Cinema e Risorgimento negli anni '50 e '60 : identità nazionale e ruoli di genere / Cinema and the Risorgimento in the 50s and 60s : national identity and gender roles

The essay’s aim is to analyze the public use that the Italian cinema made of history trying to unveil the mechanism of memory and oblivion and the reasons behind them in crucial occasion: the celebrations for the centenary of Italian unity. The focus is obviously on the movies about the Risorgimento. Not only history, but also gender roles are at the basis of the patriotic discourse. Therefore the essay tries also to understand how they were represented in history movies. Four films are taken into account: La pattuglia sperduta (1952), Senso (1954), Viva l’Italia! (1961) and Il Gattopardo (1963).