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Italian Americans in Film and Other Media

The Immigrant Experience from Silent Films to the Internet Age

  • Book
  • © 2024

Overview

Editors:
  1. Daniele Fioretti

    1. Italian, 208 Irvin Hall, Miami University, Oxford, USA

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  2. Fulvio Orsitto

    1. Villa Le Balze, Georgetown University, Fiesole, Italy

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    You can also search for this editor in PubMed   Google Scholar

  • Addresses Italian American culture in media, exploring femininity, masculinity, same-sex relationships, ethnic conflicts
  • Analyzes the Italian American experience in media like film, puppet theater, comics, television, and internet memes
  • Includes interviews with Anthony Tamburri, Helen De Michiel, Tony Vitale, and Michela Musolino

Part of the book series: Italian and Italian American Studies (IIAS)

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Table of contents (21 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
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  2. Introduction

    • Daniele Fioretti, Fulvio Orsitto
    Pages 1-11

  3. The Immigrant Experience

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-13
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    2. Races to the Rescue in an Ethnic Urban Milieu: D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Italian Dramas

      • Irene Lottini
      Pages 15-29

    3. The Italian (1915) and the Representation of Italian Immigrants in Silent American Cinema

      • Bernhard Kuhn
      Pages 31-50

    4. Italianness and Foundational Masculinity in Edward Dmytryk’s Rendition of Pietro Di Donato’s Christ in Concrete

      • Gloria Pastorino
      Pages 51-66

    5. A Sting from the Past: Assimilation and Healing Rituals in Helen de Michiel’s Tarantella (1995)

      • Daniele Fioretti
      Pages 67-83

    6. The Celluloid Closet: Sex, Power, and Coming Out Repression of the Italian American Closet in Nunzio’s Second Cousin (1994), Kiss Me, Guido (1997), and Mambo Italiano (2003)

      • Ryan Calabretta-Sajder
      Pages 85-114

    7. From True Love (1989) to Union Square (2011): Recovering the Exploded Family in Nancy Savoca’s Films

      • Gloria Pastorino
      Pages 115-136

    8. A Realistic Tale of Improbable Friendship. Notes on Matthew Bonifacio’s Amexicano (2007)

      • Claudia Peralta, Fulvio Orsitto
      Pages 137-153

  4. Italian Americans in Other Media

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 155-155
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    2. Italian American Gangsters Taking on a New Line of Work in Luc Besson’s The Family (2013)

      • Rosetta Caponetto Giuliani
      Pages 157-172

    3. The Transnational Puppet: From Italy and Back

      • Federico Pacchioni
      Pages 173-187

    4. Comfortable and Uncomfortable Fictions: Italian Americans in the First Decades of Television

      • Fulvio Orsitto
      Pages 189-204

    5. Looking Back, Moving Forward: Italian Americans on Television from the 1970s to the 1990s

      • Fulvio Orsitto
      Pages 205-219

    6. Italian Americans on Television in the New Millennium: From Small to Smaller Screen(s)

      • Fulvio Orsitto
      Pages 221-236

    7. The Goddess and the Huntress: Diana and DC’s Helena Bertinelli

      • Felice Italo Beneduce
      Pages 237-261

    8. CNN’s Searching for Italy: Stanley Tucci as Foodways Icon

      • Alan J. Gravano
      Pages 263-274

    9. Chef/Cook, Influencer, Mixologist, Travel Host: Stanley Tucci as Everyman

      • Alan J. Gravano
      Pages 275-280

    10. An Unlimited Memeiosis of The Godfather: Diachronic and Synchronic Observations of a Pervasive and Ubiquitous Meme

      • Anthony Dion Mitzel
      Pages 281-299
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Keywords

About this book

Italian Americans in Film and Other Media examines the representation of the Italian immigrant experience from D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Italian Dramas (1908-1913) to the present day. Building on the editors’ previous volume Italian Americans in Film, this collection broadens their scope to address marginalized aspects of Italian Americanness, including the work of women directors and depictions of same-sex relationships. The book consists of three parts. Part I, “The Immigrant Experience”, focuses on feature films and is divided into two sections: “Silent Films” (which analyses some of Griffith’s early films and Barker’s The Italian, 1915), and “Revising Gender Perspectives”, which includes chapters focusing on single films – such as Dmytryk’s Christ in Concrete (1949), De Michiel’s Tarantella (1995), and Bonifacio’s Amexicano (2007) – and survey essays that discuss the Italian American ‘celluloid closet’ and some of Savoca’s films. Part II, “Italian Americans in Other Media”, offers a wide range of essays informed by different approaches that investigate the immigrant experience in terms of transmediality and transnationality. The types of media examined in this section include television and graphic novels as well as puppetry, Instagram, and Internet memes. Part III contains interviews with Italian American scholars, movie directors, and performers. Together, the contributions to this collection demonstrate the vitality, mutation, and persistence of Italian Americanness in visual media.

Editors and Affiliations

  • Italian, 208 Irvin Hall, Miami University, Oxford, USA

    Daniele Fioretti

  • Villa Le Balze, Georgetown University, Fiesole, Italy

    Fulvio Orsitto

About the editors

Daniele Fioretti is Associate Teaching Professor of Italian at Miami University, USA. He is the author of Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature (2017) and Carte di fabbrica. La narrativa industriale in Italia 1934-1989 (2013). He co-edited the book Italian Americans in Film: Establishing and Challenging Italian American Identities (2022).

Fulvio Orsitto is Director of the Georgetown University campus in Fiesole, Italy. He has published more than thirty essays and book chapters on Italian and Italian American literature and cinema, and has edited and co-edited ten volumes, including Pasolini: American Perspectives (2015), TOTalitarian ARTs: The Visual Arts, Fascism(s) and Mass-society (2017), and Italian Americans in Film: Establishing and Challenging Italian American Identities (2022).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Italian Americans in Film and Other Media

  • Book Subtitle: The Immigrant Experience from Silent Films to the Internet Age

  • Editors: Daniele Fioretti, Fulvio Orsitto

  • Series Title: Italian and Italian American Studies

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47211-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-47210-7Published: 05 March 2024

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-47213-8Due: 15 April 2024

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-47211-4Published: 04 March 2024

  • Series ISSN: 2635-2931

  • Series E-ISSN: 2635-294X

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 353

  • Topics: American Cinema and TV

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