
that have been dramatically altered by men’s and women’s experiences
of feminism. These tentative steps to uncover “the male, this known
unknown” (Segre 1982: 24) chime with a rather different volume,
also from 1977, L’ultimo uomo: quattro confessioni-riflessioni sulla crisi
del ruolo maschile (The Last Man: Four Reflections on the Crisis of
the Male Role), edited by Marco Lombardo Radice; this book collects testimonies from four anonymous left-wing men (a politician, an
intellectual, a young man, and an activist) but it is the framing of their
testimonies that is interesting. Lombardo Radice defines the men as
“males in crisis” (1977: 25) and the word “crisis” is liberally sprinkled
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
4
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
throughout the texts, as well as being prominent in the book’s title.6
The extent to which the idea of masculinity in crisis had become a
well-rehearsed trope at that point is highlighted by the weary words
of Roberto, “the young man,” who says: “I want to tell this crisis of
role, this male crisis, to go and fuck itself” (141). The testimonies
of L’antimaschio are also framed as those of “men in crisis” (Segre
1982: 47), and it is interesting to read that language alongside the
current, post-2000, discourse of masculinity in crisis.7 Crisis is the
dominant trope of current masculinity studies, both in Italy and elsewhere: the Italian films examined in this book express anxieties about
paternity, monogamy, the workplace, and ageing, and the book frames
this anxiety as a response to a cultural discourse concerning the supposed crisis of Italian masculinity.
While a current popular text like Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men
(2012) talks of the “crisis of macho” (55) and discusses the “boy crisis” (166) and the “masculine identity crisis” (53) supposedly brought
about by women outperforming men, by the gains of feminism, and by
men’s struggles in a changing job market, academic work has attempted
to interrogate the terms of this crisis discourse.8 Most sociologists and
gender theorists now agree that the “discourse of critical masculinity”
(Walsh 2010: 2) has a long history: as Whitehead argues, “The crisis of
masculinity thesis goes back a long way, existing in some form or other
for most of the twentieth century” (2001: 8). Various periods have
been identified by historians and gender theorists as times of crisis for
men and masculinities, including the late nineteenth century and the
postwar period (see Mosse 1996; and Bellassai 2011a). The notion of
a masculinity that is suddenly thrust into crisis, whether in the 1970s
or in the 2000s, implies both a prior period of imaginary stability and
a failure to adequately historicize masculinity.9
Work on the crisis discourse and its prevalence suggests, in fact,
that crisis can be read as constitutive of masculinity itself, as Mangan
argues: “Crisis is . . . a condition of masculinity itself. Masculine gender
identity is never stable, its terms are continually being re-defined and
renegotiated, the gender performance continually being restaged”
(quoted in Beynon 2002: 90). This is clearly consonant with Edwards’
more hyperbolic view that a historical perspective leads us to decide
that masculinity is crisis.10 But the question remains: what is at stake
in the notion of crisis masculinity, whether outlined in a nuanced
and profeminist fashion by the president of the progressive Italian
men’s organization Maschile Plurale (Plural Masculinity) (Ciccone
2009: 184) or angrily asserted by the founder of the men’s rights
organization Maschi Selvatici (Wild Men), Claudio Risé, the title of
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
5
whose 2000 book, Essere uomini: la virilità in un mondo feminilizzato
(Being Men: Virility in a Feminized World), implicates femininity, or
feminization, in its critique of male loss of power.
Feminization and Berlusconi
Recent discussions of masculinity in crisis have been principally linked
in Italy to the figure of Silvio Berlusconi, who has dominated the
Italian political scene since his first election as prime minister in 1994.
Berlusconi, with his alleged sexual affairs and use of prostitutes and
escorts, has become synonymous with a degraded Italian male sexuality, and Sandro Bellassai (2011b) makes Berlusconi a synecdoche of
Italian masculinity itself, saying of Berlusconi that “he is nothing but
the sexual autobiography of the male Italian population” (and running together masculinity and sexuality); however, it is striking that
attention to Berlusconi’s hypermasculinity or hypersexuality has been
accompanied by a persistent (and problematic) discourse of feminization around him, exemplified by commentators such as Gundle,
who termed him “a powdered and feminized man” (1995b: 17),
and Belpoliti (2009), in the Italian context, who has gone so far as
to describe Berlusconi as a transgender person, a transvestite, and a
woman.11 Lorenzo Bernini quotes and echoes Belpoliti’s language,
describing Berlusconi as a “pin-up, a transgender body [ . . . ] a star, a
diva, a drag queen” (2011: 15–16).12
Berlusconi’s love of cosmetic surgery, his use of make-up or fake
tan, his penchant for self-care, hair transplants, and chest waxing, his
use of narratives of emotional intimacy, and even his constant smile are
read as indices of his “degraded” feminization.13 So Berlusconi’s supposed hypermasculinity and excessive sexual performance have been
turned back against him and his presumed “feminization” (Belpoliti
2009: 52) read as a collapse of masculinity, as a “catastrophe of virility” (Bernini 2011: 45).14 These essentialist and polarized gender categories only allow for masculinity to collapse into its degraded and
abjected other, femininity, in a way that clearly seeks to shore up and
maintain gender distinctions.15 As I will discuss further in chapter 1 in
looking at the figure of the metrosexual, this debate over feminization
has tended to be a simplistic one, and it is important to bear in mind
that, rather than necessarily signifying a process of “feminization,”
male self-care can be tied to Foucaultian concepts of “technologies
of the self” in which the neoliberal subject (male or female) undertakes the remaking of the self in an entrepreneurial fashion: “Care of
the body is becoming more and more the reflection of an individual
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
6
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
project, of an investment in the self and in one’s own, personal, personalized masculinity” (Ruspini 2009: 19).16
Nevertheless, leaving aside some of the frankly offensive connotations here, whereby transsexualism and transvestitism are aligned
with grotesque or debased masculinity (and noting how these terms
all somehow manage to exonerate hegemonic heterosexual masculinity), it is clear that a discourse around the feminization of masculinity is circulating in Italy, explicitly connected to Berlusconismo. Many
of the films I will be examining in this book are run through with a
sense of palpable anxiety about the idea of feminization or the loss of
hegemonic masculinity and it is therefore necessary to unpack what
this might mean. The fear of male feminization, which has widespread
currency in Italy and elsewhere, has its roots in “a phallic and binary
notion of subjectivity, in which the complete, male subject stands in
opposition to the fragmented or incomplete feminine one,” as DiPiero
(1991: 109) argues. He goes on to point out that the very notion of
feminization implies “that one begins with an originary, masculine
subject and proceeds to its feminization by removing certain crucial
components.” Feminization as a loss or fall from imaginary masculine plenitude is, as Sedgwick points out, “conceptually damaging
in various ways—not least to a possible, positive specificity of female
identity” (1989: 753).17 It is also interesting that in both Italian and
non-Italian theoretical work on masculinity the terms feminilizzazione
or “feminization” are normally used, instead of “emasculation” or its
cognate evirazione, signaling that it is the explicit analogy with femininity that is considered problematic, rather than just a loss of virility.
This coupling of masculine crisis with feminization is also present in
debates over the supposed feminization of the job market in which the
precariousness and fragmentation of labor in a globalized economy
are allied with the valorization of “affective labor” and the transfer
of “technologies of emotion” into the workplace.18 The idea of this
as change—or as loss—also reveals the extent to which masculinity is
perceived through the lens of nostalgia, with “authentic” or legitimate
masculinity seen to have always existed in a prior time: “masculinity is
a nostalgic formation, always missing, lost, or about to be lost, its ideal
form located in a past that advances with each generation in order to
recede just beyond its grasp” (Kegan Gardiner 2002a: 10). It was in
this sense that Pam Cook linked masculine crisis and nostalgia, saying
of the nostalgic narrative of Scorsese’s Raging Bull that “masculinity
is put into crisis so that we can mourn its loss” (1982: 40).
