Italian Americans and the Cinema

Voices in Italian Americana 7.1 (Spring 1996): 65-77., 1996

This article analyzes the role of Italian American filmmakers, characters, and viewers in U.S. cinema.

2007

Choice Reviews Online, 2011

Deadline: July 18, 2022. The international conference *Transatlantic Visions: Italian Film Cultures and Modernisms in Post-War America (1949-1972)* focuses on the presence of Italian cinema in post-World War II U.S. cultural consumption. Its aim is to map the transatlantic exchanges that permitted or fostered the circulation and influence of Italian cinema in the United States in various ways during the period under consideration.

Call for papers extended deadline: 31 July 2022. Confirmed keynote speakers: David Forgacs (NYU), Eugenia Paulicelli (CUNY) 9-11 November 2022, Roma Tre University The international conference *Transatlantic Visions: Italian Film Cultures and Modernisms in Post-War America (1949-1972)* focuses on the presence of Italian cinema in post-World War II U.S. cultural consumption. Its aim is to map the manifold transatlantic exchanges that permitted or fostered the circulation and influence of Italian cinema in the United States in various ways during the period under consideration.

Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 2020

This article explores the role of Alessandro Blasetti in arguing for, and promoting, the development of the Italian film industry before and after the Second World War. Though a prominent film director for more than thirty years, Blasetti was never considered an auteur: he had no distinct authorial style and not did he specialise in any particular genre. Unlike some postwar directors, he never positioned himself in opposition to producers but, on the contrary, worked closely with many of them, winning a reputation for reliability and professionalism. A supporter of Fascism until the later 1930s, he encouraged state involvement in the industry and was the first to use the Cinecitt a studios, inaugurated in 1937, to their full potential. After the war, he mediated between opposing political forces to defend the interests of the Italian cinema as an industry and a 'collective art'. He was responsible for creating several stars, including Gino Cervi and Sophia Loren. Drawing on the Blasetti archive, the article considers the range of the director's activities, political links and his way of conceiving his role, immersed in rather than against the industry. Alessandro Blasetti is paradoxically both one of the most significant and one of the least recognised of Italian film directors. Though he started out as a critic and intellectual and was the principal promoter of some key state cinema institutions, such as the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, the national film school, he would never enjoy the high status of some postwar art directors. The main reasons for this are twofold. First, he did not have a recognisable personal style in the way that many directors did. While defending the prerogatives of the director, he championed an idea of cinema as a 'collective art' which granted more recognition,

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.

This is the first draft of an essay that has been later published in Comello Perry and Buonanno Foley's "Fostering Culture through Film" (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016). I introduce a perspective on capturing the interest of the students by making them aware of the changes in contemporary Italy by focusing on Italian films that dramatize the immigrant experience.