A Companion to Italian Cinema

Written by leading figures in the field, A Companion to Italian Cinema re-maps Italian cinema studies, employing new perspectives on traditional issues, and fresh theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema.

• Offers new approaches to Italian cinema, whose importance in the post-war period was unrivalled
• Presents a theory based approach to historical and archival material
• Includes work by both established and more recent scholars, with new takes on traditional critical issues, and new theoretical approaches to the exciting history and field of Italian cinema
• Covers recent issues such as feminism, stardom, queer cinema, immigration and postcolonialism, self-reflexivity and postmodernism, popular genre cinema, and digitalization
• A comprehensive collection of essays addressing the prominent films, directors and cinematic forms of Italian cinema, which will become a standard resource for academic and non-academic purposes alike

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.

Acknowledgments xi

Notes on Contributors xii

Editor’s Notes xix

Glossary xx

Preface and In Memoriam xxiv

Part I First Things 1

1 Introduction 3
Frank Burke

2 Italian Cinema Studies: A Conversation with Peter Bondanella 16
Frank Burke

Part II Historical/Chronological Perspectives 29

Silent Cinema 29

3 Silent Italian Cinema: A New Medium for Old Geographies 31
Giorgio Bertellini

4 Stardom in Italian Silent Cinema 48
Jacqueline Reich

Fascism and Italian Cinema 65

5 Genre, Politics, and the Fascist Subject in the Cinema of Italy (1922–1945) 66
Marcia Landy

The Italian Film Industry 83

6 Staying Alive: The Italian Film Industry from the Postwar to Today 84
Barbara Corsi

Cinema and Religion 103

7 Italian Cinema and Catholicism: From Vigilanti cura to Vatican II and Beyond 104
Marco Vanelli

Neorealism 121

8 The Italian Neorealist Experience: The Orphan Child and New Ways of Looking at the World 122
Lorenzo Borgotallo

9 Italian Neorealism: Quotidian Storytelling and Transnational Horizons 139
Laura E. Ruberto and Kristi M. Wilson

Stardom and the 1950s 157

10 Italian Female Stars and Their Fans in the 1950s and 1960s 158
Réka Buckley

Film Comedy—the 1950s and Beyond 179

11 The Popularity of Italian Film Comedy 180
Louis Bayman

12 The Question of Italian National Character and the Limits of Commedia all’italiana: Alberto Sordi, Federico Fellini, and Carlo Lizzani 198
Stephen Gundle

French�]Italian Film Collaborations into the 1960s 215

13 Cross�]Fertilization between France and Italy from Neorealism through the 1960s 216
Adriano Aprà

Auteur Cinema (1960s and 1970s) 227

14 Italian 1960s Auteur Cinema (and beyond): Classic, Modern, Postmodern 228
Veronica Pravadelli

Popular Film Genres (1950s to 1970s) 249

15 Italian Popular Film Genres 250
Austin Fisher

Politics and/of Terrorism (1960s to the Present) 267

16 The Representation of Terrorism in Italian Cinema 268
Christian Uva

Italian Cinema from the 1970s to the Present 283

17 From Cinecitta to the Small Screen: Italian Cinema After the Mid�]1970s Crisis 284
Tiziana Ferrero�]Regis

18 Contemporary Italian Film in the New Media World 303
Mary P. Wood

Part III Alternative Film Forms 323

19 Thinking Cinema: The Essay Film Tradition in Italy 325
Laura Rascaroli

20 Italian Experimental Cinema: Art, Politics, Poetry 340
Sandra Lischi

21 Notes on the History of Italian Nonfiction Film 361
Luca Caminati and Mauro Sassi

Part IV Critical, Aesthetic, and Theoretical Issues 375

22 A Century of Music in Italian Cinema 377
Emanuele D’Onofrio

23 The Practice of Dubbing and the Evolution of the Soundtrack in Italian Cinema: A Schizophonic Take 393
Antonella Sisto

24 Watching Italians Turn Around: Gender, Looking, and Roman/Cinematic Modernity 408
John David Rhodes

25 Women in Italian Cinema: From the Age of Silent Cinema to the Third Millennium 427
Bernadette Luciano and Susanna Scarparo

26 Imagining the Mezzogiorno: Old and New Paradigms 447
Fulvio Orsitto

27 The Queerness of Italian Cinema 467
Derek Duncan

28 An Accented Gaze: Italy’s Transmigrant Filmmakers 484
Áine O’Healy

29 How to Tell Time: Deleuze and Italian Cinema 500
Angelo Restivo

30 The Screen in the Mirror: Thematic and Textual Reflexivity in Italian Cinema 512
Stefania Parigi

31 Deterritorialized Spaces and Queer Clocks: Intertextuality in Italian Cinema 531
Marguerite Waller

Part V Last Things 551

32 Forum: The Present State and Likely Prospects of Italian Cinema and Cinema Studies 553
Flavia Brizio�]Skov, Flavia Laviosa, Millicent Marcus, Alan O’Leary, Massimo Riva, Pasquale Verdicchio, and Christopher Wagstaff

Index 572

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