As we will see in the second part of the book, which explores
Italian cinema’s turn to the past for its narratives of masculinity,
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
7
if Italian masculinity is seen as at risk of feminization, and as constantly vulnerable, the films often employ new strategies for shoring
up that masculinity, foregrounding nostalgia and the recuperation of
prior models of masculinity. In this way crisis can become a tool for
recentering hegemonic masculinity, making it the only proper topic
of cinematic representation. It has been argued that masculine crisis
as a discursive and a representational trope (often effected visually
through an emphasis on wounded, failing, or hysterical male bodies)
can be read as a recuperative strategy for masculinity: this is Tania
Modleski’s point when she says that “male power is actually consolidated through cycles of crisis and resolution, whereby men ultimately
deal with the threat of female power by incorporating it” (1991: 7).
The work of Sally Robinson on masculine crisis as rhetorical strategy
has been important in picking up Modleski’s ideas, with her argument that “announcements of crisis are inseparable from the crisis
itself, as the rhetoric of crisis performs the cultural work of centring
attention on dominant masculinity” (2000: 11).19 She notes that
“there is much symbolic power to be reaped from occupying the
social and discursive position of subject-in-crisis” (9) and calls attention to the way that “a crisis in white masculinity gets represented
in corporeal terms” (13). Her argument is that narratives of crisis
“produce both retrenchments and recodings” (10) and that their onscreen representation is a way of negotiating shifts in understanding
of white masculinity.20 Historical and social context is key here: we
need to remember that Robinson is discussing American cinema, and
locates on-screen representations of masculine crisis as a response to
the challenges to and decentering of white masculinity in the wake
of the civil rights movement, and the increasing visibility and claims
to power of women’s and gay liberation movements. Both Hamilton
Carroll and Nicola Rehling take a very similar tack: Carroll locates
his readings of white men as victims in recent American film and TV
as integral to white masculinity’s strategy of “co-opting the forms
of representational meaning secured by women, gays, and people
of color over the preceding decades” (2011: 7). Rehling makes an
analogous point, which is that representations of white heterosexual
masculinity both respond to identity politics and inscribe the white
male as victim in order to shore up the “anxiety that normative masculinity is a vacuous, sterile identity” (2010: 13).
This body of critical work helps us understand the crisis trope as
ultimately generative, laying foundations for new meanings and iterations of masculinity, rather than as apocalyptic, and it is thus easier
to understand how a representational omnipresence of masculinity in
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
8
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
crisis can coexist with this supposed crisis or decline.21 As Walsh notes,
the discourse of masculinity in crisis is a “cultural performative” that
signifies a “period of disorder that precedes and precipitates a longer
period of productivity, restructuring and redevelopment” (2010: 8).
If contemporary Italian cinema can be accused of “dwelling in the
space of crisis,” to use Robinson’s suggestive phrase (2000: 12), and
filling its narratives with images of failing masculinities, or men who
are struggling to come to terms with changes in the gender order, this
surely signals something about how masculinity is being recoded, or
about the degree to which crisis and the responses to it are working to
establish new norms for masculine representation. It might also suggest something powerful about the paradoxical durability of Italian
masculinity.
Bodies, Masculinity, Whiteness
If so far I have dwelt on men, noting the preponderance of male stars
in Italy, and talking of pervasive representations of wounded or failing
male bodies, it is important to remember that masculinity is not merely
a property of men or of male bodies. As Eve Sedgwick clarifies, “When
something is about masculinity, it is not always ‘about men’” (1995:
12). The naturalizing of the connection between masculinities and men
has tended to exclude discussion of women and femininities, and to
elide female masculinity as a topic of analysis; Sedgwick importantly
reminds us that “like men, I as a woman am also a producer of masculinities and a performer of them” (13).22 Despite the absence of representation of female masculinities in mainstream Italian cinema, devoid
of butches and lesbians and with only the odd tomboy (see chapter 1)
or short-haired killer (see chapter 4), it is still conceptually important to
“denaturalize the connection between males and masculinity” (Vavrus
2002: 358);23 this is not least because once we do so we realize the
extent to which, in mainstream representations, “male masculinity and
female femininity delimit the terrain of what is to be considered ‘normal’ gendered practice” (358). It can be argued, I think, quite uncontroversially, that Italian cinema is concerned to mark and reinforce the
limits of that gendered terrain, but of course what is significant is not
just the degree to which this is successful, but also the visible traces left
of the effort and labor of marking and delimiting this terrain. If in the
book I discuss male stars, and representations of biological males, and
look at issues of paternity, brotherhood, and the homosocial, I also try
to bear in mind that “masculinity is simultaneously a place in gender
relations, the practices through which men and women engage that
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
9
place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experience,
personality and culture” (Connell 1995: 71). If we can “only know
masculinity through its effects” (DiPiero 1991: 118), these screen representations of men are the textual effects of concerns about masculinity
and gender that are circulating in Italian culture.
I have relied heavily, as will be evident by this point, on theoretical work on masculinity drawn from the Anglo-American field, partly
because of the relative lack of work in this area in Italy, as I have discussed. However, I certainly acknowledge the danger of appropriating
theoretical models from work on American cinema, where the perceived crisis of white masculinity, as the works of Robinson, Carroll,
Rehling, and David Savran (1998), among others, make clear, can
be read as a defensive response to, and appropriation of, the identity
politics that have marked American life in the last thirty years. This is
obviously not the case in Italy, where it is clear that this model cannot
be applied in a straightforward manner to cinema, as the contours
of the debates around immigration, whiteness, and identity politics
have been so different in the Italian sphere. Italy experienced mass
immigration only recently (since 1990) and is still struggling to come
to terms with the consequences of these flows of migrants, making
for a less integrated society and a still-weak identity politics regarding
ethnic minorities.
However, it is clear that the impact of mass immigration to Italy
post-1990, allied to the fact that the Italian population has rarely
been constructed, even by Italians, as unambiguously and uniformly
“white,” has strongly marked the Italian cultural imaginary.24 There
has been a lot of scholarly work on “migration cinema” in Italy, that is,
filmic works that represent the difficult interactions between Italians
and non-Italians, usually in a realist key and not addressed to a mainstream audience.25 And it is certainly true that in most of the films I
discuss here nonwhite or ethnically marked characters play a peripheral role (although I discuss those peripheral functions in chapters 2
and 4). Nevertheless, I would argue, along with Robinson et al., that
one of the key issues to be acknowledged and unpacked is the invisibility and presumed universality of whiteness as a construct. It seems
plausible to me that contemporary Italian cinema, with its marginal
yet significant ethnically marked characters in certain genres (comedy and retro thriller), is dramatizing, in Robinson’s words, how the
“power to define the terms of the normative” (2000: 4) must be continually rewon. In this light we can look at supposedly “unmarked”
white bodies as engaged in what Robinson calls “an identity politics of
the dominant” (3). Further, I would agree with Rehling, who wants
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
10
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
to “dispel the notion that white heterosexual masculinity is only a
gendered, sexualised, and raced identity when seen in relation to bodies that carry a surplus of signification—in particular, the bodies of
women and men of color” (2010: 5).26 In addition, this argument
engages with the precarious “whiteness” of Italians, and highlights the
importance for male characters in cinema of securing that whiteness.
My approach here also has the advantage of shifting discussion of race
and ethnicity from its current status in relation to Italian cinema—that
is, it is seen as something that pertains only to films “about” migrants
or politically inflected films about multiculturalism in general. Thus
we might begin to think productively about race, whiteness, and ethnicity as pervading the representational field in contemporary Italian
cinema, and as being present in popular genre films along with arthouse dramas aimed at an elite audience.
To bring together all of these considerations, it is important to bear
in mind the need not only to question the connection between masculinity and male bodies, but to recognize the ways in which those male
bodies themselves are (seemingly naturally) raced, gendered, and sexualized, that is, the ways that “masculinity, whiteness and heterosexuality are always articulated through each other” (Rehling 2010: 4).
Part of my argument in the book will thus aim to highlight how the
films themselves expose the fragility of these supposedly natural and
normative formations, with their obsessive emphasis on the contours,
crises, and contradictions of hegemonic Italian masculinity.
