Angelo--
I had just been reading about your new book online when your posting
arrived. Amazing coincidence. It's interesting that in Peter's book, he
observes (in his footnotes, I recall) that there has been little critical
analysis of how the Italian ``Il Boom'' post-war economic rebirth affected
the Italian cinema, its filmmakers and its production. Your book, by all
accounts, helps fill that vacuum. I'm looking forward to reading it.
An ongoing viewing project of mine has been to watch Italian films in
chronological order from the late '30s to at least the '70s-'80s. (I am in
1952 right now.) Just as notable as the development and evolution of
neo-realism is the physical world of Italy and the classes represented on
screen. One is struck, for instance, by the contrast between the
impoverishment shown in both Visconti's ``Ossessione'' and, of course, ``La
Terra Trema,'' next to the bourgeois lifestyles in Antonioni's debut
feature, ``Cronica di un Amore,'' and Rossellini's ``Europa '51'' and
``Voyage to Italy.'' These latter films also observe, without pressing the
point too much, the growing divisions between the haves and have-nots in the
early years of ``Il Boom.'' There's that feeling of the promise of a better
life just out of reach, as well, in Fellini's ``I Vitelloni.'' The focus in
the '50s--with a few exceptions like ``Il Grido,'' ``La Strada,'' ``Nights
of Cabiria''--seem to shift from the working class to the middle class,
reflecting the national shift in prosperity. This shift seemed to exactly
parallel the demise of neo-realism and the rise of individual authorial
styles. It largely fell to the more commercial comedies of the period to
highlight the poor. Then, Olmi, Rosi, Pasolini and others burst onto the
scene at the end of the '50s and brought a new perspective on the working
class. One is struck by the outright displays of excessive wealth and
indulgence by the present-day (1960) characters in ``L'Avventura'' and ``La
Dolce Vita''--we have come a long way from ``La Terra Trema.'' I wonder if
you explore some of this visible, on-screen economic transformation in your
book....
Robert Koehler
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