Increased. Stardom and celebrity in the new Italy – UNIVERSITY OF CINEMA CONSULTATION

The lucky expression “increased”, coined by the screenwriter Continenza on the construction site of Other times (1952), he immediately left Blasetti’s film to attach himself to Gina Lollobrigida. And Gina Lollobrigida, in journalistic discourse as in historiographical reflection, soon ended up designating a group of successful actresses, united by an uncommon sexual charge: Silvana Mangano, Silvana Pampanini, Sophia Loren above all.

The increased they were contested by the main producers of Cinecittà, they filled the theaters of every order and level, they unleashed disturbing episodes of collective delirium, they made headlines in newspapers and magazines, they lent their characteristics to iconic brands of made in Italy, inaugurated festivals and exclusive events, officially visited authorities from around the world. The majors were famous, they were celebrities, they were public people. They were divas. Their salience went far beyond the character, the film, the cinema, to more generally embody seductive forms of life and replicable ways of being of the new republican Italy.

By mixing sources and research methodologies, this book intends to give maximum relevance to the stardom of the majority as an agent of history: a social fact capable of modifying working practices, creating forms of representation, conveying gender discourses, mobilizing desires, aspirations and concerns on a large scale. . At a time when the death of the seventh art is feared, the transmedia image of Lollobrigida, Loren, Mangano and Pampanini takes us back to that golden age in which cinema was at the very center of the cultural industry, and from there it extended in all possible directions, generously offering myths, rites and goods that acted as a sentimental glue to the country.