Description
Book SynopsisFor observers of the European film scene, Federico Fellini’s death in 1993 came to stand for the demise of Italian cinema as a whole. Exploring an eclectic sampling of works from the new millennium, Italian Film in the Present Tense confronts this narrative of decline with strong evidence to the contrary.
Millicent Marcus highlights Italian cinema’s new sources of industrial strength, its re-placement of the Rome-centred studio system with regional film commissions, its contemporary breakthroughs on the aesthetic front, and its vital engagement with the changing economic and socio-political circumstances in twenty-first-century Italian life. Examining works that stand out for their formal brilliance and their moral urgency, the book presents a series of fourteen case studies, featuring analyses of such renowned films as Il Divo, Gomorrah, The Great Beauty, We Have a Pope, The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer, and Fire at Sea, along with lesser
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: An Overview Mafias 1. Toward a New Language of Engagement for the New Millennium: Marco Tullio Giordana’s The One Hundred Steps, 2000 2. The Anti-Mafia Martyr Film Takes an Unexpected Turn: Pierfrancesco Diliberto’s The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer, 2013 3. “This Is Not a Crime Film”: Michele Placido’s Crime Novel, 2005 4. “The Normality of Devastation”: Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah, 2008 Neo-regionalism 5. “Non per vacanza, ma per viverci!” (Not to Vacation, but to Live Here!): Giorgio Diritti’s The Wind Blows Round, 2005 6. The Child as the “Custodian of Future Memory”: Giorgio Diritti’s The Man Who Is to Come, 2009 Migrants 7. Channeling the Geographic Unconscious: Federico Bondi’s Black Sea, 2009 8. “Your Position Please”: Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea, 2016 Leadership 9. The Ironist and the Auteur: Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo, 2008 10. Liberating the Left: Toward a Humanist Language of Engagement for a Post-Political Age: Roberto Andò’s Long Live Liberty, 2013 11. The Pontiff and the Shrink: Nanni Moretti’s We Have a Pope, 2011 Women 12. "It Ended the Way It Should Have”: Francesca Comencini’s The Blank Space, 2008 13. Comic Relief: Riccardo Milani’s Don’t Stop Me Now, 2019 In a Category unto Itself 14. Hidden Beneath the “Blah Blah Blah”: Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, 2013 Bibliography Index
