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Stardom in Italian Silent Cinema1

Jacqueline Reich

Introduction

What is stardom, and how does it develop in Italy during the silent period? The important factor to take into consideration is that early cinema, generally considered to be the period between cinema’s emergence (1895) and the development of full‐length, narratively cohesive, feature films before the inception of World War I (1914–1915), was from the outset a transnational phenomenon. Cinema’s simultaneous birth in the United States (Thomas Edison) and in continental Europe (the Lumière Brothers in France and Filoteo Alberini in Italy) immediately points to a nascent industry with diverse points of contact, and one that quickly recognized the value of its product for exportation, particularly in the case of France, into competing markets. Cross‐cultural distributional exchanges, while at first involving early film production—one‐reel films (or fractions of a reel) for the most part—eventually came to include actors, who at times established their popularity simultaneously in their native countries and abroad. In the early 1910s, their potential gross at the box office as attractions for the public made them valuable commodities for whom rival studios, either nationally or internationally, would bid and compete in an attempt to bolster their productions and profits.

Having chosen the word attraction, I would like to emphasize that I do not intend it in the sense often used in discussions of silent cinema, particularly the cinema that predates the development of the full‐length feature film. Tom Gunning’s (1986) widely adopted concept of the “cinema of attractions” speaks to a dimension in early film appeal in which the exhibition of a spectacle—associated with acts of acrobatic, magic, erotic display—draws the spectator into the pleasure of cinematic display with little narrative implication. Certainly, as was the case with early Italian stars, especially the dive, performances were exhibitionist and spectacular in nature. They were, however, part of a larger narrative system that depended on a decidedly modern concept of time and space with a clear storytelling arc.

This chapter on the development of Italian silent stardom aims to show how industry and audience interests converged into what became known as divismo during the “golden age” of Italian silent cinema (1912–1916), continuing into the period of the industry’s collapse during the 1920s due to fragmentation and lack of a centralized organization, rises in filmmaking costs and imposed taxes, and a decided shortcoming of technical and aesthetic innovation with respect to other national cinemas (Reich 2013). What emerges is a portrait of a national film production that lacks a stabilizing star factory but nevertheless produces some of the most significant star phenomena of the silent period in Europe and abroad. Furthermore, the notion of Italian stardom here (and one can make the argument in general) is inseparable from genre and gender. The characteristics and attributes ascribed to male and female stars in films and the extra‐cinematic discourse that surrounded them were in fact fundamentally different, as were the genres in which they flourished. Since the number of female dive far outweighs the number of equivalent Italian male stars in the 1910s and 1920s, I have attempted to balance this chapter by providing relatively brief descriptions of multiple dive with a more detailed look at the two men who achieved the rank of stardom during this era: Bartolomeo Pagano and Emilio Ghione.

Terminology

A discussion of Italian stardom of the silent period must take into consideration the nature and definition of a “star.” As I have argued elsewhere (Reich 2004, 17–23), research on what exactly constitutes a star in the field of star studies has concentrated primarily on Hollywood studios, with works charting the development of the star phenomenon from the silent era to the studio system and then to its more recent manifestations. Nonetheless, research on Hollywood stardom provides important paradigms that can be applied outside the American studio model. For example, Richard Dyer (1986, 1998), the pioneer of star studies, was the first to underscore the importance of stars as bodies, signs, and commodities. The star, according to Dyer, is a representation, embodying certain meanings and significations that change over time. Stars are about the production and fabrication of the public self; they in turn create a star persona, an intertextual hybrid of the characters the actor plays on screen and his or her offscreen reality. In addition to their cinematic roles, stars are constructed through publicity material, often referred to as extracinematic discourse, where offscreen images circulate. Representing more than just a physical body, they exist not in isolation but in dialogue with the political, social, cultural, and sexual issues of the time. The star is a product, deliberately marketed, distributed, and sold in the greater economy, promoting both the film and his or her intertextual persona. In many cases, the star even lends his or her name to sell a particular product, be it the film itself, a promotional commodity tie‐in, or an unrelated item for consumption to which the star’s name has become attached. Integral to the construction of the star is spectator reception. Although a studio system can promote a star ad nauseam, he or she only becomes a star by public acclamation (Dyer 1986, 1998; Gledhill 1991, McDonald 2005; Miller 2000; Staiger 1992, 2000).