Stars, Stardom, and Italian Cinema
The topic of stars and masculinities in Italian cinema is, as I have said,
relatively unexplored and undertheorized, and I noted how the postwar
period, in particular, has been dominated by discussions of female stars
as “operators of a new national identity” (Grignaffini 1988: 121).27
It is interesting, though, that the Italian publisher Il Mulino, as part
of their book series on Italian identity, chose to publish one volume
on an Italian film star, the hugely popular figure of pre- and postwar Italian cinema, Amedeo Nazzari (Gubitosi 1998). Gubitosi reads
Nazzari’s popularity as appealing to Italians because he represented “a
concentrated essence of the positive qualities felt to be typical of the
Italian male” (5). Mary Wood, in her review of Gubitosi’s book, goes
further, arguing that in the postwar period Nazzari embodied solid
patriarchal values but that this, taken together with his “openness to
emotionality suggest[s] that these qualities were perceived to be necessary in making sense of a changing world” (2000: 236).
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
11
Gubitosi’s book, although not explicitly informed by star theory, seems to be drawing on Richard Dyer’s seminal work in Stars
(1998 [1979]) on the ways that the star image might reconcile or
negotiate ideological contradictions, yet, as Wood notes, “he refers
hardly at all to the films’ mise en scène: that is, the framing of the actor,
his costumes, how he is lit, his gesturality and communicative skills”
(2000: 235). As we will see, this avoidance of the means by which the
cinematic apparatus constructs and supports both the star image and
the performance style of the actor has been common in work on star
studies.
In terms of male stars and masculinity, a key point of reference has
been work on the figure of the inetto, or inept man, and the work of
Jacqueline Reich (2004) has been central here. Her reading of the
inetto as a screen character “at odds with and out of place in a rapidly
changing political, social and sexual environment” (xii) historicizes
the figure in relation to postwar Italian film, which was responding to
a society in transition, and finds its emblem in Marcello Mastroianni.
The inetto, argues Reich, is both gendered male and culturally specific
to Italy because of his relation to the codes of Italian masculinity;
he is obliged to effect a “performance of hyper-masculinity” in the
public sphere whilst concealing his “impotent, feminized” (9) core.
The inetto (who will be further discussed in chapter 2) is ever present in commedia all’italiana, or comedy, Italian-style, in the 1960s,
itself a masculinist genre dominated by “male (comedian) comedy”
(Günsberg 2005: 62), and it would appear that ever since then the
fragile male has been central to Italian cinema. In fact it is interesting to note that the majority of work on male star personae in Italian
cinema has looked at comic stars; Giacomo Manzoli has written of
the neurotic males of the comedies of the 1970s (played by Lando
Buzzanca, Alvaro Vitali, Lino Banfi, and Pippo Franco, among others) that “excluded from the sexual revolution, their destiny is impotence, castration, neurosis, deadly psychic disturbances, or, more
rarely, homosexuality” (2012: 190).28 Comic stars and masculinities
have also been analyzed by Alan O’Leary (2013) in his work on the
cinepanettone, or the Italian Christmas film, and he has given particular attention to the comic pairing of Massimo Boldi and Christian
De Sica in terms of their complementary performance styles and star
personae. O’Leary’s focus on male star bodies is particularly welcome,
and will be further discussed in chapter 2.
In terms of recent Italian stardom more generally, the literature is
thin: Gian Piero Brunetta, probably Italy’s most distinguished film
historian, limits himself to a list of forty or so actors and actresses who
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
12
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
have “contributed to and are still contributing to the transformation
of the landscape of film performance in order to create new kinds of
identification; these are enabled by their absolute lack of star aura which
allows the public closer engagement with the works of young Italian
directors” (2007: 630). The vagueness of what these new processes of
identification might be and how they might function is symptomatic
of the general reluctance of Italian film studies to engage deeply with
questions of stardom. Star analysis in the Italian critical context also
falls prey often to the tendency, widespread in Italian film criticism,
to lament the current state of stardom and acting and compare it
unfavorably to a vanished golden age (normally the 1950s/1960s).
So Paolo D’Agostini in a brief piece on stars in 2002 tried (and failed)
to name the new Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, and Alberto Sordi,
and eventually noted only that there were more prominent male stars
than female ones, concluding that “models of masculinity have been
more able to withstand the passage of time” but unable to explain
why (in D’Agostini 2002: 50).29 Chiesi, meanwhile, laments the loss
of stars such as Mastroianni, Totò, and Sordi and refers to the “catastrophic situation of film acting,” which he blames on the influence
of television, that “atrocious breeding ground for those young Italian
actors who achieve instant popularity” (2007: 21).30 Likewise, Marcia
Landy in her book on Italian stardom has little to say about contemporary stardom, simply wondering if national stardom is coming to
an end in our globally mediated age (2008: 185), and listing several “new stars” (i.e., post-1970s) including Kim Rossi Stuart, Carlo
Verdone, and Silvio Muccino, all of whom I will discuss in this book.
Of Rossi Stuart, who also appears in Brunetta’s lengthy list (along
with other stars I analyze such as Riccardo Scamarcio, Elio Germano,
Claudio Santamaria, Pierfrancesco Favino, and Toni Servillo), Landy
says merely that his “versatility, good looks, and his understated acting
combine to make him a formidable figure” (2008: 182).
These quotations suggest a certain reluctance to engage with the
specificities of acting and performance, and how they relate to stardom, and it is certainly true that performance and acting have been
neglected, both within Italian film studies and within the field of star
studies more broadly; in fact, it is now something of a topos of work
on stardom, acting, and performance to note the neglect of performance. As Philip Drake (2006: 84) says, “Film theory [ . . . ] remains
conspicuously silent on questions of performance.”31 This “topos of
neglect” (Taylor 2012: 1) is now being redressed, but it seems that
analyses of the function of stars and of their acting and performance
are still rare.32
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
13
It is clear that despite the repeated dire warnings about the state
of Italian cinema it continues to thrive and produce national stars,
and that this is in good part due to the connection that audiences feel
with those stars. Yet it is difficult to clarify what it is exactly that audiences get from national stars (and it is important to remember that by
and large Italian stars do not “cross over” to Hollywood or Englishspeaking cinema, primarily for linguistic reasons).33 This may because,
in Bruce Babington’s words, “the stars of indigenous cinemas give
to indigenous audiences something that Hollywood luminaries cannot, reflections of the known and close at hand, typologies of the
contingent, intimate dramatizations of local myths and realities [making them] local stars—but no less meaningful for that” (2001:10). As
well as unpacking fandom, and the relationships fans construct with
stars (addressed in chapter 1 with a look at fan responses to Riccardo
Scamarcio) it is necessary to examine how on-screen representations
respond to or feed into the ways that gender is perceived and performed in a society; to achieve this it is important to get away from
the “reflectionist” ideas that still pervade much work on Italian film,
whereby film texts or stars simply reflect historical or social events.
Danielle Hipkins notes that a tendency “to read the image (of masculinity in crisis and female physicality) as a reflection of some tangible social reality, rather than a complex symptom of or response
to it, still plagues Italian film criticism and its treatment of gender”
(2008: 222).34 Gundle, meanwhile, emphasizes that we should read
stars as “cultural symbol and conduit for ideas about gender, values
and national identity” (2008: 263). Perriam moves slightly away from
this cultural indexicality, insisting that the purpose of star criticism is
not to demonstrate “tight indexing of actors’ roles to social roles, or
of screen masculinities to those constructed in reality” but to show
the “relationship between certain arrangements of voice and body
to those tropes, stances, and images out of which masculinities build
themselves elsewhere in cinema and beyond” (2005: 5). This relationship is not merely reflective but has also, as Nixon points out, a
“constitutive role in the formation of attributes and characteristics of
masculinity through which real historical men live out their identities
as gendered individuals” (1997: 301).35 Emphasis on the performative dimensions of on-screen and off-screen masculinities, allied to
readings of screen performance that highlight the ways in which it is
shaped by mise-en-scène, editing, cinematography, and sound, helps
us to understand how star bodies might articulate or make visible preoccupations with masculinity that may be circulating in a culture, and
also shape those preoccupations in specific directions.36 This is in line
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
14
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
with Ashcraft and Flores’s analysis of on-screen performances of masculinity in crisis in American cinema: “Film performance shapes the
social imagination, extending invitations to “new” performances of
subjectivity in everyday life” (2000: 4). I concur with them in regarding film as a “meta-performance wherein actors recognized as such
articulate gendered possibilities for social actors.” These possibilities
themselves are, of course, discursively constructed and limited.
