The Celluloid Atlantic

" The Celluloid Atlantic brilliantly identifies the broad traits of a Cold War cinematic alliance between the US and Western Europe that, beyond a geopolitical partnership and mutual financial interests, impinged upon disturbing ideological positions. Giovacchini's close analysis of key films, including their production and exhibition circumstances, reveals racist practices of self-exculpation that consistently privileged white (colonial) narratives and white characters as the main processes and agents of history. After this study, several decades of Euro-American cinema will not look the same." — Giorgio Bertellini, author of The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America

"Through a series of intriguing, illustrative, and often overlooked case studies, Giovacchini skillfully introduces readers to the ‘integrated cultural zone’ of post-World War II 'cinema of the West.' This cinema emerged from a transatlantic exchange and cross-fertilization of ideas, scripts, models, individuals, and capital—a dynamic that has often been neglected or overlooked in discussions focused on European national differences, autochthony, or US dominance and imperialism. Witty, provocative, and deeply researched, The Celluloid Atlantic represents a remarkable achievement by a historian unafraid to challenge entrenched historiographical assumptions." — Mario Del Pero, Centre d'Histoire, Sciences Po-Paris

" The Celluloid Atlantic brilliantly identifies the broad traits of a Cold War cinematic alliance between the US and Western Europe that, beyond a geopolitical partnership and mutual financial interests, impinged upon disturbing ideological positions. Giovacchini's close analysis of key films, including their production and exhibition circumstances, reveals racist practices of self-exculpation that consistently privileged white (colonial) narratives and white characters as the main processes and agents of history. After this study, several decades of Euro-American cinema will not look the same." — Giorgio Bertellini, author of The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America

"Through a series of intriguing, illustrative, and often overlooked case studies, Giovacchini skillfully introduces readers to the ‘integrated cultural zone’ of post-World War II 'cinema of the West.' This cinema emerged from a transatlantic exchange and cross-fertilization of ideas, scripts, models, individuals, and capital—a dynamic that has often been neglected or overlooked in discussions focused on European national differences, autochthony, or US dominance and imperialism. Witty, provocative, and deeply researched, The Celluloid Atlantic represents a remarkable achievement by a historian unafraid to challenge entrenched historiographical assumptions." — Mario Del Pero, Centre d'Histoire, Sciences Po-Paris

Saverio Giovacchini is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of Hollywood Modernism, Film and Politics in the Age of the New Deal and the coeditor, with Robert Sklar, of Global Neorealism: The Transnational History of a Film Style .