Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction Looking Back 1 National Identity by Means of Montage in Roberto Rossellini's Paisan 2 Luchino Visconti's Bellissima: The Diva, the Mirror, and the Screen Italy by Displacement 3 Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor : Powerless in Peking 4 Mediterraneo and the "Minimal Utopias" of Gabriele Salvatores 5 From Salazar's Lisbon to Mussolini's Rome by Way of France in Roberto Faenza's Pereira Declares Family as Political Allegory 6 Francesco Rosi's Three Brothers: After the Diaspora 7 The Alternative Family of Ricky Tognazzi's La scorta 8 The Gaze of Innocence: Lost and Found in Gianni Amelio's Stolen Children Postmodernism; or, the Death of Cinema? 9 Ginger and Fred: Fellini after Fellini 10 Giuseppe Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso and the Art of Nostalgia 11 From Conscience to Hyperconsciousness in Maurizio Nichetti's The Icicle Thief 12 Postmodern Pastiche, the Sceneggiata, and the View of the Mafia from Below in Roberta Torre's To Die for Tano The Return of the Referent 13 Filming the Text of Witness: Francesco Rosi's The Truce 14 The Seriousness of Humor in Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful 15 Caro diaro and the Cinematic Body of Nanni Moretti Appendix: Plot Summaries and Credits Notes Bibliography Videography Index
Millicent Marcus's After Fellini: National Cinema in the Postmodern Age makes a highly original contribution to the study of Italian cinema. Through close analysis of a series of individual recent films, she sets the record straight about Italian cinema's contributions to the medium during the last two decades of the twentieth century and demonstrates that the new Italian cinema following in Fellini's footsteps promises a bright future in the new millennium. -- Peter Bondanella, Indiana University Millicent Marcus's book offers new conclusions about continuities and changes in the mapping of cinematic landscapes. Nothing in English rivals her interpretations of Visconti's Bellissima, Rosi's Three Brothers and The Truce, Amelio's Stolen Children, Benigni's Life Is Beautiful, and Moretti's Caro diario. After Fellini will become the benchmark for any further study of contemporary Italian cinema. -- Gaetana Marrone, Princeton University To open this book is to walk into Marcus' own Cinema Paradiso where the present and the past of Italian cinema deliciously mingle. Anyone disappointed with what the movies have become will be restored by her acuity, her erudition, and by the warmth of her prose as she fondly evokes what remains the most marvelously human of national cinemas. -- Dudley Andrew, Yale University
Millicent Marcus is Mariano DiVito Professor of Italian Studies in the Department of Romance Languages and Director of the Center of Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
Marcus is always at her best in the description and analysis of the characters in the films she explores... The Italian cinema, in her master project, is a human comedy of characters. Typically she will tease out the intricate relationship, say, of the three brothers of Rosi's film to each other, to their parents, and to their wives and lovers. In doing so, she will invariably keep one eye on the cinematic deployment of shots and another on the nuances of difference the same characters present in a source text. -- P. Adams Sitney Cineaste Detailed and persuasive, this book makes an important contribution to the study of contemporary Italian film. Choice Scholars of film as well as those who enjoy Italian cinema will welcome this fine survey by Marcus. Book News
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