La figura del cantante nei film permette di cogliere non solo immagini e stereotipi legati alla popular music, ma anche i processi di costruzione e ricezione di specifiche identità ‘audiovisive’. Il saggio esplora in particolare la figura di Mario Lanza, cantante italoamericano che riscuote grande successo sullo schermo, prima in America e poi in Italia. L’analisi documenta, attraverso il caso di studio, come negli anni Cinquanta si verifichino importanti processi di transizione identitaria sia nel repertorio (da quello lirico, già ‘mediatizzato’ a quello popular e melodico, con l’integrazione di nuovi ritmi) che nella costruzione dell’etnicità (dal tenore italiano al crooner italoamericano). The figure of the singer in the film allows us to capture not only images and stereotypes in popular music, but also the processes of construction and reception of specific ‘audiovisual’ identity. In particular, the essay explores the figure of Mario Lanza, Italian-American singer who enjoyed a great success on the screen, first in America and then in Italy. The analysis documents, through a case study, how in the fifties major identity transition processes occur both in the repertoire (from the opera, already broadcasted by the media, to the popular and melodic genre, with the integration of new rhythms) and in the construction of ethnicity (from the Italian tenor to the Italian-American crooner).

This paper examines the social discourse that accompanied the birth and early codification of amateur filmmaking in Italy in the thirties through an analysis of manuals and specialist magazines. Firstly it investigates the technological factors, which in Italy were affected by the scarcity of a national industry of production of equipment and films, continually envisioned but never achieved. The paper then examines the discourse bound up with the use of home-movie cameras, the grammar and rhetoric of the amateur production, such as codified manuals offering advice on how to make films ‘properly’. Finally it analyzes the space of amateur film-making – on both the individual and collective levels, above all in the Cineguf societies promoted and organized by the Fascist regime – as contradictory practice, suspended between anarchic impulses, artistic needs and strong codifications: a training ground with a view to an entrance into professional cinema, and at the same time an opportunity to express a new sensibility towards the environment and the landscape. The paper seeks to demonstrate how public discourse sought to create an Italian cinematic identity in which commercial and amateur practice were not antagonistic but cooperated in the difficult confrontation with american cinema.