Italy in Early American Cinema: Race, Landscape, and the Picturesque » (New Edition)

Giorgio Bertellini is Assistant Professor of Screen Arts and Cultures and of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan. He is author of Emir Kusturica. His edited and co-edited volumes include The Cinema of Italy and (with Richard Abel and Rob King) Early Cinema and the "National."

Giorgio Bertellini traces the origins of American cinema's century-long fascination with Italy and Italian immigrants to the popularity of the pre-photographic aesthetic — the picturesque. Once associated with landscape painting in northern Europe, the picturesque came to symbolize Mediterranean Europe through comforting views of distant landscapes and exotic characters. Taking its cue from a picturesque stage backdrop from The Godfather Part II, Italy in Early American Cinema shows how this aesthetic was transferred from 19th-century American painters to early 20th-century American filmmakers. Italy in Early American Cinema offers readings of early films that pay close attention to how landscape representations that were related to narrative settings and filmmaking locations conveyed distinct ideas about racial difference and national destiny.

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction Transatlantic Racial Culture and Modern Visual Reproductions 1

Part 1 Picturing Italy's Natural and Social landscapes

1 Picturesque Mode of Difference 19

2 The Picturesque Italian South as Transnational Commodity 47

Part 2 Picture-Perfect America

3 Picturesque Views and American Natural Landscapes 95

4 Picturesque New York 134

5 Black Hands, White Faces 165

6 White Hearts 205

7 Performing Geography 236

Aftetrword: "A Mirror with a Memory" 276

Notes 293

Filmography 367

Bibliography 375

Index 421