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.
Preface
Acknowledgement
1. An Ancient Cradle for a Newborn Medium: The Rise of Silent Cinema in Italy
2. Industry and Ideology: The Talkies during the Fascist Era
3. Neorealism: A Revolutionary and Problematic ?New Film Aesthetic
4. Neorealism's Many Faces: Widening the Range of the Camera's Eye
5. The Cinema of the Reconstruction and the Return of Melodrama
6. Entertainment on an Epic Scale: The Italian Peplum
7. Commedia all'italiana: Social Criticism for Laughter's Sake
8. The Italian Art Film: Auteurism in Visconti, Antonioni, Fellini, and De Sica
9. Neorealism's Legacy to a New Generation, and the Italian Political film
10. Myth, Marx, and Freud in Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci
11. The Spaghetti Nightmare: The Heyday of Italian Horror Films
12. A Fistful of Pasta: Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Western
13. Mystery, Gore, and Mayhem: The Italian Giallo
14. The Poliziesco: Italian Crime Films from the 1970s to the Present
15. Italy's Truly Popular Genre: Tragicomedy from the 1980s to the Present
16. A Fellinian Ascendant: The Auteur in Contemporary Italian Cinema
17. Weaving Present and Past: The Contemporary Italian Drama
Notes
Bibliography
List of photo credits
Index
