- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies
- Previous Issues
- Volume 4, Issue 2, 2016
Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies - Volume 4, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 4, Issue 2, 2016
-
-
David di Donatello 60th anniversary
AbstractDavid di Donatello 60th anniversary
Cinema memoirs and a look to the future: A conversation between
Speech to the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella
Thoughts and reflections from the Italian film industry
A conversation between
Sixty years of David di Donatello awards for Best Picture
-
-
-
Authorial visions: Saverio Costanzo’s negotiation with auteurism
More LessAbstractThis article presents Italian film-maker Saverio Costanzo as an example of contemporary auteur. I argue that critical discourse on authorship within the cinema of the third millennium should look at how contemporary directors engage with the idea and the practice of authorship. In this article, I will discuss how in Costanzo’s films elements of auteurism intertwine with diverse formal and thematic motifs and create an idiosyncratic cinematic corpus able to engage critically with various traditions of Italian cinema. In particular, I will examine three common parameters of Costanzo’s cinema: the construction of confined spaces in the mise-en-scène, the display of post-human bodies, and the genre hybridity of his films. My goal is to highlight how Costanzo’s authorial voice dialogues with auteurism by embracing principles of art cinema and simultaneously destabilizing and revitalizing them with a skilful blend of genres, traditions and postmodernity.
-
-
-
Studying Italian para-industry: The case of Boris
More LessAbstractThis article examines labour in Italian contemporary film and television production industries through the case studies of Boris-la serie/Boris-the series (2007–2010) and Boris-il film/Boris-the movie (2011). In doing so, it applies two often considered opposite theoretical approaches: media production studies and textual analysis. The structure of the article is threefold. In the first section, Italian and international research addressing audio-visual media labour is reviewed, and organized into six thematic categories. The second section introduces and discusses Caldwell’s key notions of para-industry, shadow academy and media text. These constitute the theoretical framework underpinning the content and stylistic analysis of the case studies. The third section presents the analysis according to the previously exposed six categories. Results show that Boris’ representation of audio-visual media labour is essentially research-consistent. Moreover, the analysis reveals an issue overlooked by the literature: the prominence of political ties for accessing and enduring in Italian audio-visual industries.
-
-
-
The Duce on the Screen: The image of Mussolini in the newsreels of the Istituto Luce
More LessAbstractThe article begins with an introduction that highlights the uniqueness of the newsreels produced by the Istituto Luce, and underlines their peculiarity of being a fundamental tool of propaganda in advertising the image and aura of the Duce. It also shows that they anticipated some of the most crucial propaganda strategies that emerged from the study of Sigfried Kracauer on the aesthetics of the Nazi Newsreels produced after 1933. The article is an analysis of a selection of images of the Duce extracted from the Istituto Luce newsreels filmed during the period 1928–1932, and will be particularly focused on productions filmed during the reclamation of the marshes in Tuscany and the construction of Littoria in Lazio. The argument made in the article is that the Luce skilfully used the newsreels to build the myth of the Duce as the founder of the new Italy and the embodiment of the new Fascist man, placing the body of Mussolini, his words and his perpetual presence at the centre of the newsreels narrative in order to dominate the Italian cinema screens.
-
-
-
Cinema and Sassi: Urban development and film-induced tourism in Matera and Basilicata
More LessAbstractThe article discusses the impact that cinema has had on the Città dei Sassi/the City of Stones throughout its recent history, specifically on its preservation and touristic development against the odds of its southern backwardness. This article provides a comprehensive look at the phenomenon of urban development and film-induced tourism through the use of a variety of sources that cover a wide spectrum of fields: Materan architecture, preservation and urban development, cultural and anthropological texts, theoretical discourses about the evocative and symbolic power of film location, economic discussions about film tourism and documents about policy-making and tourism in Matera and the region Basilicata. In particular, the article explores three films that have significantly contributed to the exposure of Matera in the national and international arena: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Gospel (1964), Mel Gibson’s The Passion (2004), and Rocco Papaleo’s Basilicata Coast to Coast (2010).
-
-
-
Watching television today. A comparative survey of Italian and American students’ habits in front of television
Authors: Romana Andò, Stefania Pizza and Fabio CorsiniAbstractThis article is the result of a comparative survey focusing on television consumption among Italian and American university students. The research aimed to investigate their media habits mostly in relation to the experiences, practices and meanings associated with the consumption of television content. Our results show that next to traditional television broadcasting, the multiplication of screens and its hybridization with the web contribute to the enhancement and expansion of the television-viewing experience. Television consumption – and the meanings associated with it – depends on a set of interdependent variables: availability and access to technology, contexts and settings, practices and habits, and symbolic forms (content and genre). By focusing on television drama consumption, we attempt to demonstrate that watching television today is a complex experience encompassing a variety of activities, devices and content, as well as various forms of television. Consequently, watching television takes on different meanings according to the technological and cultural contexts of viewing.
-
-
-
Film Reviews
Authors: Paolo Russo, Anthony Cristiano and Johnny L. BertolioAbstractGian Luigi Rondi: Vita, Cinema, Passione, Giorgio Treves (2014) Rome: Iterfilm/Luce/Lazio Film Commission
A Portrait of a Nation and the Future of its Cinema: 50 Anni di David 1956–2006, La storia per immagini (Project headed by Massimo Mascolo. Released by Ente David di Donatello – Accademia del Cinema Italiano, AGIS, ANICA, thanks to Rai Cinema and Istituto Luce, 76 min., DVD – Rome, Italy, 2007)
The literary substance of The Great Beauty (2013)
-