Praise for Italian Cinema:

"extremely interesting and stimulating."--Bernardo Bertolucci

"a very good book and a very accurate one."--Federico Fellini

"The librarian who does not get Bondanella immediately must be petitioned, picketed, importuned."--Choice

"To measure the progress and development of Anglo-American studies on Italian cinema, one needs only to consider Peter Bondanella's pioneering and seminal Italian Cinema: from Neorealism to the Present...Bondanella's work carries the crucial merit of having opened up a panoram

What is the impulse to transform literary narrative into cinematic discourse, and what are the factors that determine that transformation?

As scientific discoveries and technological advances radically modernized Europe around the turn of the twentieth century, artists of all types began questioning what it means to be human in an increasingly mechanistic world. Animated by a luminous goddess at its center, the diva film provided a forum for denouncing social evils and exploring new models of behavior among the sexes.

Italian film has always drawn on a wide range of popular themes--from ancient history to the mafia, the family, the Risorgimento, terrorism, corruption and immigration--and on an equally diverse range of film genres, from comedy to westerns, horror, soft-porn, epics and thrillers. Commercial constraints, state and European funding, international competition, as much as cultural and political trends, have all influenced the sort of films which get made and exported.

In 1892, nine-year-old Dom’s mother puts him on a ship leaving Italy, bound for America. He is a stowaway, traveling alone and with nothing of value except for a new pair of shoes from his mother. In the turbulent world of homeless children in Manhattan’s Five Points, Dom learns street smarts, and not only survives, but thrives by starting his own business. A vivid, fascinating story of an exceptional boy, based in part on the author’s grandfather.From the Hardcover edition.