The Birth of Pop. The Soundscapes of the Early Sixties in Italian Cinema and Television

Abstract

In post-WWII Europe, film culture related in many different ways to a wide range of modern cultural practices. It had the emerging pop music industry at its centre and this was revolutionizing the landscapes and soundscapes we live in. The aim of my contribution is to delve into these related practices, taking the Italian case as my focus. I will explore its crucial journey to mediatization from the Fifties to the Sixties and will argue that it offers an exemplary trajectory for its (apparently excessive) foregrounding of music and sounds both in national film culture and in the transnational mediascape.