Transnational Neorealism: Toward an Italian American Film Hegemony

World War II was a watershed moment for the American and Italian cinemas: like the parting of the Red Sea, it opened up different roles in politics as well as in film for the Italian film industry and for Italian immigrants. Italy and Italian Americans reconnected as international politics assigned the country a central position in Cold War strategies.² And—not so indirectly—this new international balance corroborated the “whitening” process of Italians in the United States induced by the “structural mobility” that favored a less controversial ethnic placement.³ In 1945, the cinema was mobilized on all fronts: Americans introduced