A History of Italian Cinema by Bondanella, Peter -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Half-Title Dedication Title Contents Acknowledgements Preface 1 An Ancient Cradle for a Newborn Medium:The Rise of Silent Cinema in Italy

Italy’s Visual Culture and the Cinema Filoteo Alberini and the First Years of Italian Silent Cinema Film Genres in the Silent Era Dante and the Silent Cinema The Historical Epic Divismo and the Italian Star System Comic Clowns and Adventure Film Serials Realism in the Silent Cinema Silent Film and the Avant-garde: Italian Futurism Italian Intellectuals and the Silent Cinema: The Case of Luigi Pirandello The Decline of the Italian Film Industry before the Coming of Sound

2 Industry and Ideology:The Talkies during the Fascist Era

Signs of Revival Fascist Support for the Italian Cinema Critical Reassessment of Cinema during the Fascist Period The Search for a New Film Realism Film Realism during the Sound Period: A Rediscovered Tradition Augusto Genina and the Fictional Documentary Genre Francesco De Robertis, Vittorio Mussolini, and Film Realism Roberto Rossellini’s “Fascist Trilogy” Blasetti and Camerini: Studies in Style Vittorio De Sica: From Matinee Idol to Director In Praise of Military Prowess: Carmine Gallone’s Scipio Africanus Nationalism and Fascism in Feature Films during the Sound Era Literary Adaptation and Calligraphers Hollywood Withdraws from the Italian Market New Directions during the Twilight of the Fascist Regime Visconti’s Obsession: The Discovery of America and a New Cinema

3 Neorealism:A Revolutionary and Problematic New Film Aesthetic

Problematic Definitions of Italian Postwar Neorealism Literary Antecedents of Italian Neorealism in Film Neorealist Films as a Small Fraction of Italian Film Production Rossellini’s “War Trilogy” Vittorio De Sica’s “Trilogy of Solitude” Luchino Visconti and Verga: The Earth Trembles

4 Neorealism’s Many Faces:Widening the Range of the Camera’s Eye

Partisan Films: Outcry and The Tragic Pursuit Antonioni’s Short Documentary Sanitation Department Luigi Zampa’s To Live in Peace and the Comedy of War From War Themes to Postwar Social and Economic Themes A Change in the Political Climate in Italy and the Response of the Italian Cinema Melodrama, Popular Comedy, and “Rosy” Neorealism Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti: Questioning the Power of the Movie Camera Italian Neorealism and Italian History Zavattini and the “Film Inquiry”: Neorealism as Reportage

5 The Cinema of the Reconstruction and the Return of Melodrama

Rossellini and The Ways of Love Voyage in Italy: Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman—Toward a Cinema of the Reconstruction Michelangelo A ntonioni’s Early Films: Documentary, Film Noir, and the Psychological Film Fellini (and Pirandello) and the Road beyond Neorealism Fellini’s “Trilogy of Character” Federico Fellini and the “Crisis of Neorealism”: The “Trilogy of Grace or Salvation” De Sica, Visconti, and the Return of Melodrama

6 Entertainment on an Epic Scale:The Italian Peplum

Italian Film History, the Classical Tradition, and “Hollywood on the Tiber” The Peplum’s Defining Features The Mystique of the Bodybuilder Peplum Classics: A Representative Sampling The Italian Film Market and the Economic and Social Place of Popular Genre Films

7 Commedia all’italiana:Social Criticism for Laughter’s Sake

The Comic Genius of Monicelli and Comencini Comedy Sicilian Style: Pietro Germi Comic Views of Conformity in Society Lina Wertmüller’s Feminist Comedy Comedy in an Era of Rapid Social Change: The New Monsters Ettore Scola and Metacinematic Comedy Comedies Related to Commedia all’italiana: Franco and Ciccio, the Fantozzi Series, the Erotic or Sexy Comedy Comedy, Italian Style

8 The Italian Art Film:Auteurism in Visconti, Antonioni, Fellini, and De Sica

Luchino Visconti: History, Literature, and the Family Romance in Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard Visconti’s “German Trilogy”: The Damned, Death in Venice, and Ludwig Michelangelo Antonioni and New Ways of Seeing in the “Trilogy of Alienation” Antonioni’s Experiment in Color: Red Desert Antonioni’s English-language Films: Blow-Up, Zabriskie Point, and The Passenger Antonioni’s Identification of a Woman and Two Documentaries (on China and Michelangelo) Vittorio De Sica and Box-Office Success Fellini, the Director as Superstar: La Dolce Vita Fellini and Dreams: 8½ and Juliet of the Spirits Rome as Metaphor: Fellini Satyricon and Fellini’s Roma The Political Fellini: Amarcord Fellini and Sexuality: Fellini’s Casanova and City of Women Fellini and Moviemaking: Interview Auteurs and Other Lesser Mortals