The Book: S TARS AND M ASCULINITIES
C ONTEMPORAR Y I TALIAN C INEMA
IN
This book is the first exploration of contemporary male stars and cinematic constructions of masculinity in Italy, uniting star analysis with
a detailed consideration of the masculinities that are dominating current Italian cinematic output. The originality of its argument lies in
four key areas: first, a focus on a variety of currently popular Italian
stars and on their performance styles, using methodology drawn
from the field of star studies. I argue that by analyzing the performance styles and star personas of these actors in relation to genre and
industrial formulae we can understand the ways in which star bodies make visible specific preoccupations with masculinity. Second, the
book analyzes a wide range of very recent (post-2000) films, across an
array of genres—comedy, teen films, melodrama, biopics, and political dramas—including discussion of many popular mainstream films
that have been neglected by scholars. Third, it also pays attention to
questions of audiences and reception, looking at some of the ways
that audiences and fans, especially in online communities, receive and
interact with stars and texts. Finally, it argues that the rhetoric of masculinity in crisis is itself deployed as a response to changing social reality, and needs to be interrogated and identified as part of a strategy for
recentering white Italian masculinity. If Italian masculinity is seen as at
risk of feminization, and as constantly vulnerable, the films and stars
discussed here employ new strategies for shoring up that masculinity.
The book is divided into two parts: the first part addresses films
that are set in contemporary Italy, while the second part examines
films that turn to the past and foreground nostalgia for the 1970s and
the recuperation of prior models of masculinity.
Part I: Crisis and the Contemporary Italian Man
Chapter 1, “Mad About the Boy: Teen Stars and Serious Actors,” takes
as its primary focus Riccardo Scamarcio, the actor whose trajectory from
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
15
unwilling teen heartthrob of films such as Tre metri sopra il cielo (Three
Metres Above the Sky; Lucini, 2004) and Ho voglia di te (I Want You;
Prieto, 2007)—both adapted from the cult youth-addressed novels of
Federico Moccia—to serious protagonist of middlebrow drama makes
him a fascinating figure. In addition to analyzing the way the camera
frames Scamarcio in brooding close-ups, and how he is positioned as
both subject and object of the gaze from fans, the chapter offers a
reading of that fandom itself. The two Moccia adaptations brought
Scamarcio a fanatical teenage fan base, a fan base dismissed by critics as
hysterical and incapable of discrimination, and which had to be shaken
off if Scamarcio wanted to achieve actorly legitimacy. As well as discussing online fan reception of Scamarcio, the chapter examines how his
struggle for legitimacy has, significantly, gone hand in hand with the
need for him to disavow his own physical beauty; part of this process,
I argue, is deliberately invoked in the rom-com L’uomo perfetto (The
Perfect Man; Lucini, 2005), in which Scamarcio parodies his own star
persona and his objectification and commodification as a heartthrob.
Further, Scamarcio and other ex-teen stars such as Silvio Muccino and
Nicolas Vaporidis illustrate the sometimes tortuous transition from
boys to men of these stars (and their characters) and the importance
of the neglected figure of “the boy” in contemporary Italian cinema,
specifically in relation to this transition to maturity.
Chapter 2, “Comedy and Masculinity Italian Style,” examines
contemporary mainstream Italian comedies about the average Italian
man, the “italiano medio,” in crisis. These popular films usually depict
the thirty- or forty-something male professional who is suffering from
anxiety related to paternity, maturity, ageing, or monogamy (often all
of these issues are addressed through multiple overlapping storylines).
Some of these films appear to be explicitly responding to the economic
crisis and to the current climate of precarietà or insecure employment.
For example, in the very recent film Posti in piedi in paradise (A Flat
for Three; Verdone, 2012) three professional men are forced to share
a house because of financial problems; likewise, in Baciami ancora
(Kiss Me Again; Muccino, 2010) and Scusa ma ti voglio sposare (Sorry,
But I Want To Marry You; Moccia, 2010) straitened economic and
personal situations lead to male cohabitation and the creation of a
temporary “homosocial paradise.” The chapter concludes by looking at the peripheral function of nonwhite masculinities in Femmine
contro maschi (Women against Men; Brizzi, 2011) and Lezioni di
cioccolato (Chocolate Lessons; Cupellini, 2007); it argues that it is
in these interactions between Italian and non-Italian characters that
the whiteness of Italian characters, along with their heterosexuality,
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
16
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
is both consolidated and, paradoxically, exposed as fragile. Comparing
these peripheral, ethnically marked male characters with a comic film
like Bianco e nero (Black and White; Comencini, 2008), in which
the white Italian man, the italiano medio, gives up his family for a
nonwhite woman and emerges triumphant, illustrates the extent to
which white masculinity is upheld as normative, albeit in a register that
mixes fantasy, comedy, and melodrama.
Chapter 3, “Boys Don’t Cry: Weeping Fathers, Absent Mothers,
and Male Melodrama,” addresses drama, and picks up on the anxieties about paternity discussed in the previous chapter. It argues that in
a body of recent films the position of the male as primary caregiver
is at the melodramatic center of the narrative: in La nostra vita (Our
Life; Luchetti, 2010), Caos calmo (Quiet Chaos; Grimaldi, 2008),
Anche libero va bene (Along the Ridge; Rossi Stuart, 2006), and Le
chiavi di casa (The Keys of the House; Amelio, 2004) the death or
disappearance of the wife or partner represents both a severe trauma
and an opportunity for the male protagonist. These films can be read
as articulating a deep-rooted fear of the prospect of a society without
women, but the chapter also suggests that such a phenomenon may
represent a fantasy: the death of the natural mother opens up possibilities for homosocial play, and for a deeper engagement with the world
of children. The chapter situates these films in relation to a contemporary Italian context in which Italian men enjoy greater parenting
privileges than ever before, including custodial rights, and exercise
greater hands-on parenting, but in which, simultaneously, the role
of the male carer becomes a conduit for cultural anxieties about male
appropriation of traditionally female roles, with the films implicitly
evoking the figure of the mammo—the male “mamma”—which has
been the subject of much discussion in Italian journalism.
Finally, in genre and performance terms, the scenes of domestic
loss and trauma generate a performance style that is melodramatic and
ostensive, full of outbursts of rage and grief, and legitimating a mode of
emotional expressiveness normally considered taboo for male characters. Detailed readings of the type of bodily performance showcased by
Elio Germano in his Cannes prize-winning scenes of grief and breakdown in La nostra vita, Kim Rossi Stuart in Anche libero va bene and Le
chiavi di casa, and Nanni Moretti in Caos calmo allow us to analyze how
the “star idiolect” (Naremore 1988: 64) creates emotional authenticity
through ostensive, and often over-the-top, gestural performance that
appears out of control. This type of ostensive performance is thus legitimized as grieving, although it exists in uneasy tension with the codes of
screen acting that privilege invisibility and naturalism.
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
17
Part II: History, Nostalgia, Masculinity
This second part of the book addresses different aspects of Italian cinema’s return to the 1970s. Chapter 4, “The Last Real Men: Romanzo
criminale,” argues that contemporary Italian masculinity is, to a large
extent, constructed on screen through a nostalgic return to the post1968 period. A key text for this recuperation of a prior model of
violent yet more authentic masculinity is Romanzo criminale: the successful 2005 film serves as a touchstone for the return to the 1970s,
a return that is filtered through both the Italian poliziesco genre and
through transnational gangster movie influences. It is instructive to
read the film against the popular TV adaptation, which ran between
2008 and 2010, and which attracted a devoted cult audience. The
increased violence and sexual explicitness of the series are, of course,
partly determined by its production by Sky Italia and Cattleya for
cable television, but can also be interpreted as a response to the anxieties about the “feminization” of men that are supposedly embodied
by Berlusconismo. In both the film and the series the prevalence of
wounded, violated, and abjected male bodies is part of a visual narrative that attempts to fix the boundaries between normal and abnormal masculinity, between white and nonwhite bodies, and between
authentic men and those haunted by the fear of effeminacy. The film
and series (and Giancarlo De Cataldo’s 2002 novel on which both
are based) insist on the sacredness of the homosocial bond, and we
might question the return to a 1970s and early 1980s that is, notably,
depicted with barely any reference to one of the key elements of social
change of the period, feminism. The nostalgic yet traumatic return
to the 1970s is, however, ignored by the series’ audience, which is
predominantly male, and celebrates in online forums the heroic protagonism embodied in the unknown actors who rose to cult stardom
in 2008.