Borrowing from English, the word star (la star, feminized) also appears in Italian film periodicals and newspapers of the day, but it is employed more with reference to Hollywood than to popular indigenous performers. The words diva and, more recently, divo have become part of Anglo‐Saxon vocabulary, deriving from opera but intending a privileged, narcissistic performer of music, stage, and/or screen. The origin of the words and how the public and the industry employed them during the first two decades of the twentieth century are quite different. They were, simply, words used to indicate a popular actor or actress in a film or film series. Many published materials (reviews, feature articles, early billing) refer to them as artisti. The etymology of the word diva, however, betrays other significations: its original meaning, from the Latin, is god or goddess. Thus, it signifies an otherworldliness, a separation from the average and everyday life of the mere mortal audience (Morin 2005). The diva film (Jandelli 2006; Dalle Vacche 2008) is a term used to refer to a genre of films made in Italy, from 1913 to the mid‐1920s, with specific characteristics in terms of character, plot, and setting—the building blocks of genre. These films featured the most popular actresses of the day: Lyda Borelli, Francesca Bertini, and Pina Menichelli were the most prominent. Eleonora Duse, an internationally recognized stage actress at the time, made one important contribution to the genre, Cenere (Febo Mari, 1916). The diva film took place in high society, situating the actress in eloquent parlors and high fashion and removing them from the travails of everyday life (Landy 2008, 21). The plots often revolved around torrid love affairs, sacrificing mothers, or femme fatales, who were either victims of circumstance or architects of their own ruin. This is not to say that the diva did not populate other genres; the most famous example is Italia Almirante Manzini’s femme fatale of the historical epic Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914), an international blockbuster and arguably the most famous and influential Italian film of the silent era.

The word divismo appears as a general term in reference to Italian stardom in both Italian contemporary periodicals and film histories of the period (Brunetta 1993, 72–91). It is distinct, however, from its rough English equivalent, star worship. Throughout its history, the Italian film industry lacked a centralized, industrial model that promoted and cohesively managed and sold its film stars as products. That is not to say that stars did not emerge as representative of national values and become commodities in their own right; later examples would be Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni (Gundle 1986, 1995; Reich 2004). But, as opposed to what occurred in the United States, there was no orchestration of stardom; Italian divismo remained, throughout its history, an ephemeral and disorganized phenomenon (Castello 1957, 12).

Furthermore, the term divismo, or even stardom, lacks the historical specificity necessary, in my opinion, to embody the characteristics of Italian stardom as they apply to silent cinema. In this chapter, borrowing from historiography of the Fascist period in Italy, I employ the word divismo (small “d”) to refer to Italian stardom as a whole. When I refer to capital “D” Divismo, as does Marcia Landy (2008, 42–43), I intend the culturally defined, historically specific, phenomenon of Italian silent film stardom, focusing on the diva film and female actresses of the period. That is not to say that leading males in the diva film did not emerge as important players in the film industry or garner a popular following; rather, they remained within their genre’s narrative confines, never reaching the level of Divismo or producing their own divo film, although some, such as Mario Bonnard and Nino Oxilia, went on to achieve significant accomplishments as directors.

The Birth of Divismo

The rise of stardom in Italian silent cinema benefitted from significant industrial developments that occurred between 1910 and 1913, such as the movement toward full‐length feature films, the standardization of film stock, better distribution and increasing exhibition, and the growth of channels of promotion: film magazines, periodicals, and the emergence of film criticism (Bernardini 1982, 83; Wood 2005, 4). Most relevant for a discussion of stardom are the types of films in which they were featured (genres), the types of social and cultural constructions to which each actor/character/star spoke, and the types of shots employed to configure their protagonists on screen. What becomes apparent is that Italian silent film stardom is inseparable from film form. Each genre had its own means of signification that was intrinsically linked to the way in which the genre narratively and iconographically constructed its protagonists. The types of shots genres used (for instance close‐ups and static camera in the diva films, long shots privileging action in the strongman film), as well as quicker‐paced editing in the latter, created distinct configurations of time and space. Although there are exceptions, as with dance sequences in the diva film (Dalle Vacche 2008, 14) or, as in the case of the character of Astrea, a strong woman (Mosconi 2008), the traditional binary of active = masculine, passive = feminine iconography helps distinguish the two phenomena.

Issues of space and movement play a significant role in the creation of stardom, in terms of both semiotic and spectatorial dynamics. At the turn of the twentieth century, the film actor‐audience rapport, based on mute corporality and physicality (the body), began to achieve broad popularity at the expense of the theater’s spoken word (Pitassio 2003). As opposed to their theatrical counterparts, the silent screen stars simultaneously embodied distance and inimitability (the cinematic persona appears godlike and immortal) and proximity and imitability (the film spectator wishes to identify with and then imitate the star without ever confusing the onscreen image with a representation of reality). In these instances, the role of intertitles is minimal, providing poetic reinforcement, as in the diva film, or ironic commentary, as in the strongman film.

Divismo and the dive did not arise from nowhere; they had their antecedents in lyric opera and the dramatic theater that filled Italian theaters in major cities during the nineteenth century. The most important theatrical actresses of the day—Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse—became the models for the dive to emulate in their onscreen performance styles; Lyda Borelli was in fact a popular stage actress before she made her film debut. But the first few years of Italian cinema did not produce any stars, since most early onscreen performers came from popular theatrical traditions such as the circus, variety theater (akin to vaudeville), and pantomime. For instance, Ferdinando Guillaume, who would go on to become the comic character Tontolini, then Polidor (later appearing in Fellini’s La dolce vita [La Dolce Vita, 1960]), was discovered by two Cines operatives at the Sala Umberto in Rome, a well‐known variety theater (Calendoli 1967, 51–2; Marlia 1985).

