The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America

Giorgio Bertellini

Open Access Published by University of California Press 2019

The Divo and the Duce

Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America

Giorgio Bertellini

Volume 1 in the series Cinema Cultures in Contact

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780520972179

Overview
Contents

About this book

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

In the post–World War I American climate of isolationism, nativism, democratic expansion of civic rights, and consumerism, Italian-born star Rodolfo Valentino and Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini became surprising paragons of authoritarian male power and mass appeal. Drawing on extensive archival research in the United States and Italy, Giorgio Bertellini’s work shows how their popularity, both political and erotic, largely depended on the efforts of public opinion managers, including publicists, journalists, and even ambassadors. Beyond the democratic celebrations of the Jazz Age, the promotion of their charismatic masculinity through spectacle and press coverage inaugurated the now-familiar convergence of popular celebrity and political authority.

This is the first volume in the new Cinema Cultures in Contact series, coedited by Giorgio Bertellini, Richard Abel, and Matthew Solomon.

This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries. Learn more at the TOME website, available at: openmonographs.org.

Author / Editor information

Bertellini Giorgio :

Giorgio Bertellini is Professor of Film and Media History at the University of Michigan. He is the author and editor of the award-winning volumes Italy in Early American Cinema: Race, Landscape, and the Picturesque and Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Introduction: “Nothing Like Going to an Authority!” Open Access Download PDF	1
Part One. Power and Persuasion Open Access Download PDF	15
Part Two. The Divo, or the Governance of Romance Open Access Download PDF	81
Part Three. The Duce, or the Romance of Undemocratic Governing Open Access Download PDF	163
Conclusions Open Access Download PDF	227
Archival Sources Open Access Download PDF	235
Abbreviations Open Access Download PDF	237
Notes Open Access Download PDF	239
Selected Primary Sources Open Access Download PDF	297
Index Open Access Download PDF	303

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 352

eBook

Published: January 15, 2019
ISBN: 9780520972179