The 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 complexity 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.