Between stage and big screen. Twentieth-Century Etiquette and the Transformation of the Cinematographic Experience

This study delves into the evolution of social norms in 20th-century Italian cinema by examining etiquette manuals and books on manners published between the second half of 1920s and 1950s. It highlights how early cinema environments were lively, requiring etiquette manuals to prescribe more restrained behaviours as films became a dominant social platform. This analysis allows us to understand how these manuals not only document society’s adaptation to new forms of entertainment, but also how they actively participate in the construction of a new social and aesthetic normative. By analysing these transformations through etiquette manuals, the research highlights cinema’s unique role in societal development as a place for construction and negotiation of social rules and relationships.