Research Catalog

Title

Italian Americans in film : establishing and challenging Italian American identities / Daniele Fioretti, Fulvio Orsitto, editors.

Publication

• Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, [2023]
• ©2023

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Fioretti, Daniele
• Orsitto, Fulvio

Description

283 pages : illustrations (chiefly color); 22 cm.

Summary

This book examines how Italian Americans have been represented in cinema, from the depiction of Italian migration in New Orleans in the 1890s (Vendetta) to the transition from first- to second-generation immigrants (Ask the Dust), and from the establishment of the stereotype of the Italian American gangster (Little Caesar, Scarface) to its re-definition (Mean Streets), along with a peculiar depiction of Italian American masculinity (Marty, Raging Bull). For many years, Italian migration studies in the United States have commented on the way cinema contributed to the creation of an identifiable Italian American identity. More recently, scholars have recognized the existence of a more nuanced plurality of Italian American identities that reflects social and historical elements, class backgrounds, and the relationship with other ethnic minorities. The second part of the book challenges the most common stereotypes of Italian Americanness: food (Big Night) and Mafia, deconstructing the criminal tropes that have contributed to shaping the perception of Italian-American mafiosi in The Funeral, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco, and the first two chapters of the Godfather trilogy. At the crossroads of the fields of Italian Culture, Italian American Culture, Film Studies, and Migration Studies, Italian Americans in Film is written not only for undergraduate and graduate students but also for scholars who teach courses on Italian American Cinema and Visual Culture. Daniele Fioretti teaches Italian American culture and Italian cinema, language, and culture at Miami University, USA. He is the author of Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature Pasolini, Calvino, Sanguineti, Volponi (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has also written Carte di fabbrica: la narrativa industriale in Italia 1934-1989 (2013) as well as articles and book chapters on cinema and literature. Fulvio Orsitto is the Director of the Georgetown University study center in Fiesole, Italy. He has published more than thirty essays and book chapters on Italian and Italian American cinema and Italian Literature. His book publications include the edited volumes The Other and the Elsewhere in Italian Culture (2011) and Cinema and Risorgimento (2012), the co-authored manual Film and Education. Capturing Bilingual Communities (2014), and seven other co-edited volumes.

Series Statement

Italian and Italian American Studies

Uniform Title

Italian and Italian American studies.

Subject

• Italian Americans in motion pictures
• Italian Americans > Ethnic identity
• National characteristics in motion pictures
• Italian Americans

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

• Intro -- Foreword -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Figures -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Works Cited -- Films and TV Shows Cited -- Part I: Establishing Italian American Identities -- Chapter 2: 'I Don't Do Business with Dagoes': Anti-Italian Discrimination in Nicholas Meyer's Vendetta -- Works Cited -- Chapter 3: Ask the 'Dust Jacket'. Robert Towne's Film Adaptation of John Fante's Ask the Dust -- John Fante: Writer and Screenwriter. -- Robert Towne: Screenwriter and Director. -- Arturo Bandini: "Lover of Man and Beast Alike". -- Camilla Lopez: A Mirror for Ethnic Rediscovery.
• Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Films and TV Series Cited -- Chapter 4: Setting the Italian American Gangster in Stone: Little Caesar and Scarface -- An Historical Perspective, Pre-Code Groundbreakers -- Remakes, Homages, and Reflections in Contemporary Culture -- Works Cited -- Films and TV Series Cited -- Chapter 5: Nice Guys Finish Last? Delbert Mann's Marty -- Works Cited -- Films and TV Series Cited -- Chapter 6: The Italian American Prizefighter: Ethnicity in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull -- Ethnic New York City -- 'The Brawler' -- Return to New York City -- Works Cited -- Films Cited
• Chapter 7: Mean Streets. A Mirror Construction of Reality -- Martin Scorsese: The Trifecta, the Mise-en-Abyme, and the Construction-en-Abyme -- Charlie Cappa: Mirrors, Windows, and the Narcissus' Myth -- Mirrors -- Windows -- The Narcissus Myth. -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Films and TV Series Cited -- Part II: Challenging Italian American Identities (and Their Representations) -- Chapter 8: Abel Ferrara's The Funeral: Taking Aim at the Stereotype -- The Funeral in Perspective -- Historical Context -- A Tragedy of Moralism: Mafia and Its Imagined Communities -- Conclusion -- Works Cited
• Films Cited -- Chapter 9: Good Food is Close to God: Religious Overtones of the Culinary Arts in Big Night -- Primo -- Pascal -- Secondo -- Cristiano -- Gabriella -- Works Cited -- Chapter 10: The Eclipse of the Godfather's Garden: From the Agromafia to the Money Mafia -- Oranges and Olive Oil / Agromafia -- The Garden State / Suburban Mafia -- Westward Expansion / Money Mafia -- Conclusions -- Works Cited -- Films Cited -- Chapter 11: GoodFellas. When the 'Kid from Little Italy' Meets the 'Oklahoma Kid' -- The 'Kid from Little Italy' and His Cinematic Universe.
• Windows, Symbolism, and Stylistic Devices -- Windows -- Symbolism and Stylistic Devices -- Conclusion -- Works Cited -- Films Cited -- Chapter 12: Mike Newell's Donnie Brasco between Classic Hollywood and the New Gangster -- Works Cited -- Films and TV Series Cited -- Chapter 13: Documentary and Italian American Identity: Time and Exposure in Alfred Guzzetti's Family Films -- Making Time Exposure (2012) -- The New World of Film Is the Known World: Filming Family Portrait Sittings in the 1970s -- Conclusion: A Personal Time Exposure -- Works Cited -- Films Cited -- Index

Call Number

MFL 23-406

ISBN

• 9783031064647
• 303106464X

LCCN

9783031064647

OCLC

1356168545

Title

Italian Americans in film : establishing and challenging Italian American identities / Daniele Fioretti, Fulvio Orsitto, editors.

Publisher

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, Springer Nature Switzerland AG, [2023]

Copyright Date

©2023

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Italian and Italian American Studies

Italian and Italian American studies.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Added Author

Fioretti, Daniele, editor.

Orsitto, Fulvio, editor.

Other Form:

9783031064654 e-book version

Other Standard Identifier

9783031064647

Research Call Number

MFL 23-406