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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 May 2016
This article examines the documentary series Combat film made by Leonardo Valente and Roberto Olla for Rai-Uno. Shown in April 1994, the series was based on film taken by the American army (1943-5) and provoked a national scandal when it was first shown. The article argues that in order to fully understand Combat film it is necessary to look at the overall design of the programme as well as its content. By concentrating on the ‘special’ shown on 5 April 1994 the author demonstrates how the revisionist message of ‘national reconciliation’ which underlies the programme is reinforced by a series of formal and technical strategies.
1. See Gundle's, Stephen article on ‘The “Civic Religion” of the Resistance in Post-war Italy’ in this volume.Google Scholar
2. See, for example, Campigotto, Franco and Stajano, Corrado, I giorni della nostra storia (1974), and the excellent ‘Guerra Civile’ in Bozzano, Francesca, La storia in prima serata (1999).Google Scholar
3. It is worth noting that Mussolini's body is the subject of almost obsessive repetition. A later episode of Combat film devotes a great deal of time, with enlargements as well as freeze-frame shots, to the sequence which, shot immediately after the autopsy, shows the naked cadaver stretched out on the operating table and further disfigured by incisions made during the course of the operation. On the vicissitudes of Mussolini's body see Luzzatto, Sergio, Il corpo del duce, Einaudi, Turin, 1998.Google Scholar
4. See ‘I due falsi storici del 25 aprile’, in La Repubblica (14 April 1994).Google Scholar
