A Companion to Italian Cinema

"If you want to get up to speed on the latest and most significant research on Italian cinema, this is the place to start. The Companion provides overviews that orient the general reader and a rich mix of focused studies for the specialist. It revisits familiar themes (neo–realism, national character, great directors) with refreshing new readings, but broadens the cultural context with the inclusion of work on genres, stars, and audiences that subvert critical hierarchies. The writing engages with current theoretical debates without jargon. Analyses of overlooked phenomena such as dubbing, the role of the Catholic Church, and art/experimental film open up unusual perspectives. A sharp editorial intelligence brings coherence to a multi–faceted volume rich in insight and information."

Robert Lumley, University College London

Written by leading figures in the field and embracing the significant films, filmmakers, and historical moments of Italian cinema, A Companion to Italian Cinema re–maps the genre′s rich history, capturing its celebrated intellectual and aesthetic verve and delineating its socio–political and formal contours from its origins to the early years of the 21st Century.

Including essays from both established and more recent scholars, the Companion considers traditional areas of research such as neorealism, auteur cinema, commedia all′italiana, Italian silent cinema, politics, Catholicism, and terrorism. A significant section of the volume is also dedicated to more recent issues such as feminism, queer cinema, immigration, and digitalization. This volume addresses major films in the history of Italian cinema, from Cabiria (1914) to La grande bellezza (2013), and major directors such as Rossellini, Fellini, Antonioni, and Bertolucci. The role of music and issues of distribution and reception are also considered, and a comprehensive overview of the history of Italian cinema studies is provided. The result is a comprehensive, cutting–edge collection that will become a standard resource for academic and non–academic purposes alike.

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Editor s Notes

Glossary

Preface and In Memoriam

First Things

1. Introduction
Frank Burke

2. Italian Cinema Studies: A Conversation with Peter Bondanella
Frank Burke

Historical/Chronological Perspectives

SILENT CINEMA

3. Silent Italian Cinema: A New Medium for Old Geographies
Giorgio Bertellini

4. Stardom in Italian Silent Cinema
Jacqueline Reich

FASCISM AND ITALIAN CINEMA

5. Genre, Politics, and the Fascist Subject in the Cinema of Italy
Marcia Landy

THE ITALIAN FILM INDUSTRY

6. Staying Alive: The Italian Film Industry from the Postwar to Today
Barbara Corsi

Cinema and Religion

7. Italian Cinema and Catholicism: From Vigilanti cura to Vatican II and Beyond
Marco Vanelli

NEOREALISM

8. The Italian Neorealist Experience: The Orphan–Child and New Ways of Looking at the World
Lorenzo Borgotallo

9. Italian Neorealism: Quotidian Storytelling and Transnational Horizons
Laura E. Ruberto and Kristi M. Wilson

STARDOM AND THE 1950S

10. Italian Film Stars and their Fans: the 1950s and Early 1960s
Réka Buckley

FILM COMEDY THE 1950S AND BEYOND

11. The Popularity of Italian Film Comedy
Louis Bayman

12. The Question of Italian National Character and the Limits of Commedia all italiana
Alberto Sordi, Federico Fellini, Carlo Lizzani and Stephen Gundle

FRENCH–ITALIAN FILM COLLABORATIONS INTO THE 1960S

13. Cross–fertilization between France and Italy from Neorealism through the 1960′s
Adriano Aprà

AUTEUR CINEMA (1960S AND 1970S)

14. Italian Auteur Cinema in a Modernist Context
Veronica Pravadelli

POPULAR FILM GENRES (1950S–1970S)

15. Italian Popular Film Genres
Austin Fisher

POLITICS AND/OF TERRORISM (1960S TO THE PRESENT)

16. The Representation of Terrorism in Italian Cinema
Christian Uva

ITALIAN CINEMA FROM THE 1970S TO THE PRESENT

17. From Cinecittà To the Small Screen: Italian Cinema After the Mid–1970s Crisis
Tiziana Ferrero–Regis

18. Contemporary Italian Film in the New Media World
Mary Wood

Alternative Film Forms

19. Thinking Cinema: The Essay Film Tradition in Italy
Laura Rascaroli

20. Italian Experimental Cinema: Art, Politics, Poetry
Sandra Lischi

21. Notes on the History of Italian Nonfiction Film
Luca Caminati and Mauro Sassi

Critical, Aesthetic, and Theoretical Issues

22. A Century of Music in Italian Cinema
Emanuele D Onofrio

23. The Soundtrack in Italian Cinema, A Schizophonic Take
Antonella Sisto

24. Watching Italians Turn Around: Gender, Looking, and Roman/Cinematic Modernity
John David Rhodes

25. Women in Italian Cinema: From the Age of Silent Cinema to the Third Millennium
Bernadette Luciano and Susanna Scarparo

26. Imagining the Mezzogiorno: Old and New Paradigms
Fulvio Orsitto

27. The Queer of Italian Cinema
Derek Duncan

28. Migrant Visions: Redefining Italian Cinema in a Globalized World
Áine O′Healy

29. How to Tell Time: Gilles Deleuze and Italian Cinema
Angelo Restivo

30. The Screen in the Mirror: Thematic and Textual Reflexivity in Italian Cinema
Stefania Parigi

31. Globalizing the Film Experience: Intertextuality in Italian Cinema
Marguerite Waller

Last Things

32. Forum: The Present State And Future Prospects of Italian Cinema and Cinema Studies
Flavia Brizio–Skov, Flavia Laviosa, Alan O Leary, Millicent Marcus, Massimo Riva,  Pasquale Verdicchio, and Christopher Wagstaff

Frank Burke is Professor Emeritus of Film at Queen′s University, Canada. He is the author of Fellini′s Films: From Postwar to Postmodern (1996) and Federico Fellini: Variety Lights to Dolce Vita (1984) and has co–edited Federico Fellini: Contemporary Perspectives (with Marguerite R. Waller, 2002). He has produced over 100 publications, keynote addresses, invited lectures, and special sessions on Italian and North American cinema, and has edited for the Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory and Literature/Film Quarterly.