Media History, Vol. 11, No. 3, 2005

Information Management and Fascist Identity: newsreels in fascist Italy FEDERICO CAPROTTI, University of Oxford

Introduction Recent research in the study of Italian fascism has emphasized the cultural manifestations of Mussolini’s totalitarian regime. This specific field has of late generated a wide variety of interest and scholarship, both on a general and on a more specific level. The relationship between culture and the regime [1], fascist theatre [2] and art and aesthetics [3] have all been subjects of recent research. This paper aims to explore a more material side of one of fascism’s aesthetic and cultural products: the distribution networks of newsreels and documentaries. Cinema has been one of the fields examined through the cultural lens. The moving image and its associated discourses have been re-fragmented and subject to analysis in view of their historical, political and cultural contexts. Within studies of fascism there exists a broad field of cultural
/political research on the propagandistic aspects of the fascist regime. There has been constant interest in film propaganda with a focus on Italy and on newsreels [4]. Propaganda newsreels, produced under fascism by the LUCE institute, have also aroused recently scholarly interest [5]. This paper’s analysis of the distribution and propagation side of the LUCE institute aims to contribute to an understanding of the manner in which newsreels, defined as weekly series of edited and collated news items, were propagated in order to project an image of fascism. Archival material from the Central State Archive in Rome is utilized to support the arguments presented in this paper. The documents originate specifically from the public collection, or Carteggio Ordinario, of documents from Mussolini’s governmental office, the Segreteria Particolare del Duce. The first section of this paper gives a brief overview of the organization of propaganda in fascist Italy, with a focus on cinema. The second section emphasizes cinema propaganda, paying particular attention to newsreels. The third section is a more specific discussion of the LUCE institute, which was charged with producing newsreels and documentaries in the 1920s and 1930s. The utility of newsreel distribution for the propagation of fascist identity is examined in the fourth section. In light of this, an analysis of LUCE’s distribution network follows in the fifth section. Newsreels, documentaries and films produced by the LUCE institute are understood as instruments utilized by the fascist regime to attempt to project a unitary vision of fascist identity in the national and international sphere.

ISSN 1368-8804 print/ISSN 1469-9729 online/05/030177-15 # 2005 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13688800500323899

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Propaganda and Fascist Italy The fascist regime in Italy gained power in 1922. Its policies underwent continuous development throughout the two decades which followed. The organization of propaganda in fascist Italy also followed a developmental curve, as the early years of the regime did not see highly organized propaganda initiatives or coordinated legislation. The bases for the integration and utilization of propaganda were instead laid nearly a decade after the March on Rome. The fascist regime became increasingly focused on propaganda and information management as the end of the 1920s drew nearer. The condensation of dispositions on the press, finalized on 26 September 1928, exemplifies this trend [6]. The document in question united the regulatory ‘circulars’ which had emanated in previous years, and underlined their importance both in terms of controlling particular sources of information and in a more general effort to coordinate information output at the national level. This could be seen as an attempt by the fascist regime to construct its own reality through selected information. A circular dated 29 September 1926, for example, exhorted newspapers and magazines not to focus on news (cronaca ) too closely. Similarly, a telegraphic circular of 9 January 1926 impressed on newspapers the need to reduce coverage of crime ‘and other facts which could exercise a dangerous suggestive power on weak or weakened spirits’ [7]. This included especially reducing coverage of suicides, ‘passion’ tragedies and ‘violent and libidinous acts perpetrated on children’ [8]. Coverage of floods and other events could: create unease and depress the public spirit. [. . .] The exaggerated and alarmist narration of such events could give the false impression that the Italian people have not yet reached that level of maturity which looks reality in the face with a strong and virile spirit. [9] What was unsavoury, depressing and illegal within the regime’s supposedly ‘total’ control of Italy was swept under the carpet in an attempt to keep the fascist identity free of blemishes. A raft of institutional changes was introduced as a result of the regime’s increasing realization of the potential power of propaganda in the 1930s. The year 1934 is especially relevant to the organization of cinematography in Italy. The institutional modifications examined in this section rely significantly on the analysis of the organization of the press and propaganda by Cole [10]. The changes were initiated by a law, passed on 6 September 1934, which saw the transformation of the Press Office into the Undersecretariat for press and propaganda, under the supervision of the Head of Government. Mussolini’s son-in-law, Count Galeazzo Ciano, became the first Under-secretary for press and propaganda. Cole [11] notes that he was, like many propaganda officials in the expanding new Undersecretariat, a foreign service official ‘on loan’ from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A Division of Cinematography was established within the new Undersecretariat later in 1934. Furthermore, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Corporations’ remits concerning film production were passed on to the Undersecretariat of State for press and propaganda [12]. On 24 June 1935 the Undersecretariat became the Ministry of Press and Propaganda, reflecting the ascendant power of propaganda. In 1937 it was renamed the Ministry of Popular Culture [13] or, in a sinisterly Orwellian abbreviation, MinCulPop. The ministry was founded in a

