Without a Name and a Face: The Austrian Enemy in Interwar Italian Cinema

This essay investigates the representation of WWI in Italian fascist cinema by analyzing some of the major films about WWI made during the Fascist regime and, notably, Marco Elter’s "Le scarpe al sole" (1935), Giovacchino Forzano’s "13 uomini e un cannone" (1936) and Oreste Biancoli’s "Piccolo alpino" (1940). The films will be examined from an original and specific angle, devoting special attention to their representation of the Austro-German enemy. Little consideration has been paid so far in scholarly research to this aspect. The essay will specifically address the question, investigating the changing representation of WWI and, particularly, the evolution of the Austro-German enemy from foe to friend in Italian cinema in the course of the twenty years of Fascist regime. In doing so, the essay will place the films against the background of the Fascist regime’s foreign policy, with special regard to the Italian-Austrian politics of friendship during the early 1930s, followed in the second half of the decade by Italy’s rapprochement to Nazi-Germany and the birth of the Rome-Berlin axis.