Chapter 5, “Brothers in Arms: History and Masculinity in the anni
di piombo,” continues the discussion of nostalgia and the return to
the 1970s by foregrounding the importance of the homosocial to
the representation of the anni di piombo, or the years of Italian terrorism, 1969–82; it focuses on a very visible group of “quality” or
middlebrow films that take as their central trope literal brotherhood
in order to dramatize the national trauma that the period still evokes.
La meglio gioventù (The Best of Youth; Giordana, 2003) and Mio fratello è figlio unico (My Brother Is an Only Child; Luchetti, 2007) are
films of middlebrow impegno—that is, films that work with star casts,
melodramatic or sentimental plots, and an address to a mainstream
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
18
STARS AND MASCULINITIES IN ITALIAN CINEMA
viewer to construct narratives that thematize political commitment.
Both films dramatize the post-1968 ideological conflict in Italy as a
fratricidal one, depicting deep attachments between two politically
opposed brothers, mediated through a love triangle; such attachment
has to be expunged through the death of one brother. The extreme
brother is shown as standing not just for dangerous political values,
but, as embodied by the charismatic and physically striking Riccardo
Scamarcio (in Mio fratello) and Alessio Boni (in La meglio gioventù),
for star appeal itself. This appeal has to be negated in order for the
other brothers, played by Elio Germano and Luigi Lo Cascio, to
pursue a middle way of moderation and responsible fathering, allowing the nation and the family that stands for it to symbolically heal
itself. Il grande sogno (The Big Dream; Placido, 2009) deliberately
foregrounds the performative aspect of this radical masculinity, with
Scamarcio and Luca Argentero trying to outdo one another other
in giving rousing political speeches and in winning over the woman
they both love, Jasmine Trinca. The chapter argues that the use of
Scamarcio is particularly significant in these films, and that the onscreen audiences captivated by his star quality are a metaphor for the
real-life fan base that needs to be “converted” to enjoying political
films. The chapter concludes by questioning the implications of this
tendency to narrate recent Italian history as fraternal and homosocial
struggle for the current discourse of crisis masculinity.
Chapter 6, “Impersonating Men: and History, Biopics, and
Performance,” turns its attention to the prevalence of biopics addressing recent historical figures, and assesses the questions raised by the
mode of impersonation that dominates them. In looking at Kim Rossi
Stuart’s performance as real-life 1970s criminal Renato Vallanzasca
in Vallanzasca (Placido, 2011), Luigi Lo Cascio’s acclaimed impersonation of antimafia activist Peppino Impastato in I cento passi (The
Hundred Steps; Giordana, 2000) and Riccardo Scamarcio’s controversial appearance as terrorist Sergio Segio in La prima linea (The
Front Line; De Maria, 2009) the chapter follows Barry King’s analysis
of impersonation (as opposed to personification) as a performance
mode in which the real personality of the actor should disappear into
the part. Although impersonation is a critically prestigious mode, both
Scamarcio and, to a lesser extent, Rossi Stuart, came under fire for
their perceived glamorization of terrorism and criminality, with one
Italian critic labeling them “post-ideological faces” because of their
association with popular cinema. In particular, the casting of former
teen idol Scamarcio was criticized by victims of terrorism for potentially sending out the wrong message to his impressionable young
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INTRODUCTION
19
fans, despite the physical transformation he underwent to play Segio.
Conversely, Luigi Lo Cascio was widely praised for his similarity to
heroic antimafia activist Peppino Impastato and for the naturalism of
his performance, which was seen as in keeping with the ethics of representing history in Italian cinema.
The problem of charismatic impersonation is sidestepped by Toni
Servillo as Giulio Andreotti in Il divo (Sorrentino, 2008) in which a
stylized and mannered performance style distances the star from the
character and avoids altogether the problem of physical appeal in generating “sympathy for the devil.” Similarly, in Il caimano (The Caiman;
2006), Nanni Moretti enacts the difficulty of impersonating Silvio
Berlusconi, as three different actors, including Moretti himself, attempt
the portrayal. The negotiation of a difficult Italian past through the
representation of real-life male public figures is thus tied to questions
of authenticity and transformation, performance and impersonation,
and charisma and its negation, all of which are at the heart of this
book.
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Index
Page numbers in bold indicate figure.
Accorsi, Stefano, 1, 37, 56–7,
98, 100, 170n. 29, 170n. 30,
170n. 33, 174n. 34
Albanese, Antonio, 167n. 1, 176n. 8
Alberio, Marco, 174n. 39
Aldo Moro: il presidente (TV series),
186n. 16, 198n. 47, 198n. 53
Alza la testa (Raise Your Head),
180n. 5
Amelio, Gianni, 16, 69, 90, 119,
120, 131, 177n. 13, 179n. 1,
189n. 4, 190n. 10
Amore, bugie e calcetto (Love,
Soccer, and Other
Catastrophes), 45, 50, 51,
54, 55–6, 60, 81, 177n. 16,
179n. 35
Anche libero va bene (Along the
Ridge), 16, 69, 71, 72, 73,
76–7, 79, 87–8, 89, 177n. 13,
179n. 1, 180n. 4
Andreotti, Giulio, 19, 139, 153–7
anni di piombo, 1, 17–18, 56, 98,
100, 110, 117–37, 140–7
Antonello, Pierpaolo, 124, 153,
155, 192n. 35, 193n. 1, 196n.
29, 196n. 30, 197n. 33, 197n.
35, 197n. 44
Argentero, Luca, 18, 37, 62–5, 118,
125, 134, 174n. 34, 175n. 43,
177n. 18, 179n. 33
Argentieri, Simona, 80
Arrivederci amore, ciao (The
Goodbye Kiss), 193n. 2
Babington, Bruce, 13, 47, 141
Baciami ancora (Kiss Me Again),
15, 45, 47, 50, 53, 55, 56, 57,
59, 60, 176n. 7
Baglioni, Claudio, 105, 106, 186n. 17
Banditi a Milano (The Violent
Four), 185n. 7, 187n. 22
Battista, Pierluigi, 142, 185n. 7
Bellassai, Sandro, 3, 4, 5, 168n. 5,
168n. 7
Bellocchio, Marco, 119, 135, 141,
155, 156, 187n. 25
Belpoliti, Marco, 5, 155, 160
Benadusi, Lorenzo, 167n. 5
Berlusconi, Silvio, 5–6, 17, 19,
41, 97, 114, 139, 156,
157–61, 164
Bernini, Lorenzo, 5
Bertolucci, Bernardo, 119, 131,
190n. 17
Bertolucci, Giuseppe, 131
Bianco e nero (Black and White), 16,
45, 61, 65–6
biopic, 1, 14, 18–19, 139–62
Bisio, Claudio, 47, 60, 167n. 1,
177n. 16, 179n. 35
Bisoni, Claudio, 98
Bizzarri, Luca, 56
Bobulová, Barbora, 72, 177n. 16
Boero, Davide, 24, 33
Boldi, Massimo, 11
Boni, Alessio, 18, 118, 127
Boni, Federico, 161
Bonsaver, Guido, 185n. 3, 197n. 43
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
224
INDEX
Bordo, Susan, 174n. 39, 175n. 42
Bordwell, David, 84–5
Bourdieu, Pierre, 121–2, 190n. 15,
191n. 20
Bova, Raoul, 47, 55, 62, 170n. 33,
174n. 39, 175n. 43, 178n. 22,
183n. 25
Bradshaw, Peter, 134, 182n. 20,
184n. 1
Brintnall, Kent, 150
Brizzi, Fausto, 15, 24, 45, 50–1, 56,
60, 171n. 2, 177n. 14
Brook, Clodagh, 157, 160
Brunetta, Gian Piero, 11, 12, 120,
167n. 3, 193n. 3
Bugsy, 104
Buongiorno, notte (Good Morning,
Night), 141, 155, 156, 187n.