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decade which saw increasing emphasis placed on propaganda in Italy. Tancredi [14] estimates that at the time of the Abyssinian War (1935
/1936), political messages could have been propagated in Italy through 530,000 private and 11,000 public radios, 81 daily newspapers, 132 political periodicals and various LUCE documentaries and newsreels. Activities relating to press and propaganda were progressively transferred to the new ministry from 1936 onwards, even though as much as half of the ministry’s annual budget flowed into the tourist service. Sixteen organizations and corporations were placed under the ministry’s direct supervision, including the LUCE institute, the national tourist industry body (Ente Nazionale per le Industrie Turistiche, or ENIT) and the national radio broadcast body (Ente Italiano Audizioni Radiofoniche, or EIAR). By October 1936, the ministry was organized into six divisions: propaganda, cinematography, theatre, tourism, Italian press and foreign press [15]. It is interesting to note that among the responsibilities of the foreign press division was the need to individuate and ban ‘foreign’ opinions not in line with fascist ‘truth’. From 1935 onwards various newspapers were banned, such as the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and most of the British ‘sanctionist’ press. This was as a result of the worsening of Italy’s international relations with states supporting economic sanctions against Italy after international condemnation of Italy’s annexation of Abyssinia. What Cole [16] relegates to a footnote is the fact that the New York Times was readmitted into Italy on 7 August 1937, and most British newspapers were readmitted even earlier, on 8 May 1937. Most British papers were banned again for a 10-day period between 10 and 20 May 1937. The institutional development of the Ministry of Popular Culture shows increasing attention to propaganda and information management in the 1930s. The regime aimed to control the press, radio and film. It also attempted to control cultural manifestations which could be construed as ‘information’. This explains the control of the theatre and its inclusion as a division within the ministry. The extent to which information management and propaganda under Mussolini’s regime were successful in their aims is not clear. However, the regime did not limit itself to attempts to control and manage information. It also produced information, through propaganda publications, radio broadcasts, films and newsreels. The following section focuses more closely on cinema and newsreels in fascist propaganda. Cinema, Newsreels and Propaganda The fascist regime viewed cinema as a national industry. It tried to favour Italian film production, which had been heavily affected by the First World War and American competition, as had most other European national cinema industries, as well as Italian filmmakers’ inability to respond to changed markets and audience expectations. Before Italy’s entry into the First World War in 1915, national cinema had been relatively strong. It was supported by the home market and by exports [17], in what was a very international industry [18]. Italian cinematic production in 1914, for example, amounted to 1027 films. By 1915, this had decreased to 563 films. That figure was nearly halved in the following years, with only 295 films produced in Italy in 1919 [19]. Production in the following decade fluctuated wildly, as average film lengths doubled and Italian film producers failed to respond to their worsening economic position. Fluctuations in production saw 1316 films produced between 1920 and 1931, of which the extremes are represented by the years 1920 (415 films

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produced) and 1931 (2 films produced). American and French films gained market dominance [20]. It was in this discouraging climate that the regime decided to intervene in order to revitalize Italian cinema. The regime’s effort to maintain a national cinema industry came at a time in Europe’s history in which various governments were realizing the potential of film propaganda in its various forms [21]. This was the case in Italy, even though propaganda was not as widely utilized and developed as in Germany or the USSR [22]. The regime tried to support cinema-going as a public activity; in this climate, thousands of cinemas were built in the 1930s. It is thought that more than 3000 were already open for business in Italy in 1929, although this is not a precise estimate [23]. The effort was not wasted. In 1940, the number of cinema tickets bought per annum reached the 40 million mark, nearly 50% higher than in 1935 [24]. A cinema-going public was being created in the 1930s. As seen in the previous section, the 1930s saw increased institutional, if not practical, emphasis on the management and monitoring of information by the fascist regime. By the end of the 1930s Italian cinema had undergone a more restrictive phase. The year 1931 saw the start of limited protectionism, with royal decree-law number 1121 stating that 1 in 10 films screened had to be Italian [25]. Protectionism of the national cinema industry hinged on the definition of films as ‘Italian’. Royal decree-law 1121 of 1931 had defined Italian films as those written in Italian (or adapted by an Italian), shot on national soil and with a majority of production, distribution and exhibition staff being Italian [26]. In 1933 the obligatory quota of ‘Italian’ films was increased to 4 out of every 10, and it became illegal to show films not dubbed into the national language (dubbing of foreign films in Italy continues to this day). Import tariffs for foreign films were raised, and extra taxes were introduced for films dubbed into Italian outside Italy [27]. In the same year Cines, the largest Italian film studio, went bankrupt and was saved through injection of State capital [28]. A major reorganization of the Italian film industry occurred in 1934, giving the State a larger role with the institution of the General Directorate of Cinematography. The years from 1935 to 1938 heralded increased closure of the Italian film market. An import cap of 250 American films per annum was introduced in 1935 [29]. The year 1938 saw monopoly rights over the distribution of foreign films awarded to ENIC (Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche), the national agency for the film industry. This caused Hollywood to immediately withdraw from the Italian market [30]. The Big Four of the cinematic world */Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, MGM and Paramount*/promptly abandoned the market. The result was a clear decrease in American imports, which diminished from 187 in 1938 to 8 in 1942 [31]. The 1930s were not an exclusively bleak period in Italian cinema, however. For example, in 1935 Cines was replaced by the world-famous Cinecitta` (State controlled after 1938), the best-equipped production facility in Europe at the time. The same year also saw the foundation of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (Experimental Cinematography Centre, or CSC) [32]. Fascist attempts to influence the cinema were not anomalies, and their influence did not cease with the end of the regime. James Hay [33] has argued that cultural histories of Italian modernity should not implicitly reproduce the organizing tropes of histories of Italy which posit a historiographical distinction between pre- and post-war Italy. Neorealist cinema, for example, can be seen as a development which has roots in the fascist period and