The first public personalities who attracted attention on film, however, were not artists, acrobats, or actors but rather royal families, aristocrats, and political and religious figures, who populated the many actualités (short documentary films and newsreels) of early Italian cinema. According to Vittorio Martinelli (2000), the appeal of these films was not nationalistic; rather, it emerged out of a desire to see and experience up close what had previously appeared untouchable (222). The major game changer in terms of Italian stardom was not a homegrown figure but rather the Dane Asta Nielsen, whose 1910 film The Abyss (Afgrunden, Urban Gad) featuring the wild‐haired and wide‐eyed Nielsen performing a highly erotic dance, became an international sensation, including in Italy (Lasi 2013). In many ways, Nielsen became the model for the diva and her on/offscreen persona (Martinelli 2000, 222). Another case in favor of an early Italian stardom could be made for the French comedian André Deed, but he achieved fame first in France and then, recruited by Giovanni Pastrone of Itala Film in Turin, he became an even greater international sensation as Cretinetti. It was an astute move by Itala, and much of the studio’s early success in national and international markets was due to the popularity of the Cretinetti films (Brunetta 1993, 194). Deed surrounded himself with key players both in front of and behind the camera: both Emilio Ghione (the future character Za la Mort) and Domenico Gambino (the future athletic/acrobatic Saetta) got their start in films while working with Deed’s troupe. The series had uninterrupted success until 1911, when Deed went back to France before eventually returning to Italy in 1915 (Bernardini 1985; Gili 2005).

A bottom‐up dynamic, whereby the public plays a large role in determining the creation of stars, affected the Italian film industry. At a time when studios were more actively marketing their products through promotional publicity campaigns, as was the case with Milano Film’s 1911 extravaganza, L’Inferno, based on Dante’s Inferno (Adolfo Padovan, Francesco Bertolino, and Giuseppe de Liguoro), Italian spectators began to appreciate and inquire about various participants, from actors, directors, and screenwriters to technical and artistic directors (Welle 2004, 36). Although initially reluctant to highlight certain individuals for fear that they might realize their popularity and seek additional compensation, Italian film studios began in 1909 to credit the names of actors and use them to publicize their films. The Roman Cines studio, for instance, indicated the name of the director—using the term realizzatore and not regista, which would become the Italian term for director—and several actors (esecutori, not attori). By 1910, new periodicals devoted to the film industry began to publish biographical profiles and photographs of popular actors. Subsequently, the actor started to replace the studio as the primary commodity used to sell the film in the greater marketplace, and several actors played one studio against the other for monetary gain (Bernardini 1982, 50–2). Periodicals advertised film series featuring a popular actor or actress, and in the years immediately preceding Italy’s intervention in World War I, studios began to create vehicles for their stars, including Borelli and Bertini, as well as, on the men’s side, Emilio Ghione and Bartolomeo Pagano.

There was one figure to whom both genders were indebted: Gabriele D’Annunzio, Italy’s most prominent and visible intellectual of the day. D’Annunzio played many roles in contemporary Italian culture: novelist, poet, literary dandy, nationalist superman, war hero (he enlisted in World War I and received eight medals), and political leader. He also reflected the contemporary Decadent movement through his literary works that influenced the diva film: novels such as Il piacere (The Child of Pleasure, 1889) and Il trionfo della morte (The Triumph of Death, 1894) presented a hedonistic and self‐indulgent aesthetic that found cinematic correspondence in its art nouveau production design (Martinelli 1998a, 47). As a master manipulator of the people and his own image, D’Annunzio proposed a “pastiche heroism,” that privileged theatricality over action; he was adept at creating the spectacle of the event featuring himself as protagonist and star (Gundle 1998).

The Dive, and the Diva Film

Although actresses such as Adriana Costamagna and Berta Nelson began to emerge from the shadows in the early 1910s (Martinelli 1998b), scholars generally credit the birth of homegrown divismo in Italy to the emergence of Lyda Borelli in Ma l’amor mio non muore! (Love Everlasting, 1913), directed by Mario Caserini. It was Borelli’s screen debut and set the standard for the type of film that would raise her and others after her to the status of diva. The film’s partial setting in the world of the theater reinforces Borelli’s status as a popular stage star who made the transition seamlessly to the screen. Her arabesque gestures, tortured yet subtle facial expressions, and languid body movements resonated with a public, particularly a female public, already familiar with a D’Annunzian decadent culture, and hungry for a display of emotion and affect on screen with which they could identify.

Like the historical epics such as Cabiria, Ma l’amor mio non muore! reflects an attempt on the part of the film industry to reach a more erudite audience. Earlier short films had been influenced by popular forms of entertainment: the circus, street and popular theater, and the caffè concerto—the Italian version of the café‐chantant, a hybrid of theater and café that featured acrobatic, musical, and theatrical performances. By featuring elegant production designs populated by rich and opulent characters and borrowing from the high tradition of bourgeois theater, the diva film had the potential to appeal to the upper‐middle class spectator.

