The Divo and the Duce : Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America / Giorgio Bertellini.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bertellini, Giorgio, Author.

Series:

Cinema cultures in contact ; 1

Cinema Cultures in Contact ; 1

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Valentino, Rudolph, 1895-1926.

Valentino, Rudolph.

Mussolini, Benito, 1883-1945.

Mussolini, Benito.

Celebrities in mass media.

Communication in politics.

Mass media and publicity.

Motion picture industry--United States--History--20th century.

Motion picture industry.

Publicity--United States--History--20th century.

Publicity.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 309 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oakland University of California Press 2019

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "Nothing Like Going to an Authority!"

Part One. Power and Persuasion

Part Two. The Divo, or the Governance of Romance

Part Three. The Duce, or the Romance of Undemocratic Governing

Conclusions

Archival Sources

Abbreviations

Notes

Selected Primary Sources

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780520301368

0520301366

OCLC:

1048014934