9 Neorealism’s Legacy to a New Generation, and the Italian Political Film

Roberto Rossellini’s Return to his Neorealist Origins “One Cannot Live without Rossellini” Vittorio De Seta and Francesco Rosi Pontecorvo and Revolution in the Third World Olmi’s Postneorealist Dramas of Intimacy The Versatile Lightness of Pupi Avati The Taviani Brothers: The Sublimation of Reality in Myth The Early Postneorealist Work of Pier Paolo Pasolini Bertolucci and Bellocchio’s Authorial Moves beyond Neorealism The Rise of the “Political” Film The Political Films of Elio Petri Francesco Rosi’s Postneorealist Political Cinema Expanding the Boundaries of Political Cinema: Montaldo, Bellocchio, and the Taviani Brothers Towards an Operatic Cinema: Literature and Politics in Tavianis’ Films Liliana Cavani’s Political Cinema Ermanno Olmi’s Vision of Italy’s Past Music in Zeffirelli, Rosi, and Cavani The Heritage of the Postneorealist Generation and the Italian Political Film

10 Myth, Marx, and Freud in Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci

Pasolini’s Exploration of Mythological Consciousness Viewed through the Prism of Marx and Freud Pasolini’s “Trilogy of Life” Pasolini and the Marquis de Sade: An Unhappy Ending to a Director’s Career Bertolucci’s Intellectual Background and the Trajectory of His Career A Quantum Leap of Quality: Bertolucci’s Films on Fascism Last Tango in Paris: Bertolucci’s International Success Bertolucci’s Marxist Epic: 1900 Luna and The Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man: A Return to Freud Triumph at the Oscars: The Last Emperor Bertolucci’s “International” Films: The Sheltering Sky, Little Buddha, Stealing Beauty, Besieged, and The Dreamers Marco Bellocchio: Another Restless Emilian

11 The Spaghetti Nightmare:The Heyday of Italian Horror Films

The Background of the Spaghetti Nightmare Film and its Different Phases of Development Freda and Bava: The Classic Italian Horror Film More Gothic Horror: Giorgio Ferroni, Antonio Margheriti, and Mario Caiano The Horror Films of Dario Argento: The “Trilogy of the Three Mothers” The Italian Horror Film: Zombies, Monsters, and Cannibals Michele Soavi and the End of the Spaghetti Nightmare Era

12 A Fistful of Pasta:Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Western

The Rise of an Italian Variant on a Classic American Film Genre The Classic American Western Formula and the Italian Spaghetti Western Variant Leone’s Clint Eastwood Westerns: A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Once Upon a Time There Was a Myth: American Mythology and the Leone Western Leone’s Legacy: Django Westerns Leone’s Legacy: Sartana, Ringo, Sabata, and Trinity The “Zapata-Spaghetti” Plot: Mexican Revolution and Political Ideology in Damiani, Corbucci, and Leone The Apex and Decline of the Spaghetti Western: Western Comedies and Genre –Parodies in They Call Me Trinity, Trinity Is Still My Name, and My Name Is Nobody

13 Mystery, Gore, and Mayhem:The Italian Giallo

The Term Giallo The Giallo as Filone The Birth of the Giallo: Mario Bava Dario Argento and the Giallo Post-Argento Gialli: Luciano Ercoli, Paolo Cavara, and Lucio Fulci Luciano Ercoli Paolo Cavara Lucio Fulci Post-ArgentoGialli, Continued: Sergio Martino, Giuliano Carnimeo, Emilio Miraglia, and Aldo Lado Other Thrillers by Andrea Bianchi, Luigi Cozzi, Pupi Avati, Antonio Bido, Lamberto Bava, and Lucio Fulci Argento’s Later Gialli: Tenebrae, Opera, The Stendhal Syndrome, Sleepless, and The Card Player The Giallo: An Assessment

14 The Poliziesco:Italian Crime Films from the 1970s to the Present

The Origin and Historical Matrix of the Italian Crime Film Cinematic and Literary Antecedents for the Italian Crime Film, Domestic and Foreign King of the B’s: Fernando Di Leo Umberto Lenzi Damiano Damiani A Constellation of Crime Film Directors: Sollima, Dallamano, Massi, Castellari, Tarantini, and Ausino The End of the Classic Poliziesco and the Rise of a More Complex Italian Crime Film Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America The Prestige of Genre: Recent Developments in Crime Film Toward an Italian Noir

15 Italy’s Truly Popular Genre:Tragicomedy from the 1980s to the Present

The Industry’s Crisis at the End of the Century and the Bastion of Comedy The Last Comedies of Ettore Scola, Mario Monicelli, Nanni Loy, and Lina Wertmüller The Poetic Comedies of Maurizio Nichetti, Massimo Troisi, and Roberto Benigni Gabriele Salvatores’s “Road” Comedies The Classical Harmony of Paolo Virzì’s Tragicomedy Social Identity and Sense of Place in the Comedies of Silvio Soldini and Davide Ferrario

16 A Fellinian Ascendant: The Auteur in Contemporary Italian Cinema

Nanni Moretti Giuseppe Tornatore Paolo Sorrentino Matteo Garrone

17 Weaving Present and Past:The Contemporary Italian Drama

Traditional Threads into the Twentieth-First Century: Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Marco Bellocchio, Gianni Amelio, and Ermanno Olmi The Present in the Past: Forms of the Historical Drama The Past in the Present: Forms of the Contemporary Drama

Notes Bibliography List of photo credits Index Copyright

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