Folklore of Consensus: Theatricality in the Italian Cinema, 1930-1943

Marcia Landy's The Folklore of Consensus examines the theatricality in the Italian popular cinema of the 1930s and early 1940s, arguing that theatricality was a form of politics - a politics of style. While film critics no longer regard the commercial films of the era as mere propaganda, they continue to regard the cinema under fascism as "escapist, " diverting audiences from the harsh realities of life under fascism. The Folklore of Consensus problematizes the notion of "escapism, " examining the complexit that redeems the films from frivolity and evasion. It shifts the focus from a preoccupation with cinema as the public and spectacular purveyor of "fascinating fascism" to a more immediate and intimate terrain that bears on formulations about the role of mass culture then and now.