Annie Vivanti e il cinema delle dive

Starting from the cinematographic tale Secondo me… (1917), the essay reconstructs the relationship (not investigated until now) between the literary works and artistic personality of Annie Vivanti and the diva-film in the Italian post-war cinema. It focuses particularly on some long-distance connections maintained with Francesca Bertini’s films, from the cause for plagiarism brought by the writer against the production of La piovra (Edoardo Bencivenga 1920) to the realization of Marion artista di caffè concerto (Roberto Roberti 1920), based on the homonymous Vivanti’s novel (1891). After the release of the film, Vivanti rewrited the adventure of the protagonist (Marion, 1921) moralizing it. The meeting between the productions of the greatest Italian diva and the most popular writer of the time is marked by the centrality of female characters, unconventional and outrageous, destructive and persecuted, soon to be abandoned by the Italian cinema and literature. From their ashes, in the following decades, the fatal creatures and dark ladies of Hollywood movies will come to life.