Moralizing Cinema ― Film, Catholicism, and Power

This volume is part of the recent interest in the study of religion and popular media culture (cinema in particular), but it strongly differs from most of this work in this maturing discipline. Contrary to most other edited volumes and monographs on film and religion, Moralizing Cinema will not focus upon films (cf. the representation of biblical figures, religious themes in films, the fidelity question in movies), but rather look beyond the film text, content or aesthetics, by concentrating on the cinema-related actions, strategies and policies developed by the Catholic Church and Catholic organizations in order to influence cinema. Whereas the key role of Catholics in cinema has been well studied in the USA (cf. literature on the Legion of Decency and on the Catholic influenced Production Code Administration), the issue remains unexplored for other parts of the world. The book includes case studies on Argentina, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and the USA.

Daniel Biltereyst is Full Professor in Film and Cultural Media Studies at Ghent University, Belgium, where he is Head of the Center for Cinema and Media Studies (CIMS). He was the editor of Explorations in New Cinema History (2011) and Cinema, Audiences and Modernity (Routledge, 2012, both with R. Maltby and Ph. Meers), as well as Silencing Cinema (2013, with R. Van de Winkel).

Daniela Treveri Gennari is Reader in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK. Her work on Catholicism and cinema has been published in her monograph Post-War Italian Cinema: American Intervention, Vatican Interests (Routledge 2008) as well as in articles and book chapters. Her current work on audiences - funded by the AHRC - investigates memories of cinema-going and patterns of exhibition in 1950s Italy.