Pagine rosse. Il cinema e la stampa periodica comunista italiana nel secondo dopoguerra (1945-1960)

This thesis studies communist cinema and cinematographic culture through the periodic press of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) published between 1945 and 1960. Applying an historical, sociological and culturological approach to the communist press, this research examines the main post-World War II Communist magazines, and related archival documentation, in order to assess the pervasiveness of film culture in non-specialized press. The five chapters analyse respectively: 1) the advent and development of cinema in the communist press; 2) the presence of cinema in the readers’s columns; 3) the role of communist critics in the broader cultural legitimation processes of cinema; 4) the role of the communist press in scouting and influencing the models of popular stardom; 5) the impact of the iconographic and gossip apparatuses proposed in the magazines’ covers and contents of the periodicals. The last section of the work consists of a database that indicates the file, date, author, title and page of each article, letter or cover relating to cinema in the periodicals analysed.