The Total Art Italian Cinema from Silent Screen to Digital Image

In this comprehensive guide, some of the world's leading scholars consider the issues, films, and filmmakers that have given Italian cinema its enduring appeal. Readers will explore the work of such directors as Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Roberto Rossellini as well as a host of subjects including the Italian silent screen, the political influence of Fascism on the movies, lesser known genres such as the giallo (horror film) and Spaghetti Western, and the role of women in the Italian film industry. The Total Art explores recent developments in cinema studies such as digital performance, the role of media and the Internet, neuroscience in film criticism, and the increased role that immigrants are playing in the nation's cinema.

Joseph Luzzi, Associate Professor of Italian and Director of Italian Studies at Bard College, USA, is 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).

Introduction: Celluloid Muse, by Joseph Luzzi
Part I. CHRONOLOGIES AND MOVEMENTS
Chapter 1: Italian "Cinema" before Italian Cinema, Peter Bondanella
Chapter 2: Italian Silent Film, by Giorgio Bertellini
Chapter 3: Fascist Cinema, by Vittorio Zigarria
Chapter 4: Neorealism, by Robert Gordon
Chapter 5: Auteur Cinema, by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
Chapter 6, The Orphaned Generation, by Daniela Bini
Chapter 7, Italian Cinema in the Present Tense, by Millicent Marcus
Part II. GENDER AND GENRE
Chapter 8, The Femme Fatale, Angela Delle Vacche
Chapter 9, Italian Women Directors, by Gaetana Marrone Puglia
Chapter 10: Comedy, Italian Style, by Marcia Landy
Chapter 11: The Spaghetti Western, by Christopher Wagstaff
Chapter 12, The 'Giallo,' by Robert Rushing
Chapter 13, Italian Film Theory, Francesco Casetti

III. RELATIONS AND DEBATES
Chapter 14: Print Culture and Early Italian Film, John Welle
Chapter 15, Film and Photography, by Maria Antontella Pelizzari
Chapter 16, Film and Television, by Alan Healy
Chapter 17, Filming Italian Immigration, by Antonio Vitti
Chapter 18, Film and Neuroscience, by Michele Guerra
Chapter 19, Italian Cinema in the Digital Age, by Christian Uva
Chapter 20, The Future of the Past, by Gian Piero Brunetta