62 research outputs found
Be Your Selfie: Identity, Aesthetics and Power in Digital Self-Representation
No full textNetworking Knowledge 8(6)Special Issue: Be Your SelfieNovember 20151IntroductionBe Your Selfie: Identity, Aesthetics and Power in Digital Self-RepresentationDR LAURA BUSETTA, Sapienza University of Romeand DR VALERIO COLADONATO, SapienzaUniversity of RomeThis issue ofNetworking Knowledgeinvestigates the practice of the “selfie”, one of the most significant phenomena in the current mediascape. Selfies are a notable example of how the interaction between social networking and recent forms of visual self-representation is reshaping traditional notions such as subjectivity, privacy, and celebrity, among others. As part of the contemporary diffusion of amateur visual culture via personal devices –among which, mobile integrated cameras are arguably the most relevant –selfies contribute to the global circulation of personal images. Their popularity can be related to other trends dating back to the last decades of the twentieth century, such as the rise of artists and photographers who focused their work mostly on self-portraiture. As far as amateur production is concerned, personal images used to circulate among the relatively homogeneous community of the author's (digital) friends in social networking websites, but since selfies have turned into an object of global public consumption, the ideological mechanisms of celebrity culture have been activated. Thus, selfies have also become a recognizable item in the self-branding activities carried out by public figures: they are a well-integrated part of the media strategy of political leaders and entertainment personalities. This issue aims to contribute to the analysis of such phenomena by adopting two different, yet auxiliary, perspectives: on one hand, the debate on self-representation developed in the tradition of visual studies, and in relation to the history of the arts and photography; on the other hand, an approach based on cultural studies, which aims to highlight how power relations and socially sanctioned forms of “identity” are inscribed in the production and circulation of selfies
The reception of Rome, Open City in France (1946–68): Realism for the elites, revolution for the people
No full textIn the years between the end of the Second World War and 1968, Roma città aperta (Rome, Open City) (Rossellini, 1945) became a key point of reference in a number of French cultural, aesthetic and political debates. This article analyses the film’s reception across popular audiences and cultured elites, making use of histo- rical sources beyond specialist film journals (such as articles from the generalist press, promotional booklets, educational sheets, box office records) that help to contextualize the film’s shifting cultural significance. Three moments in particular are taken into account: Rome, Open City’s presentation at the Cannes Film Festival and its theatrical release (1946–47), during which its perceived ‘truth’ was indicated as its foremost quality; the diminished visibility of the film in the 1950s within the framework of the institutionalization of the politique des auteurs; and the reactivation of the memory of the Resistance in the period leading up to the events of May 1968
‘Mon cher Fédérico’: Fellini and the Cannes Film Festival
No full textBetween the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s, the Cannes Film Festival contributed to the rise of Federico Fellini’s image as an internationally acclaimed Italian auteur. This article situates the relationship between the director and the festival within the respective cultural, industrial and historical contexts. First, it discusses the role of festival director Robert Favre Le Bret in selecting and promoting Italian auteur cinema. Then it focuses on how the system of co-production between Italy and France impacted Fellini’s work and the Festival’s embrace of his films. Finally, it examines how the French press constructed the image of Fellini as an ‘intellectual celebrity’. By grounding the analysis in documents from the Cinémathèque Française (French Film Archive), the Archivio Centrale dello Stato (Central State Archive) in Rome, and other primary sources from both Italy and France, this article provides a synergic view of the conditions for the emergence of Fellini’s public image through the Cannes Film Festival
Moving Pictures and People across the U.S.-Mexico Border: the Critical Reception of Sin Nombre and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
No full textThe declining sovereignty of nation-states intensifies the symbolic functions performed by physical borders. The frontier between Mexico and the U.S. is one of these ideologically charged places: it plays a defining role in national identities and narratives, and contributes to their hybridization. Nevertheless, in films involving a partnership between the U.S. and Mexico, critical discourse is predominantly shaped by separate ‘national’ paradigms. The paper considers as case studies two films concerned with border narratives: The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005) and Sin Nombre (Cary Fukunaga, 2009). Their critical reception is traced by examining reviews, articles and interviews both in the U.S. and in the Mexican press. The central premise of the two movies is, in fact, a journey towards the opposite side of the frontier (South-bound in the former, and North-bound in the latter). Concerns regarding the permeability of the national territory - which characterize contemporary surveillance culture - are filtered through the movies' genres and their different mise-en-scène. Migration emerges as the primary geopolitical framework through which the films are interpreted: the emphasis lies on the economic dimension and/or the ‘national security’ issues; hence, the dynamics of cultural hybridization are significantly overlooked
Sorrentino, Loro e gli altri: l’autore italiano contemporaneo nel contesto francese
No full textThis article analyses the circulation and reception of Paolo Sorrentino’s Loro/Silvio et les autres (2018) in France, as a case study that complements recent surveys of contemporary Italian cinema’s global impact. The film’s commercial failure is taken as a cue to observe the intermediaries between Italian films and French audiences. The institutional logics underlying the notion of “Italian auteur cinema”, the interpretive categories associated to it — such as political commitment or impegno —, and the stratification of taste in France are also discussed. To this purpose, the article brings together three points of view (and as many methodological approaches): first, it contextualizes auteur cinema as a specific type of cultural consumption by French spectators; then, it looks at the media circulation of contents related to Loro/Silvio et les autres and summarizes its critical reception; finally, it provides an account of its participation in festivals, through
interviews with cultural operators who promote Italian cinema in France. What emerges is that, whereas the French market is globally favorable to Italian auteur cinema, the success of each film depends on the ability to intercept a core group of spectators, through the habits, values and intermediaries legitimized by French cinephile culture
Italian-Americans' Contested Whiteness in Early Cinematic Melodrama
No full textIn the contemporary race studies debate, the concept of ‘whiteness’ has acquired a central role. The historical process through which the Italian-American community became ‘white’ is a relevant case study for showing the constructedness of such category, and the power relations implied in it. This paper focuses on the role played by early cinematic melodrama, in the light of wider social and political transformations that led to the assimilation of Italian immigrants into American racial discourse.
