DIVA sophisticated theoretical treatment of post-war Italian Cinema./div

Why are films by Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa or Stanley Kubrick works of art? What elements of style and film technique are involved? What is vital to their personal vision? Here is everything you need to know about feature cinema: the films which have withstood the test of time and are well worth watching today, although many have been unjustly neglected. These are books for film buffs (or for the simply curious) as well as a reliable reference work for students taking film and media courses. The first volume chronologically discusses 410 films from all over the world made in 1913-1950 and the second volume 451 films made in 1951-1963, giving the most correct credits to be found anywhere (superior to any single Internet database or printed source) preserving the diacritical signs in every language and giving correct running times. There is a synopsis of the most important events in cinema history and extensive footnotes explaining various terms as well as giving information about people and historical events mentioned in the text. No previous expertise is assumed and the information should be equally accessable to people without an extensive background in European, Asian or American culture. The individual essays always set each film in its historical context, outlining contemporary trends and styles in literature and the visual arts. This is a work of original film criticism, as well as a reference source. When read in order, the essays amount to an account of the development of individual directors, movements and indeed cinema history itself. The relative newness of the art of cinema makes it possible to discuss the entire key opus of feature-length films in a text of reasonable length. In a few years’ time, this will no longer be possible: until the Second World War no more than approximately twenty truly valuable films were being made worldwide each year, by the late 1950s their number exceeded forty and is now at least sixty. The book is intended both as a look at cinema as a whole and a description of individual works which have not become devalued with the passage of time.

The Age of New Waves is a global and comparative study of new wave cinemas, from the French nouvelle vague to films from Taiwan and mainland China in the late twentieth century, that focuses on the relationships among art cinema, youth, and cities during the era of globalization.

Magic Realist Cinema is the first book-length critical analysis of magic realism in cinema.

Headline: A study of how Italian films re-envisage male identity in response to sexual liberationBlurb: Italian cinema has traditionally used the trope of an inadequate man in crisis to reflect on the country's many social and political upheavals. Masculinity and Italian Cinema examines how this preoccupation with male identity becomes especially acute in the 1970s when a set of more diverse and inclusive images of men emerge in response to the rise of feminism and gay liberation. Through an analysis of the way Italian films explore anxieties about male sexuality and femininity, the book shows how such anxieties also intersect with particular preoccupations about national identity and political engagement. This is an essential study-tool to understand the multiple constructions of masculinity in Italian cinema, helping students and researchers to understand the work of some of Italy's most provocative filmmakers.Key Features* Re-examines key Italian films, including Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist, Ettore Scola's A Special Day, Pier Paolo Pasolini's Theorem and Lina Wertmuller's The Seduction of Mimi, in the light of gender and queer theory.* Covers the major thematic concerns, genres and stylistic traits of 1970s Italian political cinema* Analyses the broader cultural context of 1970s Italy, including sections on Italian feminism, Gay liberation and the post-'68 social movements.Key Words: Gender; Queer; Body; Gay; Feminism; Pier Paolo Pasolini; Bernardo Bertolucci; Lina Wertmuller; Nanni Moretti; Federico Fellini; Ettore Scola; Marco Ferreri.

This book traces the development of investigative cinema, whose main characteristic lies in reconstructing actual events, political crises, and conspiracies. These documentary-like films refrain from a simplistic reconstruction of historical events and are mainly concerned with what does not immediately appear on the surface of events. Consequently, they raise questions about the nature of the “truth” promoted by institutions, newspapers, and media reports. By highlighting unanswered questions, they leave us with a lack of clarity, and the questioning of documentation becomes the actual narrative. Investigative cinema is examined in relation to the historical conjunctures of the “economic miracle” in Italy, the simultaneous decolonization and reordering of culture in France, the waves of globalization and neoliberalism in post-dictatorial Latin America, and the post-Watergate, post-9/11 climate in US society. Investigative cinema is exemplified by the films Salvatore Giuliano, The Battle of Algiers, The Parallax View, Gomorrah, Zero Dark Thirty, and Citizenfour.

The biographical film or biopic is a staple of film production in all major film industries and yet, within film studies, its generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance has remained underexplored. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture fills this gap, conceptualizing the biopic with a particular eye toward the "life" of the genre internationally. New theoretical approaches combine with specially commissioned chapters on contemporary biographical film production in India, Italy, South Korea, France, Russia, Great Britain, and the US, in order to present a selective but well-rounded portrait of the biopic’s place in film culture. From Marie Antoinette to The Social Network, the pieces in this volume critically examine the place of the biopic within ongoing debates about how cinema can and should represent history and "real lives." Contributors discuss the biopic’s grounding in the conventions of the historical film, and explore the genre’s defining traits as well as its potential for innovation. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture expands the critical boundaries of this evolving, versatile genre.

The volume is ideal for graduate and undergraduate courses on the long sixties, political cinema, 1968, and new waves in art history, cultural studies, and film and media studies.

From the documentary to the cinema novo and cannibalism, from Nelson Pereira dos Santos's Vidas Secas to music in the films of Glauber Rocha, this third, revised edition is a century-spanning introduction to the story of a medium that flourished in one of the most developed of 'underdeveloped' nations.

Italy is more strongly influenced by the experiences of migrants than many other European countries. This includes an historically ongoing internal migration from the south to the north, which is strongly echoed in neo-realism; a mass emigration mainly to western Europe and North and South America that is connected with mafia films, among others, in Italy's collective imaginary; as well as a more recent immigration influx from the southwestern Mediterranean, which is dealt with at a film leve...