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before, and which did not develop in a post-fascist void, but as a fluid blossoming of artistic and technical tendencies elaborated during the 1930s [34]. Italian cinema underwent a subtle, non-institutional fascistization in the 1930s. The cause was not necessarily overt political action. Director Cesare Zavattini argued, for example, that self-censorship certainly played a part [35]. As NowellSmith notes: a cinema does not need to be strident to be consonant with the regime that patronizes it. One might also reflect that the fascistization of culture does not always need the explicit acts of a fascist political regime to implement it. [36] Cinema in fascist Italy can be divided into two broad sectors, namely, films and newsreels (including documentaries). Cinema was not overtly utilized in a political manner in Italy [37], except for newsreels. From 1930 to 1943, official Statesponsored cinematic production represented less than 5% of national production in Italy, or 34 propaganda films [38]. Luigi Freddi, the head of the General Directorate of Cinematography, exemplified attitudes towards cinematic propaganda when he visited Berlin in 1936 and wrote a highly critical report of Nazi policy towards the cinema, encouraging Italian filmmakers not to visit Germany but to learn from France and Hollywood. Similarly Bottai, the Minister for Corporations, stated that educational cinema was essentially boring [39]. Radio [40] and the press were seen as more important for political aims in the country which invented radio and the telephone, even though Mussolini claimed, echoing Lenin, that cinematography was the greatest weapon [41]. Interestingly, Luigi Freddi had been a journalist on Italo Balbo’s renown long-distance flight from Italy to Chicago in 1933, and criticized the state of Italian cinema after covering the flight. Freddi went on to spend two months in Hollywood researching American film production. He subsequently penned more critical articles on the state of the Italian film industry. The articles intrigued Mussolini and contributed to Freddi’s rise to the directorship of the General Directorate of Cinematography [42]. This episode reflects fascism’s evolving relationship not only with the cinema, but with cultural representation. The regime was open to a variety of cultural interpretations, as long as they served fascist political and ideological aims [43]. Garofalo [44], for example, recounts the visit to Soviet Russia by LUCE president Alessandro Sardi in 1932. This visit convinced Sardi of the need to centralize Italian cinema, and led to the establishment of the Scuola Nazionale di Cinematografia (National Cinematography School, out of which evolved the CSC), on the model of the Moscow State Film School. Whilst the regime slowly realized the propaganda potential of feature films, it was quicker in utilizing newsreels [45]. The first political speech ever projected on the silver screen was an interview with Mussolini for Fox Movietone News in 1927 [46], exemplifying the regime’s awareness of the potentialities of newsreels. It would be a fallacy, however, to define feature films produced during the fascist period as escapist products free to pursue any theme, apart from social, political or antifascist ones [47]. Political aims need not be exclusively expressed through official propaganda films, as has been shown by John MacKenzie in his study of the cinema and radio in the formation of ideas of British identity and empire [48]. Taylor [49] has argued that the ideological and political use of propaganda increased in Italy following technical advances in broadcasting and the media, areas

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directly connected to filmic production. The LUCE institute utilized cinematic technology to produce representations of ‘fascist’ reality. The following section focuses on an institute which was known by an acronym meaning ‘light’, but which might be considered to have been an instrument for the creation of an alternative, fascist ‘reality’. LUCE, Camera, Action Newsreel production can be seen as significant in the production of fascist identity, as an instance of self-representation by the regime. There is scholarly doubt that cinema had any great influence in fascist Italy in propaganda terms. However, the regime was notably involved in cinematic production in the case of the LUCE institute (L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa , the Union of Educational Cinematography). Thompson [50] states that it was founded in 1924. It was in reality founded by royal decree-law number 1985 on 5 November 1925 [51]. The decree also placed the institute under government control [52]. The fact that the LUCE institute was seen as useful by the regime is indicated in a letter signed by Mussolini, sent to the institute’s president, Filippo Cremonesi (who would shortly be substituted by Alessandro Sardi) in October 1928. He congratulated the institute on three years of activity [53]. However, as mentioned, doubts about the reliance of the regime on cinema and newsreels are frequent in scholars’ accounts. Berezin [54] contends that theatre was a more prominent propaganda weapon under fascism. Schnapp [55] supports this view. It would be interesting to verify how both types of propaganda were utilized in order to analyse which among the two (not counting the radio, the press and other printed material) was the most widespread regardless of official preference. Berezin [56], for example, reveals that during the period between 1934 and 1940, 354 new plays were released in Italy. Of these, only 5% had ‘fascist’ themes [57] and 15% had ambiguous political thematic content. An overwhelming 72% of new plays were love stories or farces. During the period from 1934 to 1943, of the 17,330 plays which appeared before the censoring authorities, 630 were rejected and 1000 were sent back for revision [58]. Erik Levi [59] has also noted that where opera was concerned, the levels of political restrictiveness were negligible until the foundation of the Ministry of Popular Culture. Potentially controversial opera performances continued until 1942 without being countered by significant political opposition. Regarding newsreel production, it is revelatory that from 1927 onwards (the year of LUCE’s mandate for newsreels and documentaries), for the first time, cinema takings ‘accounted for more than 50 per cent of the takings of all forms of spectator entertainment, including sport, theatres and varieties’ [60]. Gross box-office receipts had in fact doubled between 1924 and 1927. In 1936, cinema-going accounted for 70% of all box-office takings. This share increased to 83% in 1941. Admittedly, most of the takings were for imported feature films (accounting for 84% of box-office takings in 1936) [61]. However, the LUCE institute was producing four newsreels a week by the 1930s. From 1926 onwards the exhibition of newsreels in cinemas was made compulsory, as legislated through royal decree-law number 1000 of 3 April 1926 [62]. This, coupled with the increased cinema-going figures, means that exposure to newsreels was far higher than exposure to theatre-based propaganda. Prominent antifascist Elwin, for example, stated that: ‘After the press, it is the programmes of the L.U.C.E. which are, to my mind, the most important instruments for mass