25, 193n. 2
Buongiorno papà (Out of the
Blue), 178
Butler, Judith, 102–3, 163,
170n. 36
Buy, Margherita, 159, 167n. 1
caduta degli angeli ribelli, La
(The Fall of the Rebel
Angels), 133
Cagney, James, 109
caimano, Il (The Caiman), 19, 139,
141, 157–61, 162, 189n. 4,
193n. 3
Califano, Franco, 106
Camilleri, Andrea, 147, 148
Canova, Gianni, 27, 48, 176n. 6,
176n. 8, 196n. 31
Caos calmo (Quiet Chaos), 16, 69,
70, 71, 72, 73, 76–7, 79, 91,
180n. 1, 180n. 4
Capotondi, Cristiana, 25, 167n. 1,
171n. 4
Carlson, Marvin, 196n. 27
Carroll, Hamilton, 7, 9, 187n. 27
Casetti, Francesco, 24, 25, 46,
192n. 30
Casino, 104
cento passi, I (The Hundred Steps),
18, 125, 130, 141, 189n. 7,
191n. 25
Che ne sarà di noi? (What Will
Become of Us?), 43, 178n. 24
Chiatti, Laura, 25, 171n. 4
chiavi di casa, Le (The Keys of the
House), 16, 69, 72–3, 74, 76,
77–8, 79, 88–91, 163, 179n. 1,
183n. 27, 189n. 4
Ci vediamo a casa (See You at
Home), 43
Ciao maschio (Bye Bye
Monkey), 109
Cicconi Massi, Lorenzo, 36
Cimino, Michael, 57, 58–9
cinepanettone, 11, 46, 48, 63–4,
171n. 2
Cohan, Stephen, 44
Colpire al cuore (Blow to
the Heart), 131, 133
comedy, 1, 9, 11, 15–16, 24,
45–68, 141
and commedia all’italiana, 11,
46, 48, 51, 65
and romantic comedy (rom-com),
15, 37–8, 39, 41, 42, 46, 65,
176n. 2
Comencini, Francesca, 16, 45
Comolli, Jean-Louis, 152
Connell, R. W., 9, 168n. 10
Costa-Gavras, 35, 174n. 30,
175n. 43, 175n. 45
Crescentini, Carolina, 25
Cupellini, Claudio, 15, 45
D’Agostini, Paolo, 12, 183n. 27,
191n. 18
De Biasio, Anna, 167n. 4, 168n. 5
De Capitani, Elio, 157, 160
De Cataldo, Giancarlo, 17, 98, 104,
113, 114, 192n. 35
De Cordova, Richard, 82, 170n. 31
De Gaetano, Roberto, 153–4, 159,
160, 197n. 36
De Luigi, Fabio, 47, 167n. 1
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INDEX
De Maria, Renato, 18, 139, 141–7,
160, 189n. 4
De Niro, Robert, 58, 84, 182n. 20
De Pascalis, Ilaria, 46, 48, 51, 176n. 1
De Sica, Christian, 11, 167n. 1
Deer Hunter, The, 57, 58–9
Deleyto, Celestino, 49
Delon, Alain, 127, 195n. 17
Deriu, Marco, 77, 80, 81
Di Chiara, Francesco, 122
DiCaprio, Leonardo, 24, 30, 174n. 36
divo, Il, 19, 139, 141, 153–7, 161,
162, 186n. 16, 193n. 2, 193n.
3, 199n. 57
Divorzio all’italiana (Divorce,
Italian Style), 135, 193n. 41
Doane, Mary Ann, 73, 85, 130
dolce vita, La, 65–6, 164, 193n. 41
D’Onofrio, Emanuele, 130, 192n. 31
Drake, Philip, 12, 83, 84, 107
Duncan, Derek, 37, 131, 136,
169n. 25
Dyer, Richard, 11, 30, 42, 106,
182n. 20
Edelman, Lee, 128
Edwards, Timothy, 4, 39
Elsaesser, Thomas, 183n. 28
Ex, 60, 171n. 2
Faccia d’angelo (Angel Face),
187n. 31
Fagiani, Maria Luisa, 174n. 39
Fatti della Banda della
Magliana, 185n. 9
Favino, Pierfrancesco, 1, 2, 12,
37, 47, 50, 55, 90, 98, 99,
170n. 30, 170n. 33,
174n. 34, 180n. 3
Federici, Alessio Maria, 45
Fellini, Federico, 65–6, 163,
190n. 17, 199n. 57
Femmine contro maschi (Women
Against Men), 15, 45, 50–1,
61–2, 64, 171n. 2, 176n. 2,
176n. 7
225
Ferrari, Isabella, 133, 184n. 35
film noir, 70
Fischer, Lucy, 54, 109
Flannery, Denis, 126
Forgacs, David, 119, 124, 125, 128
Foucault, Michel, 5, 70, 77, 78, 120
Fullwood, Natalie, 67, 177n. 11
Galassi, Monica, 25, 172n. 19
Gassman, Alessandro, 37, 72,
174n. 34
Gassman, Vittorio, 12, 170n. 27
Genovese, Paolo, 45, 47, 176n. 2
Geraghty, Christine, 83, 154,
182n. 19, 196n. 26
Gerini, Claudia, 167n. 1
Germano, Elio, 1, 12, 16, 18, 70,
72, 83–6, 98, 118, 129, 134,
183n. 26, 187n. 31
in La nostra vita, 16, 70, 72, 83–6
in Mio fratello è figlio unico, 18,
118, 129, 134
Giallini, Marco, 50
Ginsborg, Paul, 136
Giordana, Marco Tullio, 17, 18, 117,
119, 130, 133, 173n. 3, 189n. 4,
189n. 7, 190n. 10, 191n. 22
Gledhill, Christine, 58–9
Godfather, The, 98
Golino, Valeria, 79, 175n. 48
Goodfellas, 98
grande bellezza, La (The Great
Beauty), 163–4
grande sogno, Il (The Big Dream),
18, 117, 118, 125, 128, 130,
134–6, 142, 154, 174n. 30,
188n. 2, 189n. 7, 193n. 38
Grimaldi, Aurelio, 16, 69, 177n. 13
Gubitosi, Giuseppe, 10–11
Gundle, Stephen, 2, 5, 13, 167n. 2,
170n. 27
Günsberg, Maggie, 11
Hagin, Boaz, 92, 184n. 36
Halberstam, Judith, 42, 169n. 22,
169n. 26, 173n. 28, 181n. 10
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
226
INDEX
Handyside, Fiona, 101
Harwood, Sarah, 54, 80
Higson, Andrew, 82–3
Hipkins, Danielle, 13, 39–40, 60,
127, 169n. 16, 171n. 10,
173n. 28
Ho voglia di te (film) (I Want You),
15, 23, 25, 27–9, 31, 143,
170n. 1
lucchetti, 32–3, 172n. 19
reception of, 31–3
Ho voglia di te (novel), 25, 171n. 9
Holdaway, Dom, 169n. 21, 197n. 33
homosocial masculinity. See
masculinity
Hope, William, 49, 143, 180n. 4
Hughes-Warrington, Marnie, 140
hysteria. See masculinity
Iago, 43, 175n. 46
Immaturi (The Immature), 45,
47, 55–6, 176n. 2, 176n. 7,
177n. 16
Immaturi: il viaggio (The
Immature: the Holiday),
47, 56, 176n. 7, 178n. 24
Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra
di ogni sospetto (Investigation
of a Citizen Above Suspicion),
71, 159
inetto, 11, 65–6, 180n. 3
Insegno, Pino, 35
Jedlowski, Paolo, 167n. 5
Jeffers McDonald, Tamar, 46
Jenkins, Henry, 32, 48, 71
Jensen, Joli, 30
Kalinak, Kathryn, 187n. 23
Kaplan, E. Ann, 56, 181n. 8
Kegan Gardiner, Judith, 6, 44,
169n. 19
Kimmel, Michael, 60, 168n. 8
King, Barry, 18, 146, 161
King, Geoff, 46, 51, 176n. 1,
198n. 56
Kleinhoff Hotel, 133
Kramer vs. Kramer, 79, 180n. 8
Kristeva, Julia, 69, 78, 109, 112
Labelle, 107
ladro di bambini, Il (The Stolen
Children), 121, 189n. 4,
190n. 9
Landy, Marcia, 12, 170n. 27
laureati, I (The Graduates),
57–8, 59
Lenzi, Umberto, 185n. 3, 188n. 33
Lezioni di cioccolato 2 (Chocolate
Lessons 2), 45, 63–5, 179n. 36
Lezioni di cioccolato (Chocolate
Lessons), 15, 45, 61, 62–5,
179n. 32
Littizzetto, Luciana, 51, 177n. 16
Lizzani, Carlo, 133, 185n. 7,
187n. 22
Lo Cascio, Luigi, 18, 19, 118, 127,
