A New Guide To Italian Cinema »

Carlo Celli attended the Università of Firenze and Bologna, received a B.A. from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from UCLA in 1993 under the direction of Marga Cottino-Jones. He is the author numerous publications on Italian literature and film including The Divine Comic: The Cinema of Roberto Benigni (2001) and Gillo Pontecorvo from Resistance to Terrorism (2005). He is currently Associate Professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. Marga Cottino-Jones received a laurea degree from the Università of Torino and a Ph.D. in Romance Languages from the University of Washington in Seattle. She taught at the Department of Italian at UCLA from 1961 to 1998. She is recognized as one of the leading voices in Italian Studies in the United States for her influential publications on Italian literature, theory and film studies including Order from Chaos in Boccaccio's Decameron; Il Dir Novellando:The Renaissance Novella; A Student's Guide to Italian Cinema (1983, 1993) and Michelangelo Antonioni, The architecture of vision : writings and interviews on Cinema (1996).

A New Guide to Italian Cinema, with co-author Carlo Celli, is a complete reworking and update of Marga Cottino-Jones' popular A Student's Guide to Italian Film (1983, 1993). This guide retains earlier editions' interest in renowned films and directors but is also attentive to popular cinema, the films which actually achieved box office success among the Italian public. The Guide introduces the Italian cinema not just as a 20th century phenomenon but as an expression of the deeper roots of Italy's historic, cultural and literary past. Chapters offer historical timelines and commentary on political and cultural events and trends, followed by discussion of the Italian cinema industry and key films. Appendices offer guides to writing about film, statistical data of Italian box office history and short biographies and filmographies of important directors. The aim of the book is to provide the cinephile, student, teacher, or fan with a guide where points of interest may be identified and studied with clarity.

Preface and Acknowledgements     ix
Remote History     xi
Italy from Unification to World War I     1
The Cultural Scene     7
Origins of Italian Cinema     9
Giovanni Pastrone's Cabiria and Gabriele D'Annunzio     10
Divismo     16
The Fascist Years (1922-43)     19
The Cultural Scene     24
Film in Fascist Italy     26
Alessandro Blasetti     28
Mario Camerini and White Telephone Comedies     32
Precursors of Neorealism     34
World War II     39
The Cultural and Literary Roots of Neorealism     42
Neorealism in Film     44
Roberto Rossellini and Open City (1945)     45
Reconstruction and the Late '40s     53
Film: The Late 1940s     56
The 1950s     67
The Development of Neorealism     68
The Visconti-Fellini Debate     74
De Sica, Television, and Popular Film in the 1950s     77
The Early 1960s     83
The Economic Boom     84
Itahan Cinema Boom     85
Commedia all'italiana (Comedy Italian Style)     88
The Spaghetti Western of SergioLeone     93
The Later 1960s     97
Art Cinema     99
Roberto Rossellini     100
Luchino Visconti     101
Federico Fellini     102
Michelangelo Antonioni     103
Vittorio De Sica     104
Art Cinema Newcomers     105
Pier Paolo Pasolini     108
Bernardo Bertolucci     110
The 1970s     113
Film and Television in the 1970s and 1980s     115
Comedies and Popular Cinema in the 1970s     117
Political Film/Instant Movie     118
The Poliziesco Crime Genre     123
The Heirs to Italian Art Cinema     125
The 1980s and 1990s: A Changing Society     127
The "New Italian Cinema"     129
A Nostalgic Narrative     134
Benigni's La vita e bella     139
The Next Millennium     143
The Cultural Scene     144
Italian Cinema in the New Millennium     146
Short Introduction to Film Study     161
Box Office     171
The Major Directors     189
Italian Political Parties     203
Notes     205
Selected Bibliography      217
Index     225