Content area
Full Text
STARDOM, ITALIAN STYLE Marcia Landy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008, 282 pp.
Stardom, Italian Style is a meticulous account of the evolution of Italian film stardom viewed in correlation with the sweeping political and cultural changes that have occurred in that country over the past century. It's interesting to note that almost exactly a hundred years have passed since the first Italian fictional film was made, La Presa di Roma [The Taking of Rome], directed by Filoteo Alberini in 1905. 1 call this book meticulous because Landy includes every major star in the Italian firmament I can think of, with the notable exception of Laura Antonelll. I find this omission odd given that Antonelli achieved international stardom in the 1970s and worked with such luminaries as Giannini, Mastroianni, and Visconti.
Landy asserts that the public's perception of film stars has changed radically over the decades as media technology advanced with ever-increasing speed. She maintains that "[n]ot only has the life span of stars been shortened but also television, video, and tabloid media have profoundly altered public reception of stars" (xiii). This assertion is worthy of a book unto itself, and I don't feel that Landy explores this statement to its logical conclusion. Florence Lawrence first appeared in motion pictures in 1906. She was the first player whose name was used to promote her films. Before her, actors and actresses worked anonymously, partly out of fear that theatrical stage managers would refuse to hire them if they were found to be working in films and partly because movie executives didn't want their players to become well known and start demanding higher salaries. It was the movlegolng public who demanded to know just who "The Biograph Girl" was, and the star system was born. For decades, movie stars were objects of adoration, as out of reach as the celestial bodies from which the term derives. They were glimpsed only in newsreels or in newspapers as they attended awards ceremonies or cavorted with other members of the elite at places such as Hearst's San Simeon or D'Annunzio's Villa Vittoriale. With the advent of television, they became more accessible as they appeared on talk shows to promote their latest releases. What a contrast with today, when...