Abstract

Italian cinema has often (and willingly) represented the most popular consumer goods of the economic miracle. In many cases the films recorded the important socio-cultural change taking place in the Country, but in others they clearly included some forms of (indirect) advertising. How to distinguish one from the other? With what tools? With what working methods? Inspired by the seminal works of Stephen Gundle on the rise of the western consumer culture, this essay aims to address the above questions, within the framework of the Prin 17 funded research project Free Range Chicken. Cinema and the New Culture of Consumption in Italy (1950-1973), combining multimodal socio-semiotic film analysis with archival research. It moves from the idea that a (cultural) history of product placement is located at the crossroads between the history of cinema, the history of institutions and public administration, and the history of business economics