Post-War Italian Cinema American Intervention, Vatican Interests [Hardcover]

Through a comparative approach of current theories developed on ideology and an analysis of official documents from the Vatican and the United States Department of State, the book investigates the decisive role that American production companies played in the development of the Italian film industry and their links to the Vatican. This analysis evaluates how the Italian production and distribution industries satisfied the American political and economic interests. American political and cultural ideology of the post-1945 era, is compared with the Roman Catholic ideology in order to assess their cultural propaganda. This is followed by studies of the roles played by key individuals, such as Giulio Andreotti, and institutions such as ANICA and A.G.I.S. involved in formulating the policies and regulations that affected the production and distribution of American and Italian films in the post-1945 era, as well as the involvement of the Roman Catholic Church in this process.

Chapter 1: You Can Be Like Us: American Intervention in Italian Reconstruction  Chapter 2: Roman Catholicism, Americanism and Americanisation: Ideology, Politics and Cultural Propaganda  Chapter 3: The State, Cinema Legislation and American Interests  Chapter 4: Endemic Propaganda: Catholic Production, Exhibition and Criticism  Chapter 5: Dispelling the Myth: The Popularity of American and Italian Cinema in Post-War Italy and the Response of the Catholic Church  Chapter 6: Gender Roles, the Church and the Allure of Modernity in American and Italian Films  Conclusions

...this is a very useful book, detailing a period in Italian film history that is more complex than has been allowed for in more general historical studies. Gennari's access to original archive material and to important sources...are key to this book's value and to its significance for scholars of Italian cinema and film history more broadly. --Paul Sutton, &ll³%