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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema [With DVD]
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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema [With DVD] Paperback - 2008

by Angela Dalle Vacche; Introduction by Guy Maddin


From the publisher

A CHOICE Outstanding Academic Book

As scientific discoveries and technological advances radically modernized Europe around the turn of the twentieth century, artists of all types began questioning what it means to be human in an increasingly mechanistic world. Animated by a luminous goddess at its center, the diva film provided a forum for denouncing social evils and exploring new models of behavior among the sexes. These melodramas of courtship, seduction, marriage, betrayal, abandonment, child custody, and public reputation, to mention only a few themes, offered women a vision of--if not always a realistic hope for--emancipation and self-discovery.

In Diva, Angela Dalle Vacche offers the first authoritative study of this important "film" genre of the cinema that preceded the Great War of 1914-1918. She analyzes some seventy films, as well as the work of actresses such as Francesca Bertini, Lyda Borelli, and Pina Menichelli, to establish what the diva film contributed to the modernist development of the "new woman." Contrasting the Italian diva with the Hollywood vamp Theda Bara and the famous Danish star Asta Nielsen, Dalle Vacche shows how the diva oscillates between articulating Henri Bergson's vibrant life-force (lan vital) and representing the suffering figure of the Catholic mater dolorosa.

Taking readers on a fascinating tour that includes the Ballets Russes, orientalism, art nouveau, Futurism, fashion, prostitution, stunt women in the circus, aviation, anti-Semitism, colonialism, and censorship, Diva sheds important new light on the eccentric implantation of modernity in Italy, as well as on how, before World War I, the filmic image was associated with the powers of the occult and not with the Freudian unconscious, as has been argued until now.

Accompanying the book: Diva Dolorosa

Dutch filmmaker Peter Delpeut (Lyrical Nitrate) captures the spirit of the diva in this DVD of clips from early Italian films. Diva Dolorosa presents excerpts of fourteen films from the period 1914-1920, including Malombra, Rapsodia Satanica, and Il Fuoco. It features the work of actresses Lyda Borelli, Pina Menichelli, Francesca Bertini, Soava Gallone, and Elena Makowska.

Diva Dolorosa is a Nederlands Filmmuseum production made in coproduction with VPRO television and in collaboration with Cineteca del Comune di Bologna. The DVD was produced by Zeitgeist Films, Ltd.

Details

  • Title Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema [With DVD]
  • Author Angela Dalle Vacche; Introduction by Guy Maddin
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Pap/DVD
  • Pages 330
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
  • Date March 15, 2008
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780292717114 / 0292717113
  • Weight 1.92 lbs (0.87 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.92 x 7.04 x 0.74 in (25.20 x 17.88 x 1.88 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects Motion pictures - Italy, Women in motion pictures
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2007036402
  • Dewey Decimal Code 791.430

Media reviews

Citations

  • Books & Culture, 11/01/2009, Page 19
  • Reference and Research Bk News, 11/01/2008, Page 255

About the author

Angela Dalle Vacche is Professor Emerita of Film Studies at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her previous books include Cinema and Painting: How Art Is Used in Film.

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Diva. Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema  (with DVD)
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Diva. Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema (with DVD)

by Vacche, Angela Dalle

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Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. First Edition . Soft cover. Fine/No Jacket. Heavy 8vo. 318 pgs. Bibliography. b/w photos. Attached inside the back cover is 'Diva Dolorsa' by Peter Delpeut, a companion DVD of film clips from 1914-1920.
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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema

Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema

by Angela Dalle Vacche

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Paperback / softback. New. As scientific discoveries and technological advances radically modernized Europe around the turn of the twentieth century, artists of all types began questioning what it means to be human in an increasingly mechanistic world. This book offers a study of this important 'film' genre of the cinema that preceded the Great War of 1914-1918.
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Diva – Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema
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Diva – Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema

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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema
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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema

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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema
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Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema

by Dalle Vacche, Angela

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Austin, Texas, U.S.A.: Univ of Texas Pr, 2008. Book. About Fine. Paperback. Signed by Author(s). First Edition.. A lovely copy of the first edition, cd inside back cover is still sealed. Warmly inscribed by the author to a fellow author and film critic..
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