La Duse, Aleramo et Serao spectatrices de la scène et du cinéma italiens au tournant du XXe siècle : rencontres parisiennes

Mitchell, Katharine; (2022) La Duse, Aleramo et Serao spectatrices de la scène et du cinéma italiens au tournant du XXe siècle : rencontres parisiennes. In: Spectatrices! Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Paris, pp. 95-112.

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Abstract

Drawing on recent work in feminist film theory on spectatorship that rejects Laura Mulvey’s masculinization of the spectator position in favour of a female spectatorial pleasure, in this essay I focus on the spectatorship of three Italian, internationally celebrated women performers and writers who encountered Paris in their careers. Whether they did so in the imaginary through the performance of a role adapted for the Italian stage or screen, or in person through the staging of a play there, my contention is that their star personae as spectators embodied a continuum of intergenerational, mobile, southern-European cosmopolitanism-in-the-making, and offered their female readers and spectators a means to be self-conscious, engaged spectators themselves. These well-known writers and artists spanned two generations and were known for their acclaimed performances and/or writings. In my analysis of evidence in their autobiographical fiction, diary entries, autobiography, and reportage, I lay bare accounts of admiration and female solidarity among women which typified a particular historical moment in Italy’s past; namely, a burgeoning female culture industry on stage and screen, which was at its most productive and vibrant in the period prior to the onset of fascism.

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