An important contribution to the growing field of Italian Production Studies, Marco Cucco and Giacomo Manzoli’s book provides useful insights into the current state of public funding in the Italian film industry. Comprehensively, the essays collected in this volume give a broad and detailed analysis of the role played by the state in financing productions, vis-à-vis other funding agencies, notably regional Film Commissions and the European Union. In addition, some essays in the book study the interconnections between various stages of the so-called ‘filiera’ (production chain), in particular, distribution both in cinemas and on television.
Cucco and Manzoli’s introduction lays out the framework of the whole volume: a pragmatic and scientific approach (‘un approccio pragmatico e scientifico’, p. 7) that is used in opposition to what they define as the ‘interference of ideology and value’ (‘interferenza di natura ideologica e assiologica’, p. 7). Their goal is an unbiased account of the Italian film industry and associated legislation which resists taking positions for or against the status quo. In the tradition of cultural studies, Cucco and Manzoli argue, Il cinema di Stato aims to present a history that highlights the links between symbolic forms (producers of meaning) and the economic and industrial structures that foster them. Consistent with this pragmatic approach, all essays in the volume are heavily based on quantitative research, showcasing data on funding, distribution, and audiences.
Each essay coherently develops the central idea stated in the Introduction in interrelated directions. In his contribution, Cucco explores the relationship between the economy of the film industry and state legislation on cinema. After a brief introduction on the economic performance of the 1980s and 1990s, which suggests a slight recovery in revenue, Cucco analyses the structural limitations of the Italian film industry before and after the Urbani decree of 2004. This decree introduced, for the first time since the Corona Law of 1967, some major changes in the dynamics of public and private financing: a ‘reference system’ (p. 55) for fair attribution of funds to culturally relevant films (‘criterio del prodotto culturale’, p. 54), based on the reputation of its producers and artists; the legalisation of product placement; and a tax credit. These changes in legislation are relevant to all the essays in the collection and are used as a marker in their periodisation. Until the early 2000s, investments in the volatile industry of cinema were scarce: Rai and Mediaset were major producers of films but did not invest in distribution, and foreign films were the most successful at the box office. According to Cucco, the Urbani decree has partially solved these issues, as demonstrated by positive results at the box office, but has also systematically helped the same group of producers and artists to benefit from state support.
Two other essays in the collection reach similar conclusions from different points of departure. Dominic Holdaway’s study on the social networks of ‘MiBACT films’ (i.e. those funded by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities) and Manzoli and Andrea Minuz’s article on the ‘syntax, semantic, and praxis of cultural interest’ (‘componenti semantiche, sintattiche e pragmatiche’, p. 175) argue that, today, a select circle of producers, directors, and stars dominate the arena of so-called quality cinema funded by the State. A plethora of graphics and statistical tools are used in both essays to support the claim. In particular, Holdaway uses big data and social network analysis to explain how funding agencies, including the State, are related to each other, and how professionals are organised in clusters of producers, screenwriters, stars, and directors. Manzoli and Minuz argue instead for a ‘distant reading’ of contemporary Italian cinema, in reference to Franco Moretti’s use of the expression, and analyse various aspects of a sample (100 films), including locations and stylistic elements, in an attempt to shed light on their semantic and syntax structures by modeling Rick Altman’s genre theory.
Finally, Luca Barra and Massimo Scaglioni analyse the relationship between cinema and television in the context of a global market characterised by media convergence and franchises. In light of the norms regulating television in Italy (in a European context) and on the basis of data pertaining to the participation of Rai, Mediaset and Sky in film production and distribution, Barra and Scaglioni arrive at the conclusion that financing and broadcasting are not always ‘two sides of the same coin’ (‘due faccie della stessa medaglia’, p. 122); that the circularity of TV and cinema characterises commercial and pay TV but does not apply to Rai, thus limiting the success of films that the public channel finances. Also, their analysis shows that Rai operates in ways that undermine the objectives of the Urbani decree by further financing the films already supported by MiBACT. While the new legislation aims at fostering private investments by eliminating films fully funded by the State, Rai is complicit in continuing this practice.
In conclusion, Il cinema di Stato is a useful and rich contribution to Italian cinema and media histories that gives both scholars and the general public access to unique data on the Italian film industry. On the one hand, the book’s quantitative approach is refreshing, particularly with regard to scholarship from Italy, for the volume uniquely eschews the tendency to apply a Crocian framework to the analysis of cinema; rather, the authors take into account the role of the film industry (and legislation) in regulating production but also in shaping cultural hierarchies of taste and value. On the other hand, I question whether the happy synergy between the pragmatism of social sciences and the discursive approach of the humanities can actually function as a way to achieve objectivity, as premised in the Introduction, especially if the authors mean that (an alleged) historical truth can only be demonstrated by numbers. I find more interesting the unresolved contradictions that the interdisciplinary nature of the book puts forward, in particular with regard to the distinction between ‘cinema’ as an art and ‘film’ as an industry. In Cucco’s essay the first is conflated in the latter, while in Manzoli’s and others’ the opposition between the two is constantly under debate. Consequently, the essays shift between considerations about a film’s ‘success’ and ‘value’ on the basis of its commercial profit and/or cultural value (whose meaning is yet to be defined). The conundrum inherent in the medium of cinema cannot be resolved by quantitative means, but only approached discursively in its historical relevance. Ultimately, Il cinema di Stato has the distinction of reminding us of this fundamental aporia.
