Peter Bondanella is the author of a number of groundbreaking books such as: Hollywood Italians, The Cinema of Federico Fellini, and The Films of Roberto Rossellini. In 2009, he was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts for his contributions to the history of the Italian cinema and his translations or editions of Italian literary classics (Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Vasari, Cellini). He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Film Studies and Italian at Indiana University Bloomington, USA.

Federico Pacchioni is Sebastian Paul & Marybelle Musco Chair of Italian Studies at Chapman University, Orange, California, USA. In his research, he focuses on cases of artistic synergy and intermediality across Italian cinema, literature, and theatre. He is the author of numerous articles and of the monograph Inspiring Fellini: Literary Collaborations behind the Scenes (2014).

Preface
Acknowledgement
1. An Ancient Cradle for a Newborn Medium: The Rise of Silent Cinema in Italy
2. Industry and Ideology: The Talkies during the Fascist Era
3. Neorealism: A Revolutionary and Problematic ?New Film Aesthetic
4. Neorealism's Many Faces: Widening the Range of the Camera's Eye
5. The Cinema of the Reconstruction and the Return of Melodrama
6. Entertainment on an Epic Scale: The Italian Peplum
7. Commedia all'italiana: Social Criticism for Laughter's Sake
8. The Italian Art Film: Auteurism in Visconti, Antonioni, Fellini, and De Sica
9. Neorealism's Legacy to a New Generation, and the Italian Political film
10. Myth, Marx, and Freud in Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bernardo Bertolucci
11. The Spaghetti Nightmare: The Heyday of Italian Horror Films
12. A Fistful of Pasta: Sergio Leone and the Spaghetti Western
13. Mystery, Gore, and Mayhem: The Italian Giallo
14. The Poliziesco: Italian Crime Films from the 1970s to the Present
15. Italy's Truly Popular Genre: Tragicomedy from the 1980s to the Present
16. A Fellinian Ascendant: The Auteur in Contemporary Italian Cinema
17. Weaving Present and Past: The Contemporary Italian Drama
Notes
Bibliography
List of photo credits
Index