170n. 29, 170n. 30
Lollobrigida, Gina, 2, 167n. 2,
170n. 27
Lombardi, Giancarlo, 114, 131,
192n. 34, 193n. 1
Lombardo Radice, Marco, 3–4
Loren, Sophia, 2, 167n. 2, 170n. 27
Luchetti, Daniele, 16, 17, 35, 69,
84–6, 117, 119, 143, 158,
173n. 30, 177n. 13, 189n. 4,
190n. 10
Lucini, Luca, 15, 23, 45, 179n. 32
Lury, Karen, 88, 184n. 29
MacKinnon, Kenneth, 26, 40–1,
175n. 42
Maïga, Aïssa, 65
male melodrama, 58–9, 70–2, 74,
159, 163, 165
Malloy, Eileen, 180n. 8
mammo, 16, 54, 80, 181n. 9
Manuale d’amore (The Manual of
Love), 35, 46
Manzoli, Giacomo, 11
Marchioni, Vinicio, 98
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INDEX
Marcorè, Neri, 64
Marcus, Millicent, 101, 119, 136,
140, 153, 155, 162, 197n. 33
Marini-Maio, Nicoletta, 193n. 1,
198n. 46
Marlow-Mann, Alex, 153, 197n. 33
Martani, Marco, 24, 171n. 2,
176n. 2
Maschi contro femmine (Men Against
Women), 15, 45, 53, 171n. 2,
176n. 2, 176n. 7, 177n. 16,
177n. 17, 177n. 18
Maschi Selvatici group, 4, 182n. 16
Maschile Plurale, 4, 81, 181n. 12
masculinity
as abjection, 63, 69–70, 105,
109, 112, 114
and feminization, 5–7, 14, 17, 41,
44, 50, 52, 54, 61, 69, 73, 75,
80, 97, 109, 174n. 39
and the homosocial, 1, 8, 15,
16, 17, 18, 34, 39, 45, 46,
50–1, 54, 56–7, 58–9, 62,
77, 82, 101–3, 107, 108,
111, 112, 115, 117, 118,
121, 125–8, 134, 136, 137,
165, 178n. 22, 179n. 36,
196n. 23
and hysteria, 55, 59–61, 82, 99,
109, 163
and melancholy, 27, 74, 93,
102–3, 115, 164, 180n. 6
Masoero, Francesca, 24, 32, 35
Mastrandrea, Valerio, 92, 184n. 37
Mastroianni, Marcello, 11, 12, 65–6,
135, 136, 164, 170n. 27,
170n. 29, 170n. 34, 178n. 21,
187n. 28, 193n. 41
Matthews, Nicole, 49, 53, 55
McDonald, Paul, 99, 174n. 36
McRuer, Robert, 115
Medhurst, Andy, 47, 48
meglio gioventù, La (The Best of
Youth), 17, 18, 117, 118, 119,
121, 123, 124, 125–30, 131,
189n. 4, 193n. 2
227
melodrama, 1, 14, 16, 17, 46, 69,
79, 82, 87, 88, 90, 92–3, 121,
123, 124, 126, 130
See also male melodrama
Menarini, Roy, 99–100, 142, 154,
158, 196n. 31
Mery per sempre (Forever Mery),
121, 189n. 4
metrosexual, 5, 38–40, 174n. 39
Mezzadra, Sandro, 179n. 31
Mezzogiorno, Giovanna, 142–3,
146, 147, 170n. 30, 194n. 10,
194n. 11
Micciché, Lino, 122–3
middlebrow, 17, 35, 37, 43, 117–25,
130, 132, 135, 136, 158
Milano odia: la polizia non può
sparare (Almost Human),
188n. 33
Miller’s Crossing, 104
Mine vaganti (Loose Cannons), 31,
36, 172n. 15, 174n. 30,
174n. 34, 175n. 45
Mio fratello è figlio unico (My
Brother Is an Only Child),
17, 18, 30, 36, 117, 118, 121,
125–9, 130, 131, 134, 142,
143, 173n. 30, 188n. 2,
189n. 4
mio miglior nemico, Il (My Best
Enemy), 24
Mitchell, Juliet, 126, 133, 193n. 39
Moccia, Federico, 15, 23, 25–35,
36, 45, 142, 171n. 9, 173n. 21
Modleski, Tania, 7, 74, 112, 178n. 19,
180n. 2, 180n. 3, 180n. 6
Montanari, Francesco, 98, 99, 110
Morace, Alessandro, 71, 87–8
Moretti, Nanni, 16, 19, 72, 91–2,
139, 157–61
Moro, Aldo, 107, 109, 154, 155–7,
158, 186n. 16, 193n. 1
Morreale, Emiliano, 113, 158,
178n. 24
Movimento Maschile Italiano, 81–2
Muccino, Gabriele, 15, 43, 45, 53
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
228
INDEX
Muccino, Silvio, 12, 15, 23–4, 25,
43, 175n. 48
Mussgnug, Florian, 124
Napolitano, Giorgio, 49
Naremore, James, 16, 82, 197n. 41
Nazzari, Amedeo, 10, 170n. 27
Neale, Steve, 41, 46, 90, 108,
180n. 2, 194n. 4
Neorealism, 24, 48, 71, 84, 90,
121, 180n. 4, 183n. 22,
184n. 30
Neo-neorealism, 71, 121,
183n. 22, 190n. 11
Nigro, Filippo, 50
Nixon, Sean, 13
nostra vita, La (Our Life), 16, 69,
70, 72, 73–6, 78, 79, 83–6, 87,
180n. 4, 189n. 6, 192n. 28
Notte prima degli esami (Night
Before the Exam), 24, 35, 43,
56, 171n. 2, 178n. 24
Novecento (1900), 119, 127
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, 59, 167n. 3
Occhipinti, Andrea, 143, 144
O’Healy, Áine, 65–6, 75
O’Leary, Alan, 11, 63–4, 110, 124,
130, 131, 133, 140, 146,
156–7, 158, 178n. 25,
187n. 29, 193n. 1, 194n. 5
Ordinary People, 79, 180n. 3
Orlando, Silvio, 60, 157–60
Outing—fidanzati per sbaglio
(Outing—Boyfriends by
Accident), 43
Özpetek, Ferzan, 31, 35, 36–7,
174n. 30, 175n. 45
Parissi, Monica, 98–9, 187n. 22
Parlami d’amore (Talk to Me About
Love), 43
Parotto, Giuliana, 168n. 13, 197n. 45
Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 101, 123,
186n. 17, 189n. 4, 190n. 17,
191n. 19
Passerini, Luisa, 193n. 40
Pattinson, Robert, 24
Peberdy, Donna, 38, 170n. 35
Pennacchi, Antonio, 123
Peraino, Judith, 105–6
Perriam, Chris, 13
Petraglia, Sandro, 98, 117–21, 125,
128, 130, 136, 142, 143, 145,
160, 194n. 12
Petri, Elio, 71, 159
Pieraccioni, Leonardo, 24, 57–8
Placido, Michele, 1, 18, 30, 35, 47,
97–116, 117, 118, 119, 136,
139, 148–50, 152, 157–9, 160,
164, 189n. 4, 189n. 7
poliziesco, 17, 187n. 22, 188n. 33
Posti in piedi in paradiso (A Flat
for Three), 15, 45, 47, 49–50,
51–3, 54, 60, 176n. 7
Preziosi, Alessandro, 174n. 34
Prieto, Luis, 15, 23, 27
prima linea, La (The Front Line),
18, 33, 99, 139, 141–7, 148,
149, 151, 155, 161, 162,
188n. 3, 189n. 4, 193n. 3
controversy around, 141–4, 147,
161, 162, 193n. 3
Proietti, Fabiana, 98
Propizio, Vittorio Emanuele, 129
Proposal, The, 38
Prova a volare (Try to Fly), 36
Puar, Jasbir, 193n. 36
pugni in tasca, I (Fists in the
Pocket), 135
Quo vadis, baby?, 169n. 23
Reeser, Todd, 169n. 22
Rehling, Nicola, 7, 9–10
Reich, Jacqueline, 11, 65, 170n. 34
Renga, Dana, 56
Rigoletto, Sergio, 51–2, 67
Risé, Claudio, 4
Risi, Marco, 120, 189n. 4
Robertson Wojcik, Pamela, 91,
170n. 31
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
INDEX
Robinson, Sally, 7–9, 108
Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and his
Brothers), 119, 124, 126–7,
191n. 19, 191n. 25
Roja, Alessandro, 98
Romanzo criminale (film), 1, 2, 17,
30, 47, 56, 97–115, 118, 125,
127, 131, 141, 142, 149, 150,
152, 163, 173n. 30, 183n.