The diva films, as I described earlier, represent for the many scholars who have studied them (Dalle Vacche 2008; Jandelli 2006; Landy 2008; Dall’Asta 2008) a fusion of the old and the new: they are “time‐conscious narratives concerned with social issues” (Dalle Vacche 2008, 2) that feature characters who personify “the dominating power and destructive character of consuming erotic attraction” (Landy 2008, 19). The iconography of the films—the way they visualized a passionate, elitist world—incarnates the Liberty style that flourished in turn‐of‐the‐century visual culture. This is commonly referred to in English using the French term art nouveau (the Italian referent is the English store Liberty & Co and its modern designs). Its ornate, Orientalist style featured multiple curves and patterns, incarnating a bridge between the premodern and the modern, much like the dive themselves. Within the films, the diva was front and center, with the focus being on the actress herself rather than on the character she portrayed on screen. In fact, the plots of these films take a back seat to the notion of performativity: it was more the performance of the role than the role itself that turned the actress into a star. Even in a film such as Assunta Spina (Francesca Bertini and Gustavo Serena, 1915), often cited as the primogenitor of Italian realist cinema, Francesca Bertini in the title role “transforms the commonplace into an exceptional event” (Landy 2008, 30).

The diva’s film stardom was born not out of a commonality between the spectator and what he or she saw on screen, but rather out of a lack of reference to everyday life, to the untouchability of its characters placed in a world—indeed, an otherworldliness—of forbidden passions paired with a growing desire among the middle class for social mobility (Martinelli 2000, 229). As divine creatures, stars were more akin to Greek and Roman mythology, as they lived out the contradictions between being human and otherworldly, specifically the relationship of the sacred to the self. This conflict between the sacred and the profane, and of onscreen and offscreen identities, was a continuous process, with constant shifts as the performers would assume different roles on screen as well as interact with the changing landscape of gender roles in the first decades of twentieth‐century Italy (Dalle Vacche 2008; Jandelli 2006). In articles devoted to them in popular film magazines, the dive appeared noble, aristocratic, and godlike. They were statues in motion, whose pantomimic gestures articulated their primordial status (Pitassio 2003, 88–93). Describing the Itala Film actress Adriana Costamagna, Veritas, in La Vita Cinematografica, wrote in 1911 (1–2):

A Greek form that designs her supple body; two large eyes that scrutinize the depths of one’s soul, whose profound pupils reflect in their entirety a poem of sweetness and a hymn of persuasive gentleness; culminating in an exquisite intelligence, a supremely noble instinct that wants to consistently elevate itself, in order to soar into a sky that does not know the melancholy of sunsets: all these elements of perfection form Adriana Costamagna into an exceptional, superior woman.

The fact that the above‐cited metaphors make recourse to the other arts—poetry and dance in particular—elevates the description to a lofty artistic level while reinforcing the intermediality of cinema’s first years. Lacking is any reference to Costamagna’s daily personal life, in favor of her professional abilities and an aristocratic agenda, reinforcing a class distinction that the divas and the diva films actively cultivated.

Bertini, together with Borelli, Menichelli, and Diana Karenne—and other minor dive such as Leda Gys and Hesperia—eventually became so powerful within the industry and so famous beyond it that their influence superseded their role in front of the camera. They chose their collaborators and supervised scripts, commanded exceedingly high salaries, and influenced fashion and behavior (Jandelli 2006, 19). They had important relationships to prominent producers and directors on whom they depended to fabricate and promulgate their image: Bertini worked with the director Gustavo Serena and the artistic director Roberto Leone Roberti, Borelli with Carmine Gallone, and Menichelli with Giovanni Pastrone and Nino Oxilia. Like Greta Garbo after them, Bertini and Borelli had their preferred cameramen to highlight their qualities onscreen in diva‐like fashion.

Although Borelli made relatively few films during her brief career (she left the industry in 1919), she had an enormous impact on both critics and audiences, ranging in roles from an aviator torn between two men in La memoria dell’altro (Alberto Degli Abbati, 1914) to a Faustian figure who makes a pact with the devil in Rapsodia satanica (Satanic Rhapsody, Nino Oxilia, 1917). (See Martinelli 2001, 40–43.) The onscreen characters she brought to life after Ma l’amor mio non muore! followed much the same pattern as that of the film’s protagonist, Elsa Holbein: they belonged to the privileged and decadent class, set in a contemporary milieu, featuring multiple references to modern painting and art nouveau styling. Her acting was marked by highly performative gestures of limbs, hands, and pale face, while she wore silk and satin clothing that draped her voluptuous figure (Mosconi 2010, 140–44). She exuded a sexuality that drove her male onscreen counterparts to hysterical and often tragic ends. Her films were exported all over the world to great international acclaim (Jandelli 2006, 23).

Bertini, on the other hand, featured a much more sedate, naturalistic style, yet one that resonated with viewers. Like Borelli, she was a supreme manipulator of her own image, who “was able to manage for her long life her own persona and her public image with the same intelligence, worldly wisdom and tenacious determination that had brought her to reign in the film world of her time, making herself into the attentive and sensitive observer of the customs and tastes of Italian society around the first World War” (Martinelli 2001, 32). Discovered by the French Pathé company’s Italian studio, Film d’Arte, while she performed in Neapolitan theater, she was quickly cast in the studio’s series of literary adaptations and historical dramas. She passed from these two‐reelers to feature‐length films with Celio, which created Sangue bleu (Blue Blood, Nino Oxilia, 1914) especially for her, and with Caesar studios, producer of Assunta Spina, which she effectively codirected with Gustavo Serena. She continued to make films with varying degrees of success but most notably Fedora (Giuseppe de Liguoro and Gustavo Serena, 1916), Tosca (Alfredo de Antoni, 1918), and Mariute (Edoardo Bencivenga, 1918), the first film she made under her own production company, Bertini Film. For Marcia Landy (2008, 29), “her incarnation of femininity was dependent on her attractive physical appearance, her more naturalistic style of acting, and her elegant fashionable attire.”

