Consumption symbols at the cinema: Italian masters’ movies (1945-1975)

Since the 80s, movies have been used as a source of information for the analysis of consumption culture. Movies often include consumption symbols in the form of products, brands, icons and even movies. In this paper, after a brief review of the literature about movie analysis in a consumer culture perspective, some insights from the movies of Italian masters (1945-1975) will be given. Since the 40s, consumption symbols have been widely used: specific product categories were employed for metaphoric purposes (cigarettes and automobiles), movies and made in the U.S. goods were considered as highly expressive symbols.