Italian Political Cinema

Despite recent societal anti-political sentiments, Italian cinema has continued to address politics, including reflections on public life, memory, and national identity. This is done via (1) thematic approaches discussing contemporary political film, (2) analyses of prominent directors currently engaged in filone, and (3) case studies of selected films.

Despite the powerful anti-political impulses that have pervaded Italian society in recent years, Italian cinema has sustained and renewed its longstanding engagement with questions of politics, both in the narrow definition of the term, and in a wider understanding that takes in reflections on public life, imaginary, and national identity. This book explores these political dimensions of contemporary Italian cinema by looking at three complementary strands: the thematics of contemporary political film from a variety of perspectives; the most prominent directors currently engaged in this filone; and case studies of the films that best represent this engagement. Conceived and edited by two Italian film scholars working in radically different academic settings, Italian Political Cinema brings together a wide array of critical positions and research from Italy, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. The tripartite structure and international perspective create a volume that is an accessible entry-point into a subject that continues to attract critical and cultural attention, both inside and outside of academia.

Autorentext

Giancarlo Lombardi is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at the College of Staten Island and at the Graduate Center/CUNY. He has published extensively on Italian film, television studies, and contemporary Italian literature. He is the author of Rooms with a View: Feminist Diary Fiction (2002) and the co-editor of Remembering Aldo Moro (2012) and Terrorism, Italian Style (2012). Christian Uva is Associate Professor at the University of Roma Tre. His books include Schermi di piombo. Il terrorismo nel cinema italiano (2007), Sergio Leone. Il cinema come favola politica (2013), and L immagine politica. Forme del contropotere tra cinema, video e fotografie nell Italia degli anni Settanta (2015). He is the author of numerous articles in international journals and edited volumes, both on the intersection of politics and history in Italian cinema and on the theoretical implications of the advent of the digital era.

Inhalt

Contents: Giancarlo Lombardi/Christian Uva: Italian Political Cinema: Definitions and Goals - Gaetana Marrone: Italian Political Cinema: The Early Masters - Christian Uva: The New Cinema of Political Engagement - Nicoletta Marini-Maio: Before and After Silvio: A Corpus for Us All - Áine O'Healy: Bound to Care: Gender, Affect, and Immigrant Labour - Anita Angelone: Italian Documentaries and Immigration - Elena Past: Documenting Ecomafia - Mary P. Wood: Noir Style and Political Cinema - Alan O'Leary: Political/Popular Cinema - Vito Zagarrio: The «Great Beauty», or Form Is Politics - Paolo Russo: Gimme (Tax) Shelter: The Politics of the Production System - Ruth Glynn: Marco Bellocchio and the «New» Political Cinema - Cosetta Gaudenzi: Guido Chiesa and Postmodern Impegno - Laura Di Bianco: Francesca Comencini: Women Outside the Polis - Anna Paparcone: Marco Tullio Giordana's Cinema and Its Civil Engagement: Truth Does Not Play Anyone's Game - Marguerite Waller: Sabina Guzzanti: Transmediating cinema politico - Clarissa Clò: Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi's Trilogy: Comizi d'amore in the Digital Age - Simona Bondavalli: Daniele Luchetti as Author of Politics? Little Teachers and Modest Lessons - Marcia Landy: Nanni Moretti by Nanni Moretti: The Biopic as Counter-History - Claudio Bisoni: Paolo Sorrentino: Between Engagement and savoir faire - Monica Jansen: Daniele Vicari: The Real Is also Human - Nicoletta Marini-Maio: Susanna Nicchiarelli's Cosmonauta: The Space Race, or When Communist Girls Dreamed of the Moon - Pierpaolo Antonello: Il divo: Paolo Sorrentino's Spectacle of Politics - Millicent Marcus: Gomorra by Matteo Garrone: «La normalità dello sfacelo» - Luca Caminati: Gianni Amelio's Lamerica and the National Body Politics - Danielle Hipkins: Nessuno mi puo giudicare: Making Over the Prostitute from a Post-Feminist Perspective - Gius Gargiulo: Mario Martone's Noi credevamo: History and Fiction - Giovanna De Luca: Placido Rizzotto and Segreti di Stato: Italian Investigative Cinema and Memory - Catherine O'Rawe: La prima linea: Film, Terrorism, and the Politics of Funding - Dana Renga: Romanzo criminale as Male Melodrama: «It is in reality always too late» - Ellen Nerenberg: Tutta colpa di Giuda: Performing Captivity - Giancarlo Lombardi: Viva la liberta: Language, Politics, and Consensus.