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Breaking Bread
The Filmic Foodscape of Postwar Italy
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2026
About this book
Italy is celebrated around the world for its cuisine: simple, rustic, and tasteful. Likewise, Italy’s cinema has continuously garnered great acclaim. Yet, the history behind their food – and the ways it has been treated in media – is decidedly more complicated.
In Breaking Bread, the worlds of anthropology, economics, gender studies, history, biochemistry, and cultural and literary studies collide on one plate. Food and film are Niki Kiviat’s guiding pillars as she explores great transformations in Italy’s consumption in the decades following the Second World War – years in which austerity morphed into radical gluttony. Historians argue that Italy’s eating habits changed relatively little in this period, but as these films posit, the transition from hunger to excess – and from starvation to supermarkets – is not only apparent but enormous. Through its analyses of mise en scène, employment of influential stars, and theories and retrospectives by key directors, Breaking Bread reveals both the progression and devolution of Italy’s filmic foodscape from 1954 to 1973.
Following the diegesis of Italy’s transition from hunger to abundance across these decades, as visceral needs morphed into other forms of desire, this book portrays how the anxieties surrounding food began as a light-hearted, comedic nostalgia, but later transitioned into fatalistic panic.
In Breaking Bread, the worlds of anthropology, economics, gender studies, history, biochemistry, and cultural and literary studies collide on one plate. Food and film are Niki Kiviat’s guiding pillars as she explores great transformations in Italy’s consumption in the decades following the Second World War – years in which austerity morphed into radical gluttony. Historians argue that Italy’s eating habits changed relatively little in this period, but as these films posit, the transition from hunger to excess – and from starvation to supermarkets – is not only apparent but enormous. Through its analyses of mise en scène, employment of influential stars, and theories and retrospectives by key directors, Breaking Bread reveals both the progression and devolution of Italy’s filmic foodscape from 1954 to 1973.
Following the diegesis of Italy’s transition from hunger to abundance across these decades, as visceral needs morphed into other forms of desire, this book portrays how the anxieties surrounding food began as a light-hearted, comedic nostalgia, but later transitioned into fatalistic panic.
Author / Editor information
Contributor: Niki Kiviat
Earning her postgraduate degrees at Columbia University, Niki Kiviat currently serves on the World Language Faculty at Greenwich Country Day School, where she teaches Italian and Spanish.
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Illustrations
ix -
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Acknowledgments
xi -
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Introducing the Filmic Foodscape of the Boom
1 -
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Chapter One Totò and the Continuity of Hunger
21 -
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Chapter Two From Pizzaiola to Phenom: Sophia Loren, the Nexus of Networks
56 -
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Chapter Three “Feels Like Home”: Elevation and Containment in the Patriarchal City
88 -
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Chapter Four Crises and Revolutions in the Work of Pasolini
120 -
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Chapter Five La grande abbuffata, or the Reawakening at the End of the World
163 -
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Chapter Five La grande abbuffata, or the Reawakening at the End of the World
199 -
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Notes
207 -
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Bibliography and Filmography
235 -
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Index
249
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 21, 2025
eBook ISBN:
9781487564650
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
256
eBook ISBN:
9781487564650
Keywords for this book
Italian cuisine; Italian cinema; food in film; postwar Italy; food culture; anthropology; gender studies; economic history; mise en scène; film stars; hunger and abundance; supermarkets; Niki Kiviat; film directors; history
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
