"The Cinema of Italy zooms in on 24 shrewdly chosen films to offer an innovative and yet highly accessible introduction to the richness of  Italian Film culture.

Matching each film with a top scholar, Giorgio Bertellini's volume opens our eyes to cinema's relation to the political and cultural transformations of modern Italy, and provides fresh and informative readings of films you'll want to see, whether for the first time or the fiftieth." -Professor Barbara Spackman, University of California

"This wide-ranging anthology will encourage those interested in Italian film to explore further."-Professor Mary Wood, Birbeck College, University of London

The Cinema of Italy, a new addition to the 24 Frames series, looks at the recurring historical, thematic and stylistic features of twenty-four of the most important Italian sound films. Viewing Italian cinema at the intersection of history, politics, art and popular culture, the 24 concise essays of this anthology contextualize each film
within both Italian and Western film culture.

Alongside the crucial lessons of neorealist masterpieces such as Rossellini's Paisan and De Sica's The Bicycle Thief, this collection looks at how Italian cinema has confronted both the nation's history (1860, Senso, The Conformist, Lamerica), the so-called "Southern question" (Salvatore Giuliano, Padre Padrone), as well as modern configurations of labor and gender relationships through the films of Camerini, De
Santis, Olmi, Pasolini, Antonioni, Wertmüller, and the Taviani Brothers.

The Cinema of Italy also considers the very personal works of Fellini, Ferreri and Moretti and gives special attention to those film-makers (Argento and Leone) whose cinema directly addresses such international film genres as horror and the western.

Contents
Preface        Gian Piero Brunetta
Introduction  Giorgio Bertellini
1. Gli uomini che mascalzoni (Camerini) / Men What Rascals!    Marcia Landy
2. 1860(Blasetti)    Ruth Ben-Ghiat
3. Paisá (Rossellini) / Paisan    Giuliana Muscio
4. Ladri di biciclette (de Sica) / The Bicycle Thief    Carlo Celli
5. Riso amaro (de Santis) / Bitter Rice    Antonio Vitti
6. Senso (Visconti)    C. Paul Sellors
7. La Strada (Fellini)    Peter Bondanella
8. La Ciociara / Two Women    Ellen Nerenberg
9. Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Visconti) / Rocco and his Brothers    Anne Hudson
10. Accattone (Pasolini)    Patrick Rumble
11. Divorzio all'Italiana / Divorce, Italian Style    John David Rhodes
12. Il Posto (Olmi) / The Job    Vito Zagarrio
13. Salvatore Giuliano (Rosi)    Geoffrey Nowell-Smith
14. Otto e mezzo(Fellini) / 8 1/2    Jacqueline Reich
15. Deserto Rosso (Antonioni) / Red Desert    Peter Brunette
16. Per un pugno di dollari (Leone) / Fistful of Dollars    Christopher Frayling
17. Il Conformista (Bertolucci) / The Conformist    Jefferson Kline
18. Film d'Amore e d'Anarchia(Wertmüller) / Love and Anarchy    Millicent Marcus
19. La Grande Abbuffata / La Grande Bouffe    Maurizio Viano
20. Il Portiere di Notte (Cavani) / The Night Porter    Gaetana Marrone
21. Profondo Rosso / Deep Read (Argento)    Giorgio Bertellini
22. Padre Padrone (Taviani) / Father and Master    Noa Steimatsky
23. Caro Diario (Moretti) / Dear Diary    Laura Frascaroli
24. Lamerica (Amelio)    Aine O'Healy

About the Author:
Giorgio Bertellini is Assistant Professor of Film and Video Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, and is the author of Emir Kusturica(1996).

The Cinema of Italy
Edited by Giorgio Bertellini
September, 2004---256 pages
Wallflower Press,  distributed in the US by Columbia University Press
$24.50 (paperback)
ISBN: 1-903364-98-1
$65.00 (cloth)
ISBN: 1-903364-99-X