Pina Menichelli emerged from the Sicilian theatrical tradition but jumped headfirst into the cinema, making upwards of 40 films within the first two years of her career (1913–1914) for the Cines studio. It was not until she joined Itala film, under Giovanni Pastrone’s guidance, that she became a star, even though she had previously graced many film magazine covers and gained critical and popular notoriety in the three years she had been appearing on screen. Menichelli’s films with Pastrone—Il fuoco (The Fire, 1915) and Tigre reale (Regal Tiger, 1916), both based on popular nineteenth‐century works by prominent Italian writers (Gabriele D’Annunzio and Giovanni Verga)—firmly established her as the Italian silent era’s femme fatale: the vamp who reduces men to ashes. The films underscore a play on light and darkness as Menichelli’s beauty and fascination, at times nefarious, are mediated by the intense lighting design of Segundo de Chomón, Itala Film’s trusted and ingenious special effects man. She continued to make films through the mid‐1920s, even switching gears to more lighthearted fare when she tired of playing repeatedly the same role (Martinelli 2000, 174–77) (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1 Pina Menichelli (second from right), Il romanzo di un giovane povero (Amleto Palermi, 1920).

Source: Giorgio Bertellini, personal collection.

Duse’s contribution to Cenere, her only onscreen appearance, draws on her theatrical renown as well as her highly perfected, efficacious, and emotionally minimalist acting style. The film is based on the novel by the Sardinian Nobel Prize–winning writer Grazia Deledda, and Duse plays the consummate mater dolorosa (suffering mother), who sacrifices herself and her relationship with her son so that he can live a better life (Dalle Vacche 2008, 137–41). The figure of the mater dolorosa would reappear in the Italian melodramas of the late 1940s and 1950s, making the Greek actress Yvonne Sanson a household name. Other dive, such as Diana Karenne, were significant for their contributions not only in front of the camera but also behind it; Karenne was one of the few women to direct films as well as write, produce, and design their posters (Jandelli 2006, 211–30). Like many other stars of the decade, she left in the early 1920s to pursue opportunities abroad as those in Italy declined.

While some very popular female stars from the 1910s, such as Borelli and Bertini, abandoned the screen after their marriages to prominent men, others continued to make films into the 1920s, even as the industry experienced its precipitous descent. Italia Almirante Manzini worked throughout the entire decade, as did Maria Jacobini (wife of director Gennaro Righelli), and Pina Menichelli continued through 1923. There were new faces as well: Carmen Boni, who rose to fame in Augusto Genina’s Addio giovinezza! (Goodbye, Youth, 1918) and whose more nuanced acting style departed from that of her more histrionic antecedents, and Rina de Liguoro, who also had a brief career in Hollywood in the 1930s. Leda Gys, after making films in the 1910s working for the Celio and Cines studios as the ingénue and romantic lead, had her first major success with Christus (Giulio Antamoro, 1916), in which she played the Madonna. After other projects in Spain and Italy, she headed south to Naples, where she joined forces with the producer Gustavo Lombardo, whom she would eventually marry. Their work based in Naples and often in Neapolitan dialect is often considered one of the few high spots of the decade’s film production.

Female roles were not limited to the diva archetype. Another popular variant were films featuring adventurous women. Even though some dive did venture into more daring roles—as noted, Bertini played a pilot in La memoria dell’altro (Dalle Vacche 2008, 110–11)—recent research by Monica Dall’Asta and others has placed the spotlight on neglected protagonists of the Italian silent screen. Beginning with Vittoria o morte (Victory or Death, Segundo de Chomón, 1913)—and later modeled on the highly popular American serial queens such as Pearl White and Helen Holmes, as well as the French spy series featuring the character Protéa (Josette Andriot)—these films featured female protagonists as pilots, daredevils, and acrobats who escape from evil and right wrong on their own. Names include Ethel Joyce, Henriette Bonard, and Letizia Quaranta (often paired with her husband Carlo Campogalliani, a comic/athletic hybrid). Two noteworthy examples are the lithe acrobat Linda Albertini, who played Sansonette (alongside her husband Luciano Albertini as Sansone), achieving star billing in films such as Sansonette amazzone dell’aria (Giovanni Pezzinga, 1920), and the physically dominating Astrea, the lone “strong woman” who was billed as the female Maciste (la donna Maciste). For films such as Justitia (Astrea, Ferdinand Guillaume, 1919), she was praised in La Rivista Cinematografica as “a strong, agile, daring athlete of the first order, and extremely elegant at the same time” (Dall’Asta 1998; Mosconi 2008).