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propaganda in the hands of the Italian Government, for these reach all strata of the population’ [63]. Even the British government expressed concern at the effects of Italian film propaganda abroad [64]. The fascist regime saw cinema and newsreels as useful propaganda tools [65], even if they favoured other forms of propaganda. Pierre Sorlin states this when he notes that ‘Newsreels were effective [. . .] not in advertising Fascism, but in reinforcing or articulating existing ideas and in convincing audiences that the country was on the right path’ [66]. However, he maintains a sceptical view of the power of LUCE newsreel in directly propagandizing Fascism in Italy: ‘The creation of the Light Institute rallied several intellectuals to the regime but it did not provide Fascism with a tool likely to publicize its aims on the silver screen’ [67]. It is this paper’s contention, however, that newsreels can be seen as having contributed towards a constructed representation of the regime. They became part of a manufactured reality represented as truth, or mediated reality, using Phillips’ description of documentaries [68]. The LUCE institute came into being at a time in which the regime was taking stock of the potential of film propaganda. Archival research has been useful in reconstructing the organizational structure of the LUCE institute during the years of fascism. It must be noted, however, that as with most governmental institutions, the institute was subjected to a variety of changes and modifications throughout its life. The institute was not independent, and many of its initiatives were conceived in the political sphere or as political tools. The overtly government-linked character of the institute can be seen through the fact that the president of the institute was appointed by cabinet ministers and other government officials [69]. The LUCE institute’s production was initially thematized and divided into specific production sections, or cinemateche. These reflected the subjects pursued by the institute. Tellingly, the foremost thematic section, formed in 1926, was concerned with the production of agrarian documentaries and newsreels. It was divided into two subsections, one focused on agrarian propaganda and the promotion of rural life, and the other on agrarian and farming education. Other cinemateche specialized in industrial propaganda and education, religion and religious art, national culture, military propaganda and education, tourism and naval propaganda, hygiene and social prevention, and culture and propaganda abroad [70]. The cinemateche, however, were disbanded in the mid-1930s, reflecting a political shift away from ‘cultural’ initiatives [71]. The structure presented below existed in the 1930s after the institute had gone through its years of initial development and organization at the end of the 1920s. Taking account of the reorganization which occurred in 1934 [72], the LUCE institute was organized in the following sections: administration service (contracts, financial status, etc.), production service (cinematography and photography), commercial service, accounting service, Director General’s office, human resources and legal office, and the inspection service. The film production service, directly concerned with cinematographic output, was organized so as to include newsreels, films, special effects and animation, control services for negative and positive copies, and the Rivista LUCE , a cinematographic initiative aimed at showing how fascism had ‘renewed’ Italy through a variety of public works and enterprises. The inspection service was responsible, among other things, for verifying that cinematographers screened the compulsory LUCE newsreels. The following section investigates the construction of fascist identity through LUCE’s cinematic products.

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Cinemato-fascist Identity The distribution of LUCE newsreels and films can be interpreted as an instance within the construction and propagation of the image of fascism. The institute’s main concerns were not financial. Rather, it focused on its propaganda and education purpose. However, it did have certain financial preoccupations. For example, the 1934 yearly LUCE report calculates that the average cost per metre of reel was c .32.42 lire, down from c.60 lire per metre in 1933. In 1934, LUCE intake from newsreel screenings (reels rented out to cinemas) was of 9,962,997 lire [73]. The institute’s main aim was not monetary profit. Networks developed by LUCE were aimed at creating a presence in cinemas and city squares. Free showings of particular propaganda material were organized in order to increase exposure to ideas of a fascist identity. The showing of LUCE material was not a ham-fisted propagation of national propaganda, although evidence exists to show that the institute had exclusive access to certain home news events [74]. Newsreels included items from abroad, supplied by foreign companies, although it would be interesting to research how these were presented and dubbed. In 1934, for example, 208 LUCE newsreels were produced for a total of 47,283 metres of film [75]. Of these, 26,371 metres were negatives produced by LUCE, and 20,912 metres originated from various foreign news services (1934 was the year in which LUCE switched foreign news suppliers from Fox Corporation to Paramount) [76]. The LUCE institute aimed to turn metres of film into cultural markers of fascist aims and ideology in the national consciousness. A presentation of fascism abroad was also attempted through the international film market. The following investigates LUCE distribution on a national and international level. LUCE’s emphasis was mainly national. In 1934, it produced 4611 reel and film pieces for national distribution. Only 811 news items were sent abroad [77]. LUCE was squarely aimed at being a cinematographic influence on Italians. By this, the regime not only meant those living in the peninsula, but also the ‘colonists’ and colonized populations of Italy’s overseas possessions. The film Duce, for example, was screened in Italy’s 76 provincial capitals, and also in Bengasi, Tripoli, Asmara, Mogadishu and Rhodes [78]. It was screened on the ‘28th’, according to archival sources. Speculation would interpret this as a symbolic, mythical date, in fascist style: 28 October, anniversary of the March on Rome. If this were the case, it could be seen as an attempt to reinforce the image-based projection of fascist identity with historical references. The film was publicized with the production of 15,000 colour posters featuring the Duce’s profile and the word ‘DUCE’ printed below it. It was also screened in secondary schools after the ‘28th’, and shown at railway depots and given to the Opera Nazionale Combattenti, a national organization, for screenings [79]. Schoolchildren, railwaymen, land reclamation workers and ‘internal colonists’, from the northern plains to the South, could be ‘united’ in a national, fascist experience and made to feel a part of the fascist project. Another example of LUCE’s Italian coverage and the creation of spectacle is the public urban screenings of the documentary Il Ritorno di Roma (The Return of Rome ) in 1926. It can be interpreted as one of the first on-screen depictions of the fascist ideal of temporal continuity between Roman imperial times and fascist Italy, spiced with a historical justification of colonialism in Africa [80]. Four free public screenings were organized in Rome. The film was also projected in 62 provincial capitals and in 147 other towns, between 25 April and 2 May that year. There were 41