27, 188n. 2, 188n. 3, 189n. 4,
193n. 2, 195n. 20
Romanzo criminale (novel), 17, 98,
100, 104, 113, 114
Romanzo criminale: la serie, 17,
97–115, 131, 149
Rosi, Francesco, 71, 119, 198n. 51
Rosin, Hanna, 4
Ross, Charlotte, 2, 3
Rossanda, Rossana, 132
Rossi, Andrea, 76, 89, 90–1
Rossi Stuart, Kim, 1, 2, 12, 16, 18,
69, 72, 74, 76, 86–9, 91, 100,
110–11, 115, 139, 147, 148–9,
150–2, 154, 161, 174n. 39,
179n. 1, 185n. 7, 188n. 31
in Anche libero va bene, 16, 69,
72, 76, 87–8, 183n. 27,
196n. 26
in Le chiavi di casa, 16, 74, 76,
88–91, 179n. 1, 183n. 27
in Romanzo criminale, 1, 2, 100,
110–12, 152, 183n. 27, 188n. 31
in Vallanzasca, 18, 139, 147,
148–9, 150–2, 161, 185n. 7
Rossi, Vasco, 75, 85, 89, 102
Rowe, Kathleen, 46, 180n. 6
Rulli, Marco, 35
Rulli, Stefano, 98, 117–21, 125,
128, 130, 136, 160
Rumble Fish, 26
Ruspini, Elisabetta, 6, 73, 80,
182n. 17
Sansa, Maya, 132
Santamaria, Claudio, 1, 2, 12, 53, 98
Savran, David, 9, 186n. 14
229
Scamarcio, Riccardo, 1, 2, 12, 13,
15, 18, 23–44, 98, 100, 111,
118, 125, 128, 133–6, 139,
142–3, 145, 146–7, 154, 158,
161, 164, 170n. 33, 189n. 3,
194n. 6, 194n. 11
in Ho voglia di te, 15, 27–9, 34
in Il grande sogno, 18, 118,
134–6, 142, 164
in La prima linea, 18, 33, 139,
141–4, 145, 147, 161, 194n. 11
in L’uomo perfetto, 15, 23, 35–44
in Mio fratello è figlio unico, 18,
118, 134, 142, 143
as teen heartthrob, 15, 18, 23–4,
30–2, 35–7, 43, 142–3, 161, 164
in Tre metri sopra il cielo, 15,
25–7, 33, 34
Scarface, 98
Schillaci, Totò, 56
Scorsese, Martin, 6, 104, 185n. 1
Scusa ma ti voglio sposare (Sorry, But
I Want To Marry You), 15, 45,
50, 54–5, 60, 176n. 7
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 6, 8,
125–6, 127
Segio, Sergio, 18, 19, 37, 139, 141–7
Segre, Stefano, 3–4
Segreti segreti (Secret Secrets), 131, 133
Seiter, Ellen, 79–80
Servillo, Toni, 12, 19, 139,
153–7, 164, 170n. 30
Shapi, Hassani, 62, 179n. 32
Showalter, Elaine, 60–1
Siani, Alessandro, 167n. 1
Sisco King, Claire, 186n. 15,
187n. 27, 188n. 32
Solfrizzi, Emilio, 51, 62
Sollima, Stefano, 47, 97
Solo un padre (Just a Father), 45,
53, 54, 177n. 18
Solomon-Godeau, Abigail, 165,
168n. 9, 168n. 15
Sordi, Alberto, 12, 170n. 27, 170n. 28
Sorrentino, Paolo, 19, 139, 153,
154, 160, 163–4
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460
230
INDEX
Staiger, Janet, 70
Stewart, Amii, 105
Sylvester (singer), 105–6
tainted heritage, 56, 140
Tarantino, Quentin, 106, 108,
199n. 57
teen films, 1, 14–15, 23, 24–5
Ti amo in tutte le lingue del
mondo (I Love You in All the
Languages of the World), 24
Ti presento un amico (Let Me
Introduce My Friend), 177n. 16
Ti stramo: Ho voglia di un’ultima
notte da manuale prima di tre
baci sopra il cielo (I’m Crazy
For You: I Want a Last Night
from the Manual Before Three
Kisses Above the Sky), 35
Tincknell, Estella, 107
Titanic, 30
Totò, 12, 170n. 27, 170n. 28
Tre fratelli (Three Brothers), 119,
127, 131
Tre metri sopra il cielo (film) (Three
Metres Above the Sky), 15,
23, 24–35, 174n. 30
Tre metri sopra il cielo (novel), 25
Trinca, Jasmine, 18, 111, 118, 157
Twilight films, 172n. 16
ultimo bacio, L’ (The Last Kiss), 35.
43, 53, 56
Uomini3000 organization, 81, 82
Uomini Casalinghi association, 54, 81
uomo che ama, L’ (The Man Who
Loves), 180n. 3
uomo perfetto, L’ (The Perfect Man),
15, 35, 37–42, 44
Uva, Christian, 140
Vallanzasca: gli angeli del male
(Angels of Evil), 18, 99, 139,
141, 147–53, 154, 161, 162,
185n. 7, 194n. 3
controversy around, 99, 139,
141, 147–9, 161, 162, 194n. 3,
195n. 20
Valli, Frankie, 45, 56, 59
Van Fuqua, Joy, 112, 180n. 2
Vaporidis, Nicolas, 15, 23–4, 25,
37, 43, 175n. 45, 175n. 46,
175n. 47, 177n. 17
Vaudagna, Maurizio, 168n. 5
Verdone, Carlo, 12, 15, 24, 45,
49–53, 167n. 1, 177n. 12
Veronesi, Giovanni, 35, 43, 57,
174n. 30
Verso l’Eden (Eden is West), 174n.
30, 175n. 43
Virzì, Paolo, 60, 160
Visconti, Chicca, 171n. 8
Visconti, Luchino, 119, 126,
184n. 29, 191n. 19
Vite in sospeso (Suspended Lives),
131, 132–3
Viva Zapatero!, 160
Volo, Fabio, 65–6
Volonté, Gian Maria, 154, 157,
158–9, 170n. 29, 170n. 31,
185n. 7, 197n. 38, 198n. 51,
198n. 52
Walken, Christopher, 58
Walser, Robert, 50
Walsh, Fintan, 4, 8, 115, 169n. 20
White Heat, 109
Whitehead, Stephen, 2, 4
Williams, Linda, 70–1, 72
Wood, Mary, 10–11, 71, 119, 122,
167n. 3, 170n. 27
Woolf, Virginia, 121, 122, 190n. 14,
191n. 20
Zagarrio, Vito, 25, 26, 121, 176n. 3,
180n. 4
Zalone, Checco, 61, 167n. 1, 176n. 8,
179n. 33
Zavattiero, Carlotta, 81
Zonta, Dario, 87, 149
Copyrighted material – 9781137381460

Download Report