The Divo

The divas in the diva film had to play off a male counterpart, but these actors, such as Mario Bonnard, Febo Mari, Tullio Carminati, and Alberto Collo, never achieved the equivalent level of stardom. The two most popular Italian actors—Bartolomeo Pagano (Maciste) and Emilio Ghione (Za la Mort)—belonged instead to the more populist genres of the strongman and serial dramas. These were films that, unlike the diva film, appealed predominantly to the lower‐ and middle‐class spectator: family films filled with suspense, action, and, in the case of the Maciste series, ironic humor.

If the divas were sacred, divine creatures, their male counterparts were profoundly secular. As Edgar Morin (2005, 89) observed generally about the first decades of stars and cinema, “The personality of the male star is much more closely related to qualities that are actually heroic: the masculine hero does battle not only for his love but against wickedness, destiny, injustice, death.” Male stars, with their physical, iconographic, and historical ties to the nation, were clearly of this world. The emphasis on their physicality, whether muscular or not, and their connection to the more lowbrow genres, such as comedies, serials, and detective series, further grounded their stardom in the everyday world. Their magic came from their ability to perform tricks on screen, an aspect that was especially relevant for early cinema and its recourse to magic for attraction and spectacle, and later, for Maciste, for his feats of strength, provoking the question: “How does he do that?” Maciste was the secularized symbol of the sacred nation, and, as such, sexuality had no place or space within diegetic and extradiegetic imperatives. Instead, the strongman emerged as the genres’ moral compass. In his exhibitions (and exhibitionism), the strongman commanded being a nationalist rather than a sexual spectacle (Dall’Asta 1992, 27–44). The national narration of Italian male stardom, to paraphrase Elena dell’Agnese (2007), finds the perfect instrument in the on and offscreen body of Maciste as his character merges with nation to create the country’s iconic masculine ideal.

The two most popular Italian actors who could be said to have achieved silent film stardom—Bartolomeo Pagano and Emilio Ghione—in fact belonged to the more populist genres of the strongman films and serial crime dramas, respectively. They were famous principally for their interpretation of one highly successful reoccurring character—Pagano as Maciste and Emilio Ghione as Za la Mort. One important difference between the two stars is that while Ghione played a variety of roles—even in some notable diva films, such as Histoire d’un Pierrot, where he appeared opposite Bertini (Baldassarre Negroni, 1914)—Pagano continued to play only one character, Maciste, from his birth in Giovanni Pastrone’s silent masterpiece Cabiria until the series had run its course in 1926. (He made three non‐Maciste films before retiring.) Together, however, Pagano/Maciste and Ghione/Za la Mort inaugurated what would become the most consistent and successful serials based on a recurring character in Italian silent cinema. Monica Dall’Asta (2013) has argued that the fusion between character and actor is unique to Italian serial and episodic films. Consistency of character, plot, and setting (common to most genre films) and the consistent interpenetration of their fictional and actual identities allowed their on‐ and offscreen persona to merge into one, creating the star.

Like Menichelli after him, Pagano owes his fame to Pastrone, who cast him as the amenable giant Maciste in Cabiria. Pastrone had sent two representatives to look for an appropriate person who could embody the character’s physical strength and at the same time project a sympathetic sense of kindness and decency essential to his success in the role. Pagano, whose phenomenal size was rendered less intimidating by a sympathetic smile, was working at the Genoa ports as a dock loader, and the Itala representatives brought him back to Turin, where he underwent both physical and acting training, to shape him into what would become one of the most beloved characters of Italian silent cinema.

Pagano may have been new to national screens, but the strongman was a familiar character in Italian cinema’s early years. In silent cinema of the 1910s and the 1920s, what is commonly referred to as il cinema dei forzuti or il cinema degli uomini forti or il cinema atletico‐acrobatico were an extremely popular genre that revolved around a familiar character: a hero with a Herculean upper body performing feats of bravery that showed off his strength and virility, or in the case of the more acrobatic‐oriented films, agility. The strongman genre evolved from various cultural practices: the circus (specifically the clown and the strongman’s acts of strength); a new public and private interest in hygiene and physical culture, exemplified in the emergence of gymnasiums in cities such as Turin, Bologna, and Milan where the nascent film industry flourished; and variety theater (il teatro di varietà) and its comic tradition. Cinematically, the strongman had his origins in the historical epics that also populated this period in Italian film history, with such predecessors as the character of Ursus (Bruto Castellani) in Quo Vadis? (Enrico Guazzoni, 1913) and Spartaco (Spartaco/Spartacus, Giovanni Enrico Vidali, 1913), starring the future strongman Luciano Albertini (Brunetta 1993, 87–89, 317–19; Dall’Asta 1992; Farassino and Sanguinetti, 1983; Jandelli 2007, 47–53; Landy 2008, 7–15; Lotti 2011a, 2011b; Reich 2011; Verdone 1971).

