Through an examination of the works of two iconic actors, Amedeo Nazzari and Alberto Sordi, this highly creative and extensively researched study examines how (im)/mobility – as both theme and cultural phenomenon – has shaped the on-screen formation of the Italian national identity.
The volume is organised into two parts: the first is dedicated to the cinema of Nazzari and the second to that of Sordi. Each part is comprised of five chapters organised around a specific film or films and a different expression of the theme of (im)/mobility. There is an introduction to the volume as well as a separate introduction and a conclusion to the two parts.
The first chapter focuses on an analysis of Luciano Serra pilota, the 1938 film that gave Nazzari his big break into the movies and began the formation of his on-screen persona as the idealised masculine hero. The examination of the film provides for the further analysis of Fascist-era cinema and the Fascist regime's attempts to control the mobility of the Italian population through policies on foreign emigration, internal migration, and movement to the colonies. The following chapter spotlights films that differ greatly from each other and from Luciano Serra pilota: Montevergine (1939) and La bisbetica domata (The Taming of the Shrew, 1942) and discusses how the figure of the americano, or the return migrant who comes home to Italy after having lived in the United States or South America, underscores Fascist resistance to migration and mobility.
The third chapter deals with Carmine Gallone's much-studied film Harlem (1943) which the author interprets as ‘a film that directly attacked the United States using the Italian migrant, and the diaspora at large, as a lens through which to articulate an elaborate indictment of American society’ (p. 61). The great innovation of this chapter is the author's contrast between prewar and postwar versions of the film, with specific attention to how the excised sections in the postwar edition ‘activate discourses of nationalism and mobility across the social and political threshold represented by the compounded historical events of the armistice, the civil war, liberation and the ensuing transition to democracy’ (p. 63).
The fourth chapter looks at the commercially successful melodramas directed by Raffaello Matarazzo between 1949 and 1958, in which Nazzari co-stars with Yvonne Sanson. The author reads these films as a bridge between Fascist-era cinema and the commedia all'italiana, with Nazzari's transformation from idealised Fascist-era hero to upstanding pater familias as a reaffirmation of postwar values.
The fifth and final chapter dedicated to Nazzari examines Dino Risi's 1964 film Il gaucho, analysing Nazzari's character, Maruchelli, in terms of the actor's own ‘complicated relationship with Fascist cinema’ (p. 103). A brief, five-page comparison of two films in which Nazzari essentially plays himself – Apparizione (Apparition, 1943) and Federico Fellini's Le notti di Cabiria (The Nights of Cabiria, 1957) – with an analysis of the significant role the automobile plays in the characters’ development, serves as the conclusion to Part One.
The second half of the volume demonstrates how Sordi's on-screen persona is diametrically opposed to Nazzari's heroic italianità. While Sordi can be considered the cinematic embodiment of pre- and post-boom Italy, the author argues that Sordi's comic characters did not represent italiano medio, but rather a ‘radically different idea of italianità, … marked by a desire to reveal Italians to themselves’ (p. 117, p. 120).
Chapter six focuses on Sordi's travel comedies from the 1950s: Vacanze d'inverno (Winter Holidays, 1959), Racconti d'estate (Love on the Riviera, 1958), Oh! Qué mambo (1959), Costa Azzurra (1959), and Brevi amori a Palma di Maiorca (1959), examining the role mobility (in terms of car culture as well as migration) played in the cultural concerns that arose in the rapidly growing economy of pre-boom Italy.
The subsequent chapter interrogates the cinematic tradition of Italian gallismo and the gender politics implied in three of Sordi's films that all deal with issues of labour mobility: I magliari (The Swindlers, 1959), Il diavolo (To Bed or Not to Bed, 1963), and Bello, onesto, emigrato Australia sposerebbe … (A Girl in Australia, 1971).
Chapter eight considers two Sordi films against the tradition of mafia movies, especially in terms of the complex intertextual relationship between American and Italian cinema in this genre: Anastasia (My Brother Anastasia, 1973) and Crimen (… And Suddenly It's Murder! 1960). The author considers several other crime films which are contextualised historically in terms of the events they reference.
The following chapter investigates the theme of mobility in terms of Italian identity and generational shift by juxtaposing Alberto Sordi's directorial debut Fumo di Londra (Smoke Over London, 1966) with his collaboration in a comedy inspired by Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and directed by Ettore Scola, Riusciranno i nostri eroi … (Will Our Heroes Be Able to Find Their Friend …, 1968). The author reads these two films as an expression of a ‘new kind of Italian mobility propelled more by existential angst than by economic necessity’ (p. 188), emblematic of the altered expression of italianità evident in the films of the 1980s and 1990s.
The final chapter looks at the third film Sordi directed, Un italiano in America (1967) as an investigation of globalised petro-culture and its relation to the Italian diaspora. The brief conclusion to Part Two reads two of Sordi's films, which he acted in, directed, and co-wrote – Il tassinaro (1983) and the sequel Un tassinaro a New York (1987) – as a self-aware examination of his own career.
Acting Across Borders presents a significant contribution to the history of cinema studies. In addition to its detailed examination of dozens of films and attention to historical contextualisation, this volume offers original analysis of historical attempts to control mobility and the cultural shift mobility prompted. The author's carefully researched insights regarding the production of specific films, the developing status of Italy's filmmaking industry and evolving star system support the book's argument that Nazzari's and Sordi's films both mirror and interrogate Italian society.
