Sala 3
THE WAYS OF CENSORSHIP - DOCUMENTS 1922 - 1946
FILM CENSORSHIP DURING FASCISM by Roberto Gulì
Fascism inherited from the Giolitti governments the principal tools to exercise surveillance on cinema. The system of revision committees to rate film suitability was left practically unchanged. Subsequent law provisions and the creation of the Government Under-Secretary for the Press and Propaganda in 1934 modified the nature and role of the committees. The remit of film censorship was amplified, thus making it an organ perfectly functional to the needs of the regime. On one hand, censor activities of those years reveal continuity with the Liberal age in the revision of Italian and foreign films; on the other hand, they show tendencies typical of the Fascist era, such as the fight against enemy ideologies, concern for the protection of “Italianità”, Italian character, against foreign cultures, and hostility towards realistic representations of society and the Fascist regime itself.
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FILM CENSORSHIP IN 1943-1946 by Roberto Gulì
Between 1943 – the year of the Allied invasion of Sicily – and the early post-war years, film censorship shared the same destiny as the country and was split in two as well. Southern Italy was ruled by Anglo-Americans, and the film sector, along with the other means of communications, was managed by the Psychological Warfare Branch. All clearly Fascist Italian films were blocked and the diffusion of Anglo-American productions was promoted. In the North of Italy, the “Republic of Salò” restarted Fascist censorship. In spite of its institutional weakness, it pursued the politics of the regime. In 1944, the liberation of Rome gave way to the reinstatement of regular film revision and a gradual disengagement on the part of the Anglo-Americans. At the same time, the problem of ‘cleansing’ came to the surface. Italian films of the Fascist era, including some film directors, artists, and executives, were rejected or conditioned.
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