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simultaneous screenings in 41 provincial capitals on the evening of 25 April [81]. Free screenings were held in 812 different locations until 10 June. The LUCE institute estimated that film propaganda on this occasion reached 3
/4 million people ‘at least’. There were also plans to distribute film reels to 1240 communes [82], so that the film could be shown in thousands of piazzas all over Italy. The public square as an information-propagation point and as a node for the creation of spectacle had already been used in Italy’s major cities. At least 60,000
/70,000 people were estimated to have seen the film on 2 May 1926 in the capital’s Piazza Colonna [83]. On the same day, 30,000 people were estimated to have viewed it in Piazza del Duomo in Milan. Hundreds of thousands of people experienced the totalizing influence of fascist film propaganda in the urban arena. An interesting avenue of further research is the manner in which fascist cinematic messages were received by audiences. Propaganda film screenings in the public square were a deliberate instrument utilized to create mass events which could unite the population in an understanding of projected fascist identity. In a report to Mussolini, LUCE president Filippo Cremonesi openly supported film shows in piazzas, saying: ‘The work carried out here in Italy*/as a devoted act of homage to Your Excellency */hasn’t been shown in cinemas [. . .] but in public squares, in accordance with the provincial Fascist federations and the Dopolavoro delegations and the prefectures’ [84]. Cremonesi could boast to Mussolini that film propaganda in the piazza had positive effects: Your Excellency sees, through newspapers and telegrams, how [the] viewing [of films] produces everywhere imponent manifestations for Your Excellency and for Fascism! [. . .] By now, ‘LUCE’ is able to sustain major battles in the highest interest of the Fascist cause, which is the cause of Our Motherland! [85] If parts of the national audience could not be reached in public squares and cinema halls, the regime’s filmmakers reached out to the remotest parts of the audience. Mobile cinemas were constructed and loaded on trucks, so that rural communities could be placed under the spell of the moving image. Until the early 1930s, most mobile cinemas were not equipped with sound. Cinemas with sound capabilities were put into circulation from 1934 onwards [86]. In this year five mobile sound cinemas were slated for substitution with the existing mute ones. For the first two completed mobile sound cinemas [87], 10,000 kilometres of journeys were planned in Calabria, Lucania, the Puglie and three Sicilian provinces from the date of readiness of the equipment in April 1935 [88]. A handful of mobile cinemas does not constitute a grand propaganda campaign to influence the rural parts of Italy. However, it does show an awareness of the need */in theory if not in practice*/to spread the web of cinematic influence past its major nodes in Italy’s urban areas. In a letter to Opera Nazionale Combattenti president Saverio Nasalli Rocca, Mussolini acknowledged the importance of LUCE newsreels aimed at educating the agrarian parts of the population by stating: ‘I am perfectly convinced of the great usefulness and importance of agrarian cinematography as a tool of persuasion, education and exaltation of the labor improbus of the earth’ [89]. Newsreels and films can be seen as tools for the creation of fascist identity, with a particular emphasis on the Italian public. Mussolini was aware of LUCE’s potential to publicize his persona. The institute often sent him, and others, photo albums

