Historical Genre as the Driving Force of Primo Novecento Italian Cinema.

Abstract

Numerous historical recreation films spurred the beginnings of Italian cinema during the Primo Novecento, until World War II. Between 1908 and 1914 a period of splendour developed known as Cinema epico italiano muto or Kolossal, with settings mostly in Antiquity, which placed Italy at the top of world film production and generated great success worldwide. The Italian cinema industry created productions of an effort and quality never seen before, full of valuable narrative advances in a medium still young, exerting an important influence in the later historical genre and creating some of its most recognizable characteristics still with us today. Despite the crisis in the Italian cinema caused by World War I, the historical genre continued to be an important part of its production, and Mussolini himself used it to underpin his ideological propaganda.