Issue 41
Notebook

Iconographies of Media Power in Slap the Monster on Page One: Visual Afterlives Between Italian Political Cinema and the Contemporary Public Sphere

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  • Daniel Arrebola,
  • Ludovico Longhi,
  • Ezequiel Ramón-Pinat
Daniel Arrebola
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Bio
Ludovico Longhi
Universitàt Autònoma de Barcelona
Bio
Ezequiel Ramón-Pinat
Universidad de Girona
Bio
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63700/1292

Published 2026-01-31

Keywords

  • Italian political cinema,
  • Marco Bellocchio,
  • Iconography,
  • Visual motifs,
  • Nachleben,
  • Public sphere,
  • Media manipulation
    • ...More
    Less

How to Cite

Arrebola, D., Longhi, L., & Ramón-Pinat, E. (2026). Iconographies of Media Power in Slap the Monster on Page One: Visual Afterlives Between Italian Political Cinema and the Contemporary Public Sphere. L’Atalante. Journal of Film Studies, (41), 31–46. https://doi.org/10.63700/1292

Copyright (c) 2026 L'Atalante. Journal of film studies

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This article analyses the film Slap the Monster on Page One (Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina, Marco Bellocchio, 1972) as a paradigmatic example of Italian political cinema capable of establishing visual codes to represent media manipulation and power relations. Drawing on Aby Warburg’s (2010) concept of Nachleben (afterlife) and Anton Giulio Mancino’s (2008) notion of the political-procedural film, this study examines recurring visual motifs in the film, such as the representation of the newsroom as a stage of power, the visual construction of the news story and the iconographic fabrication of the media monster. It analyses the afterlives of these visual codes in the contemporary public sphere, in forms ranging from digital journalism to strategies of visual activism. The article concludes by reflecting on the relevance of the Italian filmmaker’s work for understanding the relationship between cinema, the media and power in the current context.

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