Rethinking Genre in Contemporary Global Cinema offers a unique, wide-ranging exploration of the intersection between traditional modes of film production and new, transitional/transnational approaches to film genre and related discourses in a contemporary, global context. This volume’s content—the films, genres, and movements explored, as well as methodologies used in their analysis—is diverse and, crucially, up-to-date with contemporary film-making practice and theory. Significantly, the collection extends existing scholarly discourse on film genre beyond its historical bias towards a predominant focus on Hollywood cinema, on the one hand, and a tendency to treat “other” national cinemas in isolation and/or as distinct systems of production, on the other. In view of the ever-increasing globalisation and transnational mediation of film texts and screen media and culture worldwide, the book recognises the need for film genre studies and film genre criticism to cast a broader, indeed global, scope. The collection thus rethinks genre cinema as a transitional, cross-cultural, and increasingly transnational, global paradigm of film-making in diverse contexts.

Commedia all'italiana, or Comedy, Italian style, became popular at a time of great social change. This book, utilizing comedies produced in Italy from 1958-70, examines the genre's representation of gender in the everyday spaces of beaches and nightclubs, offices, cars, and kitchens, through the exploration of key spatial motifs.

The Historical Dictionary of Italian Cinema provides a better understanding of the role Italian cinema has played in film history through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, appendixes, black-&-white photos, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on actors, actresses, movies, producers, organizations, awards, film credits, and terminology.

In recent years numerous films, television series, comic books, graphic novels and video games have featured time travel narratives, with characters jumping backward, forward and laterally through time. No rules govern time travel in these stories. Some characters move by machine, some by magic, others by unexplained means. Sometime travelers can alter the timeline, while others are prevented from causing temporal aberrations. The fluid forms of imagined time travel have fascinated audiences and prompted debate since at least the 19th century. What is behind our fascination with time travel? What does it mean to be out of one's own era? How do different media tell these stories and what does this reveal about the media's relationship to time? This collection of new essays--the first to address time travel across a range of media--answers these questions by locating time travel narratives within their cultural, historical and philosophical contexts. Texts discussed include Doctor Who, The Terminator, The Georgian House, Save the Date, Back to the Future, Inception, Source Code and others.

Illustrated history of the beginnings, growth and influence of the commedia dell’ arte. Describes improvisations, staging, marks, scenarios, acting troupes, and origins.

Roberta Piazza's book is a linguistic investigation of the dialogue of Italian cinema covering a selection of films from the 1950s to the present day. It looks at how speech is dealt with in studies of the cinema and tackles the lack of engagement with dialogue in film studies. It explores the representation of discourse in cinema -- the way particular manifestations of verbal interaction are reproduced in film. Whereas 'representation' generally refers to the language used in texts to assign meaning to a group and its social practices, here discourse representation more directly refers to the relationship between real-life and cinematic discourse. Piazza analyses how fictional dialogue reinterprets authentic interaction in order to construe particular meanings. Beginning by exploring the relationship between discourse and genre, the second half of the book takes a topic-based approach and reflects on the themes of narrative and identity. The analysis carried out takes on board the multi-semiotic and multimodal components of film discourse. The book uses also uses concepts and methodologies from pragmatics, conversation analysis and discourse analysis.

"This book explores the work of Dino Risi with The Easy Life (1962), The Monsters (1963), The New Monsters (1977), and Scent of a Woman (1974), Mario Monicelli with Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), The Great War (1959), and Amici miei (1975), also Pietro Germi with Divorce Italian Style (1961), as well as filmmakers as disparate as Federico Fellini with Amarcord (1973), Ettore Scola with Down and Dirty (1976), Lina Wertm©ơller with Swept Away (1974), Luigi Comencini with The Scientific Cardplayer (1972) and many others. In addition the volume explains how the genre was able to reveal during two decades (1960s and 1970s) many acting talents and confirmed the future legacy of picturesque icons such as Alberto Sordi, Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman, Stefania Sandrelli, Claudia Cardinale, Monica Vitti, Giancarlo Giannini and Ugo Tognazzi, all of whom depicted the Italian resilience in the utmost idiosyncratic manner."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

The history of modern Italy is characterized by recurrent cultural and political projects of modernity, rejuvenation, and regeneration; projects which often had their roots in a widespread dissatisfaction with social and political reality, and perceived moral corruption. The Risorgimento, the movement leading to Italian Unification in 1861, explicitly linked the quest for national unity to a process of moral regeneration and progress. Later forms of nationalism and the rise of fascism in the first two decades of the twentieth century advocated a spiritual revolution and the moulding of new Italians through war and violence. The tragic outcome of Italian fascism led to the emergence of new visions of progress during the post-war First Republic, in which European integration was embraced with conviction. In the last 25 years a project of of modernization epitomized by Silvio Berlusconi has characterized Italian politics, invoking a mixture of nationalist themes and an uncritical embracing of consumer and media culture. In this Very Short Introduction Anna Cento Bull addresses the question of what modernity means to Italy, and asks what modern Italy stands for. She considers Italy's political system and style of government, and looks at its economic modernisation and issues with emigration, internal migration and immigration. Bull concludes by looking at the Italian culture and lifestyle, including modern art and architecture, cinema, literature, gastronomy, fashion and sport. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.