Acting Across Borders: Mobility and Identity in Italian Cinema

by Alberto Zambenedetti

Overview

Studying the careers of popular actors Amedeo Nazzari and Alberto Sordi, Acting Across Borders explores the question of how Italian cinema from the 1930s to 1980s has considered human mobility. Through close readings of a selection of films, Alberto Zambenedetti examines the concept of italianità (Italian-ness) as manifested in contexts related to migration, diaspora, exile, tourism, travel and their supporting infrastructures. In this wide-ranging study, the methodologies of Film Studies and the Mobilities Framework are combined to illuminate an undertheorised yet vital tradition in the history of the national cinema.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474439879
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	12/05/2022
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alberto Zambenedetti is Assistant Professor in the Department of Italian Studies, University of Toronto

Table of Contents

List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Acting Across Borders

PART ONE: AMEDEO NAZZARI

Introduction to Part One: Amedeo Nazzari’s Many Im/mobilities

1: Flying: Empire Cinema’s (Aero)Mobilities

2: Returning: Im/mobility and Immigrant’s Nostalgia

3: Fighting: Wartime Im/mobility in Harlem

4: Romancing: Postwar Im/mobilities in Raffaello Matarazzo’s Melodramas

5: Migrating: The Pathology of Im/mobility

Conclusion: Driving the Flâneuse: Le notti di Cabiria

PART TWO: ALBERTO SORDI

Introduction to Part Two: Alberto Sordi’s Comic Mobilities

1: Vacationing: The Rise of the Travelling Comedian

2: Working: ‘L’Italia è una Repubblica Democratica, fondata sul lavoro’

3: Killing: Criminal Mobilities

4: Exploring: Italian Identity Abroad

5: Drilling: (Auto)Mobile Satires of Global Petroculture

Conclusion: Driving Across (Screen) Borders

Filmography Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

There is much to praise in Acting across Borders. The book’s analytical thrust provides a fresh look at two widely studied figures in Italian cinema and paves the way for further future research [...] the book will be welcomed by readers interested in Italian cinema and cultural history.

H-Italy (September, 2021) - Emiliano Perra

Acting Across Borders presents a significant contribution to the history of cinema studies. In addition to its detailed examination of dozens of films and attention to historical contextualisation, this volume offers original analysis of historical attempts to control mobility and the cultural shift mobility prompted. The author’s carefully researched insights regarding the production of specific films, the developing status of Italy’s filmmaking industry and evolving star system support the book’s argument that Nazzari’s and Sordi’s films both mirror and interrogate Italian society.

Modern Italy - Marie Orton

Acting Across Borders makes a compelling case for the importance of cinematic mobility for the construction of Italian identity, a case conveyed all the more effectively because of the great lengths to which its author went to research it. Exploring a great many understudied films, and offering new inroads into a number of better-known works as well, Alberto Zambenedetti’s monograph constitutes a notable milestone for research in this promising field.

Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies - Charles L. Leavitt IV

In Acting Across Borders, Alberto Zambenedetti proposes a new way of writing Italian film history through competing constructions of national identities. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this book will raise the stakes in graduate seminars with theories of mobility that anticipate globalization; it will entice an undergraduate audience with historical depth; finally, it will captivate general as well as specialized readers with open-ended conclusions on how the moving image moves on the screen and in society across all kinds of internal and external, imaginary and geographical borders.

Angela Dalle Vacche