The Unmaking of Fascist Aesthetics

302 Pages·2001·21.26 MB·English

by  Kriss Ravetto

THE U N M A K I NG OF FASCIST A E S T H E T I CS
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University of Minnesota Press / Minneapolis London
THE U N M A K I NG OF FASCIST A E S T H E T I CS
Kriss Ravetto
Copyright 2001 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ravetto, Kriss.
The unmaking of fascist aesthetics / Kriss Ravetto.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-8166-3742-3 — ISBN 0-8166-3743-1 (pbk.)
1. Motion pictures—Political aspects. 2. Fascism and motion pictures.
I. Title.
PN1995.9.P6R38 2001
791.43'658—dc21
2001003521
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments
vii
Introduction
1
1. Between Remembering and Surviving
21
2. Feminizing Fascism
53
3. Said: A Fatal Strategy
97
4. Mixing Memory with Desire
149
5. Fammi campa-. Survival without Omerta
187
Conclusion
227
Notes
235
Bibliography
269
Index
285
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Acknowledgments
This study is a product of multiple interactions—between me, the films and the
critical thinking that have inspired this work, and the great number of friends and
colleagues who have generously offered their time, encouragement, and criticism.
First, I want to acknowledge my deep respect for the intellectual rigor and
aesthetic acumen of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Liliana Cavani, and Lina Wertmtiller. I also
wish to profess my enduring appreciation for my friends and mentors whose guidance
and criticism were invaluable. Thanks to Lucia Re, Sande Cohen, Mario Biagioli, Sam
Weber, and Margie Waller for engaging my thinking thoroughly, commenting on the
various versions of the manuscript, and providing me with a model of scholarly excel-
lence. Special thanks to Randy Rutsky, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Teshome Gabriel, Peter
Wollen, and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith for reading the book in manuscript and provid-
ing stimulating remarks. I'm very grateful to the readers' reports from the University
of Minnesota Press for their attentive and extremely helpful commentaries. I also want
to thank Beatrice Lewin-Dumin, whose careful reading greatly helped me to revise the
manuscript. Thanks to Doug Armato for his astute suggestions and for seeing this
project through to the end.
My research was markedly facilitated by the generosity of various archives and
institutions: in Rome, Cineteca Nazionale, Istituto Luce, l'Archivio di Stato, and
Biblioteca Nazionale; in New York, MOMA's Film Archive and the New York Public
Library; in Los Angeles, the Getty Center Archive, UCLA Film Archive, and the
Academy of Motion Pictures Archive.
Finally, I am indebted to my family, including all of my dearest friends, for their
love and support. This book is dedicated to the memory of my father.
VII
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Introduction
I was made for love
That is my universe
I can't help it
It is my nature
Love's always been my game
Play it how I may
Men cluster to me
Like moths around a flame,
And if their wings burn,
I know I'm not to blame1
—sung by Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel
How could nazism, which was represented by lamentable, shabby, puritan young men; by
a species of Victorian spinsters, have become everywhere today ... in all the pornographic
literature of the world, the absolute reference to eroticism? All the shoddiest aspects of the erotic
imagination are now put under the sign of nazism.2
—Michel Foucault
At the end of the twentieth century, numerous attempts to "settle accounts," "come
to terms with," and "work through" fascism, nazism, and the "Final Solution" have
garnered public attention throughout both the Western media and the West's high
academic circles. For example, recent political and scholarly discourses have demanded
that the nations and peoples who fostered and supported fascism acknowledge their
1