Cover not available
Part of
Interconnecting Translation Studies and Imagology
Edited by Luc van Doorslaer, Peter Flynn and Joep Leerssen
[Benjamins Translation Library 119] 2016
► pp. 127–142

Italians in films

Opposing and negotiating hetero-constructed images of Italianness

This chapter discusses a meaningful selection of US and British films that portray Italianness in order to show how these hetero-constructed images have been variously received in Italy throughout the 20th century. To convey images of their own ethnicity and national identity to a domestic audience, Italian film translators are presented with a series of challenges: what cultural and semiotic processes are at work in Italy at the moment of translating stereotypes of Italians? Are there images which have been traditionally considered unsuitable for projection in Italian cinemas? What translational options do the translators have at their disposal? Is there any political or social pressure which favours or discourages one particular translational solution over another? The chapter will show that cases of manipulation were frequent and that the translations were often influenced by issues of nationalism and by questions surrounding the use of the standard Italian language and of its regional varieties in films.

Keywords: Italianness, censorship, negotiation, translation, dubbing
Article outline
  • Oppositional readings: ‘Erasing’ Italianness through film censorship
  • Between censorship and translation: Visual editing and identity replacement
  • Regionalised Italianness
  • Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 February 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.119.08mer
References
Argentieri, Mino
1974 La censura nel cinema italiano. Rome: Editori Riuniti.Google Scholar
Beller, Manfred, and Leerssen, Joep
(eds.) 2007 Imagology. The Cultural Construction and Literary Representation of National Characters. A Critical Survey. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Bondanella, Peter
1999 “Gli italoamericani e il cinema.” In Storia del Cinema Mondiale. Gli Stati Uniti, ed. by Gian P. Brunetta, 2 (1): 911–938. Turin: Einaudi.Google Scholar
2004 Hollywood Italians. Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos. New York/London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bonsaver, Guido
1998 “Vittorini’s American Translation: Parallels, Borrowings and Betrayals.” Italian Studies 53: 68–97.Google Scholar
2007 Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Casella, Paola
1998 Hollywood Italian: Gli italiani nell’America di celluloide. Milano: Baldini Castoldi.Google Scholar
Churchill, Kenneth
1980 Italy and English Literature 1764–1930. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Corsi, Barbara
2001 Con qualche dollaro in meno. Storia economica del cinema italiano. Rome: Editori Riuniti.Google Scholar
Freddi, Luigi
1935 “Il cinema in Italia.” Lo Schermo 1 (1): 33.Google Scholar
Fusari, Sabrina
2007 “Idioletti e dialetti nel doppiaggio italiano de I Simpson.” Quaderni del Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC), ed. by Donna R. Miller, University of Bologna.Google Scholar
Gili, Jean
1981 Stato fascista e cinematografia: Repressione e promozione. Rome: Bulzoni.Google Scholar
Girelli, Elisabetta
2009 Beauty and the Beast: Italianness in British Cinema. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gulì, Roberto
2008 “Cinema sonoro e fascismo.” Italia Taglia, progetto di ricerca sulla censura cinematografica in Italia, accessed 20 October 2014, [URL].
Gundle, Stephen
2005 “Hollywood, Italy and the First World War: Italian Reactions to Film Versions of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.” In Culture, Censorship and the State in Twentieth-Century Italy, ed. by Guido Bonsaver, Robert Gordon, 98–108. London: Legenda.Google Scholar
Klein, Gabriella
1986 La politica linguistica del fascismo. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Mancini, Elaine
1985 Struggles of the Italian film industry during Fascism, 1930–1935. Michigan: UMI Research Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, Roderick
1934 Italy in English Literature 1755–1815. Origins of the Romantic Interest in Italy. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Parini, Ilaria
2009 “The Transposition of Italian American in Italian Dubbing.” In Translating Regionalised Voices for Audiovisuals, ed. by Federico Federici, 157–178. Rome: Aracne.Google Scholar
Quaglietti, Lorenzo
1980 Storia economico-politica del cinema italiano 1945–1980. Rome: Editori Riuniti.Google Scholar
Quargnolo, Mario
1982 La censura ieri e oggi nel cinema e nel teatro. Milan: Pan.Google Scholar
Raffaelli, Alberto
2010 Le parole straniere sostituite dall’Accademia d’Italia (1941–1943). Rome: Aracne.Google Scholar
Raffaelli, Sergio
1983 Le parole proibite. Purismo di stato e regolamentazione della pubblicità in Italia (1812–1945). Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar
Rossi, Fabio
2006 Il linguaggio cinematografico. Rome: Aracne.Google Scholar
2008a “Hollywood Italian: l’italiano all’estero ritratto dal cinema statunitense. Rilievi linguistici.” In Migration and Cultural Identities, ed. by Stefania Taviano, 107–121. Messina: Mesogea.Google Scholar
2008b “Cinema e pubblicità come veicoli di stereotipi sull’italiano all’estero” In Le frontiere del Sud. Culture e lingue a contatto, International Conference, 10–11 April 2008, University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Titlebaum, Richard
1987 Three Victorian Views of the Italian Renaissance. New York/London: Garland.Google Scholar
Vasey, Ruth
1997 The World According to Hollywood. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Wagstaff, Christopher
1996 “Il cinema italiano nel mercato internazionale.” In Identità italiana e identità europea nel cinema italiano dal 1945 al miracolo economico, ed. by Gian Piero Brunetta, 141–172. Turin: Edizioni della Fondazione Agnelli.Google Scholar
2007 Italian Neorealist Cinema: An Aesthetic Approach. Toronto/London: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Zacharasiewicz, Waldemar (ed.) 2010 Imagology Revisited. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Spiteri Miggiani, Giselle
2019. Standards and Practices. In Dialogue Writing for Dubbing, ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.