In early twentieth-century United States, mass immigration and the institutionalization of cinema were two interrelated phenomena. Cinema became a ‘respectable’ medium by assigning itself a moral and didactic role. To attend film screenings would be, for millions of immigrants, a way to become ‘Americanized’. In the same period wider socio-political discourses contributed to the re-signification of ‘whiteness’ in American society. In order to accommodate both the need of cheap immigrant labour and nativist ideologies concerned with the purity of the ‘white’ (e.g. Anglo-American) core of society, ‘whiteness’ became fragmented into an array of racially inflected ‘national types’. Among them, Italian-Americans were provided with ‘probationary whiteness’, but nevertheless were still deemed as racially inferior and ‘unfit for self-government’.
In portraying Italian-Americans, US cinema deployed melodramatic narratives to negotiate their ‘white’ status through the polarized moral discourse that characterized this particular genre. It is possible to trace different stylistic paradigms of early American cinema by comparing several melodramas directed by D.W. Griffith, portraying Italian-American characters, and later movies, such as Reginald Barker's The Italian (1915). The shift from early modes of representations (with a prevalence of sensational ‘attractions’) to the emergence of a classical narrative paradigm corresponds to a different status of Italian-American subjectivities. In earlier films, the Italian protagonist is an undefined member of a marginalized group, an anonymous subject marked as ‘other’ in relation to Anglo-American society. Later on, the Italian protagonist becomes a fully-rounded character through the use of cinematic devices, such as point-of-view shots and subtler acting, and it becomes possible to gain access to his subjectivity. The representation of Italian-Americans as ‘others’ in cinematic melodrama, and their subsequent assimilation into dominant racial ideology, reveals the variable and complex meanings of the social category of whiteness
Cinema e storia. Cinema e populismo. Modelli e immaginari di una categoria politica (2019)
No full text"Populismo" sembra essere una delle parole chiave del nostro tempo: categoria politica dai confini mutevoli, fenomeno storico che ha avuto molteplici e diversissime declinazioni, è oggi tanto diffuso nei discorsi pubblici quanto sfuggente e apparentemente refrattario ad una definizione univoca. Il numero della rivista si interroga sul rapporto fra il cinema - nella sua dimensione di arte popolare - e il fenomeno che proprio al popolo e al suo primato nella sfera pubblica si richiama. Il volume parte dal presupposto che per definire una categoria complessa e sfaccettata come quella di populismo sia necessario uno sguardo interdisciplinare, capace di indagare, oltre che il discorso politico, le forme che esso assume nella traduzione spettacolare che ne compie il cinema
Power, gender, and the selfie. The cases of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Pope Francis
No full textThe selfie has become a deeply integrated component of the media strategy of politicians and public figures. This article considers three case studies of selfies portraying powerful leaders: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Pope Francis. It argues that these images became a battlefield for negotiating the authorship of the actors involved, and that issues of gender and sexuality are a key element of the ‘fantasy’ sustained by them. The analysis traces the overlapping of the mechanisms of celebrity culture with contemporary political communication. In observing the manner in which these selfies have been discussed, each image is placed in relation to other related media objects in order to delimit the interpretive framework. How come such pictures, which were not directly taken by these three public figures, have come to be identified as their own selfies? This question can be partially addressed by queer theory, which provides useful insights on how moral concerns over sexuality and online self-representation shape the perception of selfies. The appeal of (mis)reading these three images as selfies lies in their ambivalence towards ‘illicit’ sexual fantasies circulating around these powerful figures. By considering these pictures as objects whose aesthetics and cultural function are closely aligned with ‘authenticity’, we allow ourselves to believe that they are conveying some fundamental ‘truth’ about their authorial subject
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