Counter-Narrative of the Miracle. The Image of Italy in the Mondo Genre (original) (raw)

A History of Italian Cinema

History, 2017

A History of Italian Cinema, 2nd edition is the much anticipated update from the author of the bestselling Italian Cinema – which has been published in four landmark editions and will celebrate its 35th anniversary in 2018. Building upon decades of research, Peter Bondanella and Federico Pacchioni reorganize the current History in order to keep the book fresh and responsive not only to the actual films being created in Italy in the twenty-first century but also to the rapidly changing priorities of Italian film studies and film scholars. The new edition brings the definitive history of the subject, from the birth of cinema to the present day, up to date with a revised filmography as well as more focused attention on the melodrama, the crime film, and the historical drama. The book is expanded to include a new generation of directors as well as to highlight themes such as gender issues, immigration, and media politics. Accessible, comprehensive, and heavily illustrated throughout, this is an essential purchase for any fan of Italian film.

Editorial, ITALIANIST Film Issue, 32: 2 (2012), pp. 151-53

The editorial thanks Prof Millicent Marcus of Yale for her work on the Film Issue since its founding in 2009, and goes on to discuss the condition of Italian cinema and media studies, making a polemical call for 'permanent revolution'.

Italian Cinema and the 'anni di piombo'

This essay provides an introduction to the representation and working through in Italian cinema of the experience of terrorism during the ‘leaden years’ (anni di piombo, 1969–c. 1983). It begins by discussing the key terms ‘terrorism’ and ‘anni di piombo’ themselves before providing a short history of the different terrorisms in Italy during the long 1970s. The remainder of the essay is given over to a discussion of the key films, genres and modes that have dealt with the events or memories of that terrorism. Genres include the cop film, Italian-style comedy and auteurist films. Key titles include Cadaveri eccellenti (Illustrious Corpses, dir. Francesco Rosi, 1976), Colpire al cuore(A Blow to the Heart, dir. Gianni Amelio, 1982), La seconda volta (The Second Time, dir. Mimmo Calopresti, 1995), and Buongiorno, notte (Good Morning, Night, dir. Marco Bellocchio, 2003).

Notes on the History of Italian Nonfiction Film.

A Companion to Italian Cinema

Throughout its history, Italian nonfiction film production has been systematically subsumed within other disciplines, such as anthropology and ethnography, or propaganda initiatives. Only recently, a mutated social context allowed nonfiction film to emerge as a genuine form of artistic expression. In the 1960s and 1970s, the end of state subsidies for documentary films, together with the well-known radicalization of Italian politics, opened new spaces for experimentalism in both style and production forms. Inspired by the first auteur documentaries of Silvano Agosti, Daniele Segre, and Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, a new generation of Italian documentarians has become, arguably, the most innovative face of contemporary Italian cinema.