Traveling Auteurs: The Geopolitics of Postwar Italian Cinema

Traveling Auteurs by Luca Caminati explores the political and aesthetic engagement of Italian filmmakers Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Michelangelo Antonioni with the global landscapes and politics of the Cold War period. The book examines their documentaries as records of political sensibilities and as symptomatic actors in complex geopolitical networks. It highlights their reception in the countries where they were shot and their legacies in Italian film history, shedding light on anticolonial struggles, the reaffirmation of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the consolidation of the Chinese Communist Party.

Format: Hardback
Length: 220 pages
Publication date: 30 April 2024
Publisher: Indiana University Press

After World War II, the relationships between cinema, European Leftists, and emerging postcolonial ideologies were characterized by a complex interplay of tensions. In his book Traveling Auteurs, author Luca Caminati delves into the work of influential Italian filmmakers Roberto Rossellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Michelangelo Antonioni, examining how they engaged politically and aesthetically with the global landscapes and politics of the Cold War period. These films, considered documentaries, capture specific manifestations of political sensibilities of the twentieth century. As comprehensive works, they reveal that the traveling auteurs who created them were symptomatic actors in complex geopolitical networks. Moreover, as cultural objects that reflect and shape contemporaneous debates, they provoke a rich and complex afterlife at home and abroad.

In the three chapters dedicated to Rossellini in India, Pasolini in Africa and the Middle East, and Antonioni in China, Caminati pays particular attention to the reception these films received in the countries where they were shot and to their legacies in Italian film history. By following the entanglements of filmmakers, artists, and activists involved as allies or direct witnesses to momentous political change, this book sheds new light on anticolonial struggles, the reaffirmation of the Non-Aligned Movement, and the consolidation of the Chinese Communist Party.

Through a meticulous analysis of these filmmakers' work, Caminati offers a fresh perspective on the complex relationships between cinema, politics, and cultural identity in the post-World War II era. Traveling Auteurs is a valuable contribution to the study of film and politics, providing insights into the ways in which filmmakers can use their art to shape and influence global narratives.

Weight: 494g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780253069542