For observers of the European film scene, Federico Fellini’s death in 1993 came to stand for the demise of Italian cinema as a whole. Exploring an eclectic sampling of works from the new millennium, Italian Film in the Present Tense confronts this narrative of decline with strong evidence to the contrary.
Millicent Marcus highlights Italian cinema’s new sources of industrial strength, its re-placement of the Rome-centred studio system with regional film commissions, its contemporary breakthroughs on the aesthetic front, and its vital engagement with the changing economic and socio-political circumstances in twenty-first-century Italian life. Examining works that stand out for their formal brilliance and their moral urgency, the book presents a series of fourteen case studies, featuring analyses of such renowned films as Il Divo, Gomorrah, The Great Beauty, We Have a Pope, The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer, and Fire at Sea, along with lesser-known works deserving of serious critical scrutiny. In doing so, Italian Film in the Present Tense contests the widely held perception of a medium languishing in its "post-Fellini" moment, and instead acknowledges the ethical persistence and forward-looking currents of Italian cinema in the present tense.
Author(s): Millicent Marcus
Series: Toronto Italian Studies
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 289
City: Toronto
Cover
Half-Title Page
Title page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Persistence of Vision, Vectors of Change
Part One: Mafias
1 Toward a New Language of Engagement for the New Millennium: Marco Tullio Giordana’s I cento passi (The One Hundred Steps), 2000
2 The Anti-Mafia Martyr Film Takes an Unexpected Turn: Pierfrancesco Diliberto’s La Mafia uccide solo d’estate (The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer), 2013
3 “This Is Not Just a Crime Film”: Michele Placido’s Romanzo criminale (Crime Novel), 2005
4 “The Unsustainable Normality of Devastation”: Matteo Garrone’s Gomorra (Gomorrah), 2008
Part Two: Neo-regionalism
5 “Per vacanza?” “No, per viverci!” (To vacation? No, to live here!): Giorgio Diritti’s Il vento fa il suo giro (The Wind Blows Round), 2005
6 “What History Is This?”: Giorgio Diritti’s L’uomo che verrà (The Man Who Will Come), 2009
Part Three: Migrants
7 Channelling the Geographic Unconscious: Federico Bondi’s Mar nero (Black Sea), 2008
8 “Your Position Please”: Gianfranco Rosi’s Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea), 2016
Part Four: Leadership
9 The Ironist and the Auteur: Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo: La vita spettacolare di Giulio Andreotti (Il Divo: The Spectacular Life of Giulio Andreotti), 2008
10 Liberating the Left: Toward a Humanist Language of Engagement for a Post-political Age in Roberto Andò’s Viva la libertà (Long Live Freedom), 2013
11 The Pontiff and the Shrink: Nanni Moretti’s Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope), 2011
Part Five: Women
12 “It Ended the Way It Should Have Ended”: Francesca Comencini’s Lo spazio bianco (The White Space), 2009
13 Comic Relief: Riccardo Milani’s Ma cosa ci dice il cervello (Don’t Stop Me Now), 2019
Part Six: In a Category unto Itself
14 Hidden Beneath the “Blah Blah Blah”: Paolo Sorrentino’s La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty), 2013
Notes
Bibliography
Index
