Mr Dom Holdaway

PhD Student

Academic profile

  • BA French & Italian Studies (University of Warwick)
  • MA Italian Studies: Culture & Communication (Universities of Warwick & Birmingham)


Research interests:

  • Italian cinema, in particular post 2000
  • Impegno and political engagement in film
  • Rome & the postmodern city on film
  • Realism & political cinema


Research

Dom is working on a thesis which is examining concepts of impegno in modern Italian cinema, with particular emphasis on representations of the mafia: I cento passi (2000), Le conseguenze dell'amore (2004), Gomorra (2008). This involves a comparative approach, returning to earlier cinemas to reconsider the film impegnato in times of 'crisis' in national cinema identity, relying on film theory (such as Pasolini), and politically charged engagements with crime from the 1960s through to the 1990s: Le mani sulla citta' (1963), Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970), La scorta (1993). The thesis will put into question the concept of political engagement in light of the recent political situation on the peninsula, asking whether impegno is witnessing a second rebirth and, if so, whether this is routed in a problematic national identity:

'Il nostro e' un cinema che riflette sul declino del nostro paese. Cosi' come c'e' stata la valanga di produzioni che davanti al declino del paese rispondevano con il messaggio distraetevi, adesso e' il turno di chi invita il pubblico a fermarsi e pensare. Le cinematografie piu' brillanti sono quelle che nascono nei paesi in difficolta'. E sempre stato cosi'. La ricerca dell'identita' in momenti difficili o di tensioni sociali e' la risposta del cinema, che spesso porta a produzioni di grandissimo livello.'

Paolo Sorrentino (2008), in Vivilcinema 4, 3: 12

Publications

(2013) co-editor, with with Filippo Trentin, Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape (forthcoming 2013, Pickering and Chatto). Please follow: http://www.pickeringchatto.com/Rome

(2012) 'L'esperienza del passato: Situating Crisis in Italian Film History', Italian Studies 67.2, 267-82.

- co-editor of special issue of Italian Studies 67.2 on 'Da Sodoma a Gomorra. Framing Crisis and Rebirth in Italian Cinema'.

(2011), 'Da fatti realmente accaduti: Performing History in Contemporary Italian Film', New Readings 11, 17-36. Online: please click here.


Contact

Email: D.F.G.Holdaway@warwick.ac.uk, for Dom's teaching profile click here.