Upon Cabiria’s release, the popular press and audiences alike hailed Maciste as an Italian hero, despite his diegetic racial otherness, by readily and enthusiastically admiring his bravery and strength, as well as his kindness. They quickly dubbed him “il gigante buono” (the gentle giant). Following the film’s and the character’s phenomenal international success, Pastrone and Itala Film decided to produce a series of adventure films with Maciste as protagonist, beginning with Maciste (Vincenzo Denizot and Romano Luigi Borgnetto, 1915), supervised by Pastrone. In his passage from supporting character in Cabiria to the series’ leading man, Maciste underwent several radical alterations: he moved from ancient Rome to modern‐day Italy, and, most significantly for our argument, he changed from a black‐bodied African slave to a white northern Italian. The fact that Maciste’s skin color shifts from dark to light has both racial and national implications. Maciste’s metamorphosis popularized current anthropological tenets through the classic cinematic devices of heroic sacrifice, spectacular feats, and moral righteousness, embodied in the muscled, white body for the twentieth century. Already embraced as a national symbol, Maciste had to be white (Reich 2015).

Pagano subsequently starred as Maciste in nine films produced by Itala Film, including Maciste alpino (Pastrone, 1916), Maciste innamorato (Romano Luigi Borgnetto, 1919), and Maciste in vacanza (Borgnetto, 1921). He made three films in Germany, before returning to Italy to make some of his most successful films for the distributor/producer Stefano Pittaluga and his company FERT: Maciste imperatore (Guido Brignone, 1924), Maciste contro lo sceicco (Mario Camerini, 1926), Maciste all’inferno (Brignone, 1926), and Il gigante delle Dolomiti (Brignone, 1926) (see Figure 4.2).

Figure 4.2 Bartolomeo Pagano as Maciste.

Source: Author’s personal collection.

Although the films had varying degrees of box office and critical success, they remain Italy’s most prominent example of the silent serial formula based on a successful character. Pagano himself became the highest‐paid male star of the day, and his films were distributed all over the world. His films had incredible legs, as we might say today, in terms of exhibition: they continued to play in second‐run cinemas many years after their release, and, in the case of Cabiria and Maciste contro lo sceicco, were released in sound versions in the 1930s. In a convergence of Italian politics and popular entertainment, Maciste’s fame anticipated the Italian political stardom of Benito Mussolini. As the Duce consolidated his power, he appropriated, consciously or not, Maciste’s iconography and star persona to advance his political and ideological agenda (Gentile 1998; Landy 2008, 4–7; Renzi 1991; Ricci 2008, 81–87).

Maciste alpino, along with Maciste all’inferno (1925) is one of the best known, critically praised, films of the Italian Maciste film series, as well as one of the most popular. Maciste alpino exalted the protagonist as civilian hero, soldier, and popular leader. It was far from the only fiction film made about the war during wartime, but Maciste alpino is more than just a war film. Like most of the films in the series, its hybrid nature as drama, comedy, and serial‐like adventure film explained, to a certain extent, its phenomenal success and its wide appeal. Comedic, ironic, and adventurous elements characteristic of the Maciste series infuse the military “realism” with a light heartedness essential for its entertainment value. In one instance, when the army tailor attempts to fit Maciste with the “glorious uniform” of the alpine soldier, the jackets keep ripping at the seam, with the tailor throwing up his arms in despair. And of course Maciste’s uniform itself is a sight to behold: perfectly tailored, pressed, and complete with an extraordinarily large feather attached to its characteristic alpine hat (Reich 2011). Although Maciste alpino is one of the few films in the series in which Maciste bears firearms, Maciste prefers to use his strength to subdue the enemy. In many ways, Maciste anticipates the squadrons of arditi (literally the bold and courageous ones but translated as shock troops), brought into combat in 1917, who became symbolic, in the Italian popular consciousness, of war heroes ready to sacrifice themselves for devotion to the fatherland.

The film combines Maciste’s masculinity and muscularity, the backdrop of the rugged alpine landscape, and his characteristic humor, as it invests the Italian Alps with dramatic and heroic meanings as Maciste masters the majestic yet savage terrain. The film consistently frames Maciste against a mountain backdrop, whether he is scaling cliffs or hiking in the deep snow, and his stature—he towers over everyone around him—evokes the dominance of the snowcapped peaks over the rest of the landscape. The phallic equation is not lost here, nor is it subtle in the film’s cinematography, with its ample tilt shots and visual and verbal references to Maciste’s “rigid hat with grand feather,” as he climbs the rocks and scales the “unsurmountable” mountain peaks. His unflinching patriotism solidifies his standing as national hero, perfect specimen of the Italian race, and popular film star, combining political and cinematic imperatives into a consistently appealing package.

Emilio Ghione’s body of work, and his screen presence, could not differ more from that of Pagano: Pagano’s large muscular stature and infectious smile contrasted sharply with Ghione’s starkly thin, angular features. Their acting styles and onscreen presence also reflected the inherent differences of the genres in which their characters appeared. Pagano’s movements and gestures were grand and forceful, utilizing the strongman’s entire body, while Ghione employed much more subtlety and stealth, qualities befitting a successful criminal.

