Description
Book SynopsisJoseph Luzzi is Associate Professor of Italian and Director of Italian Studies at Bard College, USA, and the author of
Romantic Europe and the Ghost of Italy (2008), which received the MLA's Scaglione Prize for Italian Studies and was named an Outstanding Academic Title by
Choice (2009).
Trade ReviewThis collection of carefully-researched essays forms a multifaceted, functional, and up-to-date reference volume that should be on the shelf of every cinephile and student of Italian cinema. * Federico Pacchioni, Associate Professor of World Languages and Cultures, Chapman University, USA *
The writers assembled here by Joseph Luzzi - some of them well-known scholars at the top of their game, others new voices emerging with power and flair - engage us at all stages of this rich new volume on Italian cinema. Here is a reference work that makes good its title promise - to cover an entire history, from the age of silent screen to digital images of more than a century later. The various chapters weave pathways into existing knowledge, extending lines of inquiry in a variety of enticing directions. Individual film critics here take different approaches, but in all cases the writing styles are cogent, intriguing, and a challenge both to other scholars and to the general reader. A clear overall chronology by Mattia Acetoso leads the volume. Each further chapter has a comprehensive bibliography and filmography of the particular aspect of Italian cinema under consideration. In all respects the contributors prove worthy of the volume’s dedicatee, Millicent Marcus, whose pioneering work in the field has for decades drawn others magnetically to it, and whose own contribution here is one of many pieces of exemplary exploration. Those readers who are well acquainted with aspects of Italian cinema will find their senses of it revitalised, discovering unknown films to watch and old favourites to consider in new ways. Those by contrast who so far know relatively little will receive guidance here, and stimulation to commence their own exploration with fascination and in bold individual ways. Here is a volume that will enhance love of and expertise about Italian cinema - and indeed Italian culture more generally, since all the contributions are richly contextualised - for many years to come. * Jonathan White, Professor Emeritus in Literature, University of Essex, UK *
Table of ContentsList of Contributors Glossary Mattia Acetoso (Boston College, USA)
Chronology Mattia Acestoso (Boston College, USA)
Introduction Joseph Luzzi (Bard College, USA)
Part I - Chronologies and Movements 1. Italian Silent Film
Antonio Costa (Università di Padova, Italy) 2. Futurism and Film
Michael Syrimis (Tulane University, USA) 3. The Never-Ending Story of Film and Fascism
Vito Zagarrio (Università di Roma Tre, Italy) 4. Neorealism
Giuliana Minghelli (McGill University, Canada) 5. The Orphaned Generation: Cinema of the 1980s and 1990s
Alessia Ricciardi (Northwestern University, USA) 6. Persistence of Vision: Realism and the Popular in Italian Cinema of the New Millennium
Millicent Marcus (Yale University, USA) Part II - Gender, Genre, Theory 7. The Five Faces of the Italian Femme Fatale
Stephen Gundle (University of Warwick, UK) 8. Italian Women's Cinema and the Wounded Filmic Body
Dana Renga (The Ohio State University, USA) 9. The Cinematic Evolution of
Commedia all'Italiana Marcia Landy (University of Pittsburgh, USA) 10. Popular Italian Cinema
Catherine O'Rawe (University of Bristol, UK) 11. Italian Film Theory, 1907-2015
Gabriele Pedullà (Università di Roma Tre, Italy) Part III - Relations and Debates 12. Film Music: "
Kaos and the Taviani"
Daniela Bini (University of Texas, Austin, USA) 13. Photography and Film
Sarah Carey (McGraw-Hill Education) 14. Television and Film
Stefano Baschiera (Queen's University Belfast, UK) 15. Italian Documentary and the Predicaments of the
Auteur Luca Caminati (Concordia University, Canada) and Mauro Sassi (Independent Scholar) 16. The Global Impact of Italian Neorealism
Laura E. Ruberto (Berkeley City College, USA) and Kristi M. Wilson (Soka University of America, USA) Part IV - Films in Focus 17.
Cabiria Robert Rushing (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA) 18.
Senso Brendan Hennessey (Binghamton University, USA) 19.
Bitter Rice Charles L. Leavitt IV (University of Notre Dame, USA) 20.
La strada Federico Pacchioni (Chapman University, USA) 21.
L'avventura John David Rhodes (University of Cambridge, UK) 22.
Once upon a Time in the West Maryann McDonald Carolan (Fairfield University, USA) 23.
Theorem Robert S.C. Gordon (University of Cambridge, UK) 24.
The Conformist Michael Cramer (Sarah Lawrence College, USA) 25.
Love and Anarchy Bernadette Luciano (University of Auckland, New Zealand) 26.
The Best of Youth Alan O'Leary (University of Leeds, UK) Part V - Behind the Scenes 27. Sound and Soundtrack in Italian Cinema
Monica Facchini (Colgate University, USA) 28. Screenwriting
Cosetta Gaudenzi (University of Memphis, USA) 29. Open-Air Cinema
Allison Cooper (Bowdoin College, USA) Index
