For observers of the European film scene, Federico Fellini’s death in 1993 came to stand for the demise of Italian cinema as a whole. Exploring an eclectic sampling of works from the new millennium, Italian Film in the Present Tense confronts this narrative of decline with strong evidence to the contrary. Millicent Marcus highlights Italian cinema’s new sources of industrial strength, its re-placement of the Rome-centred studio system with regional film commissions, its contemporary breakthroughs on the aesthetic front, and its vital engagement with the changing economic and socio-political circumstances in twenty-first-century Italian life. Examining works that stand out for their formal brilliance and their moral urgency, the book presents a series of fourteen case studies, featuring analyses of such renowned films as Il Divo, Gomorrah, The Great Beauty, We Have a Pope, The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer, and Fire at Sea, along with lesser-known works deserving of serious critical scrutiny. In doing so, Italian Film in the Present Tense contests the widely held perception of a medium languishing in its "post-Fellini" moment, and instead acknowledges the ethical persistence and forward-looking currents of Italian cinema in the present tense.

This compilation from Film Culture magazine—the pioneering periodical in avant-garde film commentary—includes contributors like Charles Boultenhouse, Erich von Stroheim, Michael McClure, Stan Brakhage, Annette Michelson, Arthur Miller, Dylan Thomas, Andrew Sarris, Rudolph Arnheim, Jonas Mekas, and Parker Tyler. This collection covers a range of topics in twentieth century cinema, from the Auteur Theory to the commercial cinema, from Orson Welles to Kenneth Anger.

This fourth edition of our bestselling text has been comprehensively updated and revised to include contemporary film analysis and recent films.With a focus on contemporary popular cinema and examples from Classical Hollywood, Graeme Turner examines the social and cultural aspects of film from audiences and ideologies to exhibit

A critical engagement with cinema in Italy, this book examines the national archive of film based on sound and listening using a holistic audio-visual approach. Sisto shifts the sensory paradigm of film history and analysis from the optical to the sonic, demonstrating how this translates into a shift of canonical narratives and interpretations.

This volume addresses the influence of Italian neorealist films on world cinema well beyond the post-World War II period associated with the movement. Despite its lack of organization and relatively short life span, the Italian neorealist movement deeply influenced directors and film traditions around the world. This collection examines the impact of Italian neorealism beyond the period of 1945-52, the years conventionally connected to the movement, and beyond the postwar Italian film industry where the movement originated. Providing a refreshing aesthetic and ideological contrast to mainstream Hollywood films, neorealist filmmakers demonstrated not only how an engaging narrative technique could be brought to bear upon social issues but also how cinema could shape and redefine national identity. The fourteen essays in Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema consider films from Italy, India, Brazil, Africa, the Czech Republic, postwar Germany, Hong Kong, the United States, France, Belgium, Colombia, and Great Britain. Each essay explores neorealism's complex relationship to a different national film tradition, style, or historical period, illustrating the profound impact of neorealism and the ways it continues to complicate the relationship between ideas of nation, national cinema, and national identity. Many of the essays identify similar themes or motifs adapted from neorealism, and several essays address a politicized national film tradition that developed in opposition to a monolithic Western aesthetic. In all, Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema provides a novel critical understanding of the wide-ranging international impact of a short period in Italian cultural history. Film scholars and students of film history will appreciate this insightful text.

This book explores the Italian film landscape with a focus on cinematic achievements of the twenty-first century.

This is the first full-length study in any language of the most significant film director of Italian Neorealism. Peter Brunette combines close analyses of Roberto Rossellini's formal and narrative style with a thorough account of his position in the political and cultural landscape of postwar Italy. More than forty films are explored, including Open City, Paisan, Voyage to Italy, The Rise to Power of Louis XIV, and films made in the director's later years that documented crucial epochs in human history. Brunette's book is based on eight years of research, during which he interviewed members of the director's family as well as Rossellini himself. Brunette also draws on an enormous body of European and American criticism and discusses the various intellectual debates spawned by the director's work. This landmark study is both a comprehensive introduction to one of the most influential practitioners of the contemporary cinema and a boldly original discussion of Italian Neorealism. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1996.

Since World War II, aesthetic impulses generated in Italy have swept through every film industry in the world, and in her book Mira Liehm analyses the roots in literature, philosophy, and contemporary Italian life which have contributed to this extraordinary vigor. An introductory chapter offers a unique overview of the Italian cinema before 1942. It is followed by a full and profound discussion of neorealism in its heyday, its difficult aftermath in the fifties, the glorious sixties, and finally by an analysis of the contemporary cinematic crisis. Mira Liehm has known personally many of the leading figures in Italian cinema, and her work is rich in insights into their lives and working methods. This impressive scholarly work immediately outclasses all other available Italian film histories. It will be essential reading for anyone seriously interested in the cinema.

An alphabetical reference on the major film figures (stars, producers, directors, writers, et al.), past and present. Each entry provides a substantial career biography and a complete listing of all films the individual has been involved with. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

'Basic Italian' provides readers with the basic tools to express themselves in a wide variety of situations. The book contains 23 individual grammar points in lively and realistic contexts.