| This dissertation examines what is political in American and Italian cinema through the lens of the Mafia film. "Political" here refers to films which encourage active spectatorship by questioning historical facts, societal ideals, and ideological contradictions, and provoking thought. Because of historical circumstances, ethnic diversity in the U.S in contrast to a lack of ethnic diversity in Italy, and different traditions of cinema, Italian Mafia films typically lack the romanticism so commonplace in American Mafia films.;While Italian directors often insist that it is their express intention to send a political message in these films, they are not always successful in doing so. Directors like Rosi, Petri and Rossellini provide models for a political cinema, but in today's media-saturated world, and in a cinema climate dominated by Hollywood Blockbusters, a new kind of cinema is imperative in order to be effectively political. Directors like Stefano Incerti and Paolo Sorrentino, whose films I discuss at length, provide models for how this may be done.;American Mafia films often romanticize the Mafia and use the Mafia to explore issues other than the Mafia and organized crime (e.g. ethnicity, family dynamics, the immigrant experience, the myth of the American Dream) and are, ultimately, not political. There are, however, other successfully political films: films about race, class, sexuality, discrimination, and war. As with Mafia films, subject matter alone does not make these films political. Rather, it is how these films tackle their subject matter that makes them effective. Thus, in addition to Mafia films and the television series The Sopranos, I also examine war films and films about race.;Finally, because of the way in which screen stereotypes and icons inform both the way in which we perceive reality and the way in which the media reports and constructs reality, I examine news coverage of the Mafia, marketing of Mafia films and television series, and the way in which these representations shape both our perception of reality and reality itself. |
