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.

ORCID iDs

Mitchell, Katharine ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9147-8285;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)