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depicting the Duce at public appearances and depicting the crowds he mesmerized [90]. LUCE newsreels often portrayed Mussolini in heroic poses, in skyward shots which made the Duce seem imposing. Mussolini, as the idealized figurehead and corporeal embodiment of the ideals of fascism, was multiplied through newsreels, and his cinematic presence was made real for thousands of people in audiences spread all over Italy. The fascist regime had an interest in influencing opinion abroad. Attempts were made to propagate fascist identity past national boundaries. Whether this is a contradiction within fascist cultural policy is not clear. On the one hand, images propagated abroad would signify an interaction with people in different, non-Italian contexts. The reactions to aesthetic interaction abroad could not be effectively controlled by the regime. On the other hand, the regime could attempt to present an image of a ‘fascist’ Italy abroad. For example, the need for ‘intense photocinematographical propaganda for war in Africa’ resulted in the institution of a ‘Photo-cinematographic Department for Oriental Africa’ within LUCE [91]. Thomson [92] has noted the effective use of film propaganda for the purposes of justifying and supporting fascist wars. This can be seen both as an attempt to justify Italian colonialism abroad, and as a means to rally support at home, through cinematographic propaganda. Distribution Networks LUCE’s international distribution networks spread all over the globe. The film Duce, interestingly, was even screened on ocean liners, even though its overseas distribution was severely limited [93]. These networks reflected the nature of the global film industry in the 1920s and 1930s. LUCE utilized major film corporations */such as Pathe, Fox and Paramount */for distribution, but also made use of a variety of national companies in order to obtain international coverage. For example, the The Return of Rome was screened in piazzas all over Italy as well as distributed all over the world in 1926 [94]. It was distributed in Yugoslavia by Ufa Journal and Devligh Journal, in the USA by Pathe News and International News, in South America by Pathe Exchange and in Japan by Gaumont Journal. Fascist-leaning organizations were also utilized for distribution purposes: the film was sent to Colombia by such organizations [95]. Other films were less widely distributed, mainly through diplomatic channels. The film Duce, for example, was only distributed in 11 cities abroad*/Cairo, Paris, Barcelona, Constantinople and other cities */with only 12 copies being produced for this purpose [96]. Whilst exhibition abroad was not guaranteed, newsreels screened domestically gained more audience impact than those shown abroad, as in the domestic market they would be shown in several ‘runs’, whereby according to age a newsreel’s price would be lowered and made available to cinemas. By 1934, the total distribution network was far more extensive, even though the number of reels sent abroad was ‘only’ 811 [97]. There was a regular supply of Italian news to Snape Universal, Pathe Gazette and Pathe Pictorial in London and to Hearst Metrotone in New York (and to a Mr Marchich in Paris). LUCE also had distribution contracts with UFA in Berlin, Eclair Journal and Pathe Journal in Paris, Selenophon in Vienna, Magyar Film Iroda in Budapest, P.A.T. in Warsaw, and Swenk Filmindustri in Stockholm [98].

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An export
/import description, based on the described distribution networks, could be made of the proportion of national and international news imported and exported by Italy in the 1930s. In 1934, for example, 931 news pieces were sent abroad by LUCE for a total of 41,986 metres of film. Italy, on the other hand, received 654 newsreels from abroad, for a total of 28,430 metres of film. An unhealthy push was given to LUCE’s exports in this year because of Germany’s use of Camicia Nera (Blackshirt, 1933, by Giovacchino Forzano). Intake in 1934 from showings abroad was of 220,841 lire, of which 112,500 lire derived from the use of Camicia Nera. The previous year had seen a much lower intake from reel showings abroad: 160,094 lire in total. As a result of the 1934 increase in revenue, the president of LUCE, Marquis Paulucci di Calboli, stated that: ‘There is therefore a notable prevalence regarding our exports abroad, resulting from our assiduous efforts to propagate abroad a significant documentation of our national life’ [99]. Di Calboli had taken over as the head of LUCE in 1933. A high-powered government worker with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs before his directorship of LUCE, di Calboli restructured the institute’s finances and organizational structure before proceeding, a few years later, to a post at the League of Nations. LUCE’s international distribution network was extensive. However, as has been shown, its extent was diluted by the low number of reel copies actually exported. Nevertheless, it can be speculated that the institute could claim to have influenced an audience of various thousands abroad. De Feo, the Director General of what was then known as the National Institute for Propaganda and Culture through LUCE Cinematography, translated into words the potential influence of LUCE when in a letter on 10 February 1926 he stated that ‘The aims assigned to the Institute by the Duce’s magnificent will can be summarised in one single word [. . .]: propaganda. [. . .] Propaganda through the silver screen, in Italy and abroad, in favour of Our Motherland and Fascism, creator and rebuilder’ [100]. Conclusion This paper has investigated examples of cinematographic newsreel and documentary distribution. The aim was to analyse specific instances which can aid in the understanding of the manner in which cinematic propaganda was used to distribute and represent images of fascist identity. However, what lies beyond its scope is a discussion of LUCE’s stylistic, iconographic choices within its films, newsreels and documentaries, which were aimed at supporting fascism. Themes, discourse and iconographic analysis are engaging areas for research when viewing film propaganda in fascist Italy, and are fertile ground for further research. A detailed study of particular newsreels and documentaries as sources of information on fascist ideals and self-representation would also be useful in future research focusing on specific events in the history of fascism, Italy, and the ideals and ideology of the 1920s and 1930s. The use and power of cinematography requires continuous investigation. It is easy to forget or discount the use that can be made of the moving image. Du¨ttman (1991, p. 532) has made the point that epochal events such as the Tiananmen Square massacre bring back into consciousness the link between film, cinematography and politics. The famous LUCE opening screen*/featuring fasces and eagles [101] */is a powerful reminder that the fascist regime saw the silver screen as a potential instrument of mass influence, at home and abroad.

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank, first and foremost, MariaTeresa and Rinaldo Caprotti for invaluable support of many kinds in carrying out research for this paper. My gratitude also goes out to Luciano Agostoni and everyone else at the Istituto Salesiano San Callisto in Rome for their hospitality and gentleness. Rachele Riva managed to drive me to Rome safely, I know not how. I would like to thank Maria Kaı¨ka at the Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment, and Jane Garnett at the Department of Modern History, Oxford, for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to express my gratitude to the staff at the Central State Archive in Rome. I am grateful to the Institute of British Geographers’ Dudley Stamp Memorial Fund for a research grant which helped enable my research in Italy.

