Time.news – The first is the diva of the silent Lydia Borrelli, for whom, thanks to her sophisticatedly artificial acting, the critics of the time created the neologism “borellizzare”. The latest Julia Roberts is the star of ‘Pretty woman’ and ‘Erin Brockovic’. In between legends such as Greta Garbo and Marylin Monroe, but also our Virna Lisi, Sophia Loren and obviously Monica Vitti, for a total of seventy-two divas, mainly Italian, American, French and German, thirty-four of which are immortalized in the period portraits that they close the book.
It is a hymn to the great movie stars of the twentieth century and above all to stardom as the engine that turbo-charged the process of female emancipation ‘Dive del cinema’ (Giulio Perrone publisher) just released in bookstores and digital stores.
In his roundup on the great actresses who left their mark in the twentieth century, Francesco Costa, writer, screenwriter, critic and professor of film history, recounting professional glories, interpretations, loves and roller coaster lives that in turn seem like films, provides a precious manual (each sheet is seasoned with partial filmography).
But, above all, in its compilation it aims to enhance the scope of the existential model of divas for women who have only watched cinema instead. “Mine is a hymn to the strength and courage of those actresses who brought to light the strength and creativity of women in Western culture and who, managing to make their way in a sector where the road reserved for actresses was difficult to say the least, have enlightened the path of all women ”explains to Time.news Costa who places the birth of stardom and the subversive role of actresses in the era of Italian silent cinema, to which the first chapter of the book with Borrelli and Francesca Bertini is dedicated.
Book with a high feminist rate, ‘Dive del cinema’ underlines the power of the silent divas in an Italy where the condition of women was penalized to say the least, with the other half of the sky far from the polling stations and beyond: ” The Italian divas opened a gap in the constraints that harnessed the viewers’ desire for freedom – underlines Costa – beautiful and seductive, on the screen they made fun of the male and led men of power to madness and suicide, unable to escape their call. While, in real life, they founded production companies and even went behind the camera to direct themselves “. In the subdivision of her story and the chapters of her, Costa follows the historical-social thread.
Here then is the emancipated and enterprising American diva of the Roaring Twenties, “the divas of the Fascist period” “The sirens of the Nazi regime” led by Leni Riefenstahl (“Hitler thought he was using her to propagate his verb, but she used him to erect a monument to his genius in the history of cinema “). And then very fertile, there is the period of the “diva in post-war Italy”, with the various Magnani, Mangano, Loren, Lollobrigida: “While Italy was rising from its rubble, female stardom experienced a season of unrepeatable happiness. It was the period in which the daughters of the people saw in the cinema an opportunity to redeem childhoods of sacrifices and renunciations. Beautiful and courageous, they learned English and landed in Hollywood ”.
Followed by “the fabulous Italian girls of the fifties”, from Lucia Bosè to Virna Lisi, the French and German divas of the post-war period, the antidive in style Jane Fonda and Shirley Mc Laine who replaced the all charm and mystery paraphernalia of the stars who had them preceded with political and social commitment. Why are there only two Italians, Monica Bellucci and Margherita Buy for Italian cinema at the end of the twentieth century? “Because for at least twenty years Italian cinema has no longer created meaningful roles for women, they are almost always the protagonist’s wives or girlfriends”. But who are Costa’s favorites? “As a kid I loved Susan Hayward’s red hair and strong willed attitude, Oscar in ’59 for“ I don’t want to die ”- he explains – as an adult Romy Schneider, beautiful and tormented. Without forgetting Audrey Hepburn, who with her elf air has conquered men and women ”.