Cinema, educazione e propaganda L’uomo dalla croce (1943) e Cielo sulla palude (1949)

Abstract

In this thesis will be analyzed the link between cinema, education and propaganda at the aim to investigate in which way the Catholic Church used the cinema like a propagandistic tool in the period of 1936 - 1957. On the basis of the object oriented approach and the comparative method, three ecclesiastical documents will be connected to two films. This period is taken into account because the first clerical document entirely dedicated to the cinema, the encyclical Viglianti Cura, is promulgated the 29th of June 1936 by pope Pius XI. Years later, on the 21th June and the 28th of October 1955, pope Pius XII declared the two Discorsi sul film ideale. The third document that will be examined, is the encyclical Miranda Prorsus, which is promulgated the 8th of September 1957 by the same pontiff. This document concludes harmoniously the Catholic Churches vision on the cinematographic discipline. The two films selected for the case study are L’uomo dalla croce (The man with a cross, 1943), directed by Roberto Rossellini and the film Cielo sulla pallude (Heaven over the Marshes, 1949), a motion picture by Augusto Genina. The analyses reveal that the film made by Rossellini can be classified as a precursor of ‘catholic’ Neorealism, since it expresses neorealist and catholic elements in a fascist cinematographic contest. The film of Genina instead, can be seen as an ‘ideal’ cinematographic product, since its propaganda would have educated the spectators the catholic dogma.