Correspondence : Federico Caprotti, School of Geography Centre for the Environment, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

NOTES [1] See Jacqueline Reich and Piero Garofalo, eds, Re-Viewing Fascism: Italian cinema, 1922
/1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Doug Thompson, State Control in Fascist Italy: culture and conformity, 1925
/43 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991); Walter L. Adamson, ‘Modernism and Fascism: the politics of culture in Italy, 1903
/1922’, The American Historical Review, 95 (1991), 359
/90. [2] Mabel Berezin, ‘The Organization of Political Ideology: culture, state and theater in fascist Italy’, American Sociological Review, 56 (1991), 639
/51. [3] In particular, for an insightful application of the concept of spectacle to fascist Italy see Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, Fascist Spectacle: the aesthetics of power in Mussolini’s Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). See also Emily Braun, ‘Expressionism as Fascist Aesthetic’, Journal of Contemporary History, 31 (1996), 273
/92; Ruth Ben-Ghiat, ‘Italian Fascism and the Aesthetics of the ‘‘Third Way’’’, Journal of Contemporary History, 31 (1996), 293
/316. [4] See William H. Phillips, Film: an introduction (Boston, MA: Bedford/St Martin’s, 1999); Kevin Macdonald and Mark Cousins, Imagining Reality: the Faber book of documentary (London: Faber and Faber, 1996); Pierre Sorlin, The Film in History: restaging the past (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). [5] See Nicholas Reeves, The Power of Film Propaganda: myth or reality? (London: Cassell, 1999); Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ‘Socialism, Fascism, and Democracy’, in Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ed., The Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 333
/43; Morando Morandini, Italy from Fascism to Neo-Realism , in Nowell-Smith, op. cit., 353
/61; Pierre Sorlin, Italian National Cinema, 1896
/1996 (London: Routledge, 1996); David Forgacs, Italian Culture in the Industrial Era, 1880
/1980: cultural industries, politics and the public (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990). [6] Renzo de Felice, Mussolini il Fascista. La Conquista del Potere, 1921
/1925 (Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 1995). [7] De Felice, op. cit., 555. [8] Ibid. [9] De Felice, op. cit., 556. [10] Taylor Cole, ‘The Italian Ministry of Popular Culture’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 2 (1938), 425
/34. [11] Ibid. [12] Ibid. [13] Thompson, op. cit., 130. [14] Ermanno Tancredi, ‘Salutate e Andate in Abissinia’, Storia in Network (April 1999), available at: http://www.storiain.net/arret/num30/abis30.htm (accessed 5 April 2003). [15] Cole, op. cit. [16] Ibid., 429.

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[17] See Gian Piero Brunetta, Storia del Cinema Italiano, 1895
/1945 (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1979); Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, ‘The Italian Cinema Under Fascism’, in David Forgacs, ed., Rethinking Italian Fascism: capitalism, populism and culture (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1986), 142
/61. [18] Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922
/1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 73. [19] Giorgio Bertellini, ‘Dubbing L’Arte Muta : poetic layerings around Italian cinema’s transition to sound’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 34. [20] Ibid. [21] Macdonald and Cousins, op. cit., 126; Ben-Ghiat, op. cit. (2001), 74
/80 and 88
/92. [22] Reeves, op. cit., 208. [23] Sorlin, op. cit. (1996), 56. [24] Thompson, op. cit., 123. [25] Jacqueline Reich, ‘Mussolini at the Movies: fascism, film, and culture’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 8. [26] Ibid. [27] Ibid. [28] Reeves, op. cit. [29] Reich, op. cit., 12. [30] Reeves, op. cit., 212
/13. [31] Reich, op. cit., 12. [32] Reeves, op. cit. [33] James Hay, ‘Placing Cinema, Fascism, and the Nation in a Diagram of Italian Modernity’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 106. [34] Ennio di Nolfo, ‘Intimations of Neorealism in the Fascist Ventennio ’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 83
/104. [35] Reich, op. cit., 13. [36] Nowell-Smith, op. cit. (1986), 160. [37] Sorlin, op. cit. (1996). [38] Morandini, op. cit., 355; Reeves, op. cit., 213. [39] Reeves, op. cit., 212
/13. [40] Oliver Thomson, in Easily Led: a history of propaganda (Stroud, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1999), emphasizes the role of radio in fascist propaganda. Radio was a particularly useful instrument for influencing opinion past national borders. Thomson (ibid., 275) exemplifies this by citing the case of Radio Bari, utilized by the fascist regime to influence the Middle Eastern countries in Italy’s effort to become the dominant power in the Mediterranean. Radio Bari mixed Arab light music with propaganda encouraging Palestinian, Tunisian and Egyptian nationalism. [41] Nowell-Smith, op. cit. (1996), 334; Thomson, op. cit., 275. [42] Reich, op. cit., 9. [43] Emilio Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (London: Harvard University Press, 1996). [44] Piero Garofalo, ‘Seeing Red: the Soviet influence on Italian cinema in the thirties’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 232. [45] Reich, op. cit., 7. [46] Sorlin, op. cit. (1996), 57. [47] In particular, David Forgacs, ‘Sex in the Cinema: regulation and transgression in Italian films, 1930
/ 1943’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 141
/71; William Van Watson, ‘Luchino Visconti’s (Homosexual) Ossessione ’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 172
/93; Barbara Spackman, ‘Shopping for Autarchy: fascism and reproductive fantasy in Mario Camerini’s Grandi Magazzini ’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 276
/92; Robin Pickering-Iazzi, ‘Ways of Looking in Black and White: female spectatorship and the miscege-national body in Sotto la Croce del Sud ’, in Reich and Garofalo, op. cit., 194
/219. These accounts examine the manner in which subtle subversive meanings, focusing on sexuality and women, were present in Italian mainstream feature cinema during the 1930s, and audiences’ reactions to cinema’s constructed meanings (see Pickering-Iazzi, op. cit., for female audiences and the discursive and textual construction of Italy’s African colonies through fascist colonial cinematic imagery). [48] John M. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: the manipulation of British public opinion, 1880
/1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 67
/95.

