Abstract

Italian cinema was very attentive to the profound transformations that took place in relation to consumer goods and practices between 1950 and 1973. Dino Risi is one of the most sensitive directors in representing the Italians’ adaptation to this rapidly changing context. This essay analyses several of Risi’s films, directed between 1957 and 1968 – from the beginning of the economic boom to the years of student protests – to understand his perspective both on Italian habits of that period and the relationship between this new lifestyle and different aspects of material culture