Born in Turin to a relatively well‐known painter, in whose footsteps he followed early, Ghione got his break in film as an extra at Aquila film and worked consistently in the film industry for almost two decades, passing through most of the major film studios (Celio, Cines, Caesar‐Film, and Itala). Although his character’s name was not always featured in the title, Ghione starred in and directed many Za la Mort films, including Nelly la gigolette (1914), Za la Mort (1915), Anime buie (1916), I topi grigi in eight episodes (1918), Dollari e fracks in four episodes (1919), and Ultimissime della notte (1924), the last in the series. According to Denis Lotti (2008, 26, 49), it wasn’t until his move to Itala in 1919 and its version of Za la Mort that Ghione became a true star as the Italian version of the nineteenth‐century Parisian apache, the criminal or street ruffian who populated the novels of Alexandre Dumas and Émile Zola and, onscreen, the wildly popular French Fantômas series (Louis Feuillade, 1913).

Throughout his career, Ghione worked as prolifically behind the camera as he did in front of it: first as a scenario writer for many productions, including several of Bertini’s films for Celio, and then as director for Bertini’s Nelly la Gigolette (1914) and close to 50 others. He eventually established his own film company, Ghione‐Film, in 1921, but its fortunes did not counteract the precipitous fall of the Italian film industry. Like Pagano, he also went to Germany in 1923 and made Zalamort—Der Traum der Zalavie (1924) but returned the following year citing his poor health—one of the reasons Lotti (2008) offers for his failure to capture any significant roles, even as a minor player in the industry, after 1926. He revived Za la Mort on stage for some time but ultimately died penniless in 1930.

Most serial films featured Italian characters in service of social goals and as embodiments of the status quo, with Maciste being the consummate example. At the same time, however, with their popular settings and nefarious underworld, they revealed, according to Brunetta (1993), a poor and socially arrested Italy unseen in other films of the era (209). The above‐cited Anime buie reveals both this tendency toward the criminal and nefarious as well as Ghione’s unique onscreen charisma as Za la Mort. The film features Ghione in a variety of roles: as the apache Za la Mort, who then escapes to America to become the successful businessman Gil Negro, and then as the ultimate cowboy after he escapes from prison with his love interest, Casca d’oro, played by the diva Hesperia. This range shows off Ghione’s ability to incarnate credibly a variety of roles on screen, aided by strategic costume changes. The film’s multiple settings, from continental Europe to urban America and then the Wild West, are the various landscapes into which the character successfully blends, reinforcing the elasticity of persona that characterized Za la Mort and Ghione.

The primacy of stardom in relation to the film industry continued as the divas’ popularity soared, as did, to some extent, that of the divos as well, much to the chagrin of many intellectuals and industry players. A September 1918 anonymous editorial in La Vita Cinematografica, entitled “In difesa dell’industria italiana” (52–53) bemoaned the power that stars held over the creative process, “No one thinks about, writes, or creates a beautiful and original work anymore, but instead throws together the usual mess to allow a more or less authentic actress, or a pseudo‐actor, to sentimentalize verbosely on screen.” A similar anonymous piece, written five months earlier, “Gli idoli” (1918, 41), equally lamented this tendency: “Italian film studios, rather than make films, have for the last several years made celebrities. … Celebrity walks hand in hand with the stupidity of our studio heads, along with discord, disorder and disorganization.” Although more of an exhortation to the film industry to consolidate and unionize—as much of it would with the formation of the Unione Cinematografica Italiana (UCI) in the following year—the latter editorial’s use of the word celebrity conveniently historicized the term. La Vita Cinematografica lamented the power that stars held as commodities that dictated artistic production, and both the UCI and the journal employ the word celebrity in a pejorative way. The article not only functioned as an admonition against privileging star power over quality projects, but it also warned against the potential result of an industry failure to consolidate in the face of imminently increasing competition from abroad at the war’s end.

The advent of the sound film and the infusion of state and private capital revived the Italian film industry during the 1930s. And while genre production continued to flourish during the Fascist period, technological innovations and ideological considerations spelled the death of the diva film as well as the serial and strongman films, and Divismo’s reign over Italian cinema began to wane. Although the strongman would reappear in the wildly popular peplum genre during the 1950s and 1960s, its primary stars would be prominent American bodybuilders dubbed in Italian (Rushing 2008; D’Amelio 2011). Melodrama and women’s films replaced the diva film, but the stars of those films—Isa Miranda, Alida Valli, and Clara Calamai, just to name a few—never achieved the power of their silent counterparts, and were eclipsed in domestic popularity by the importation of Hollywood’s impressive star machine (Gundle 2002; Valentini 2002). Nevertheless, for the study of the silent film period in a transnational perspective, Italian stars constitute fundamental developments in cinematic narrative, industrial innovations, and audience reception that affected the way in which films circulated and were consumed on both a national and international level.

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Note

1 Editor’s note: For a discussion of Italian postwar stardom, see the chapter by Réka Buckley in this volume. For further discussion of silent cinema, including the collapse of the Italian film industry in the 1920s, see Bertellini’s contribution. For transnational aspects of the silent cinema, especially the links between France and Italy, see Aprà’s piece. For the role of women in Italian silent cinema, see Luciano and Scarparo’s chapter.