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[49] Philip M. Taylor, ‘British Official Attitudes Towards Propaganda Abroad, 1918
/39’, in Nicholas Pronay and D.W. Spring, eds, Propaganda, Politics and Film, 1918
/45 (London: Macmillan, 1982), 34. [50] Thompson, op. cit. [51] In 1924 the LUCE institute’s founder, journalist and lawyer Luciano de Feo, had in fact founded the Sindacato Istruzione Cinema , or Union for Educational Cinema, a small independent company which was the precursor of the LUCE institute. See Victoria de Grazia and Sergio Luzzato, eds, Dizionario del Fascismo (Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 2002); Gian Piero Brunetta, ‘Cattedre e Megafoni: il LUCE tra Educazione e Propaganda’, Archivio Storico LUCE (2003), available at: http:// www.archivioluce.com/luce_storia/index.asp?documentID/172 (accessed 5 April 2003). At the time of LUCE’s inception, the president was Senator de Michelis, the vice-president was Marquis Paulucci di Calboli and the Director General was de Feo: see Brunetta, op. cit. (1979), 237. [52] Brunetta, op. cit. (2003). [53] Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome (hereafter ACS): Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Ordinario (hereafter SPDCO), B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Mussolini to Cremonesi, 7 October 1927. [54] Berezin, op. cit. [55] Jeffrey T. Schnapp, ‘18 BL: fascist mass spectacle’, Representations, issue 43 (1993), 89
/125. [56] Berezin, op. cit. [57] It is interesting to note that nearly the same percentage of overtly ‘fascist’ plays and films were produced in the 1930s as a proportion of total national production. During the period between 1934 and 1940, of all the new plays released in Italy, 5% had ‘fascist’ themes (Berezin, op. cit.); the same proportion applies to films with overt ‘fascist’ themes produced from 1930 to 1943, which accounted for less than 5% of national production (Morandini, op. cit., 355; Reeves, op. cit., 213). [58] Berezin, op. cit., 640. [59] Erik Levi, ‘Towards an Aesthetic of Fascist Opera’, in Gu¨nter Berghaus, ed., Fascism and Theatre: comparative studies on the aesthetics and politics of performance in Europe, 1925
/1945 (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1996), 260
/76. [60] Forgacs, op. cit., 69. [61] Ibid., 71. [62] Reich (op. cit., 8) states, however, that the law making viewership of newsreels compulsory before the main feature was royal decree-law 1117. This is contradicted by various sources: see Brunetta, op. cit. (1979), 238; Gabriele D’Autilia, ‘Istituto Luce’, in de Grazia and Luzzato, op. cit., 684
/88. [63] William Elwin, Fascism at Work (London: Martin Hopkinson Ltd, 1934), 144. [64] David W. Ellwood, ‘‘‘Showing the World What it Owed to Britain’’: foreign policy and ‘‘cultural propaganda’’, 1935
/45’, in Pronay and Spring, op. cit., 50
/73. [65] Ben-Ghiat, op. cit. (2001), 70
/71. [66] Sorlin, op. cit. (1996), 52. [67] Ibid. [68] Phillips, op. cit. [69] G. Lowell Field, ‘Forms of Organization of Italian Public Undertakings’, The American Political Science Review, 27 (1933), 964
/71. [70] Brunetta, op. cit. (2003). [71] Ibid. [72] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Mussolini, 25 March 1935. [73] Ibid. [74] ACS: Segreteria Particolare del Duce, Carteggio Riservato (hereafter SPDCR), B. 103, f.‘Paulucci di Calboli Barone Marchese Giacomo */(Presidente L.U.C.E.)’. Report, 3 April 1934. [75] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Mussolini, 25 March 1935. [76] Ibid. [77] Ibid. [78] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Distribution report, 1931. [79] Ibid. [80] Brunetta, op. cit. (1979), 235. [81] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Cabinet Head, Minister for Colonies to Chiavolini, 8 May 1926. [82] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Cremonesi to Mussolini, 4 May 1926. [83] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Cabinet Head, Minister for Colonies to Chiavolini, 8 May 1926. [84] ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Cremonesi to Mussolini, 4 May 1926. [85] Ibid.

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ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Mussolini, 25 March 1935. Italian mobile cinemas were modelled on Soviet cinema trucks, see Ben-Ghiat, op. cit. (2001), 71. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Mussolini, 25 March 1935. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Mussolini to Nasalli Rocca, 30 November 192? (number unreadable). ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. LUCE president to Mussolini, 10 October 1938; ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Director General of LUCE to Sebastiani, 22 April 1928. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Under-secretary for War, the Navy, Air Force, Colonies and Head of the M.S.V.N., date unspecified. Thomson, op. cit., 274
/75. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Distribution report, 1931. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Cabinet Head, Minister for Colonies to Chiavolini, 8 May 1926. Ibid. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Distribution report, 1931. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Mussolini, 25 March 1935. Ibid. Ibid. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. De Feo to unspecified recipient, 10 February 1926. ACS: SPDCO, B. 1251, f.509.797/1. Report to Mussolini, 25 March 1935.