Wayne State University Press The Cinema of Ettore Scola (Contemporary Approaches to Film and Media Series)

Review The first book-length study in English of director and screenwriter Ettore Scola (1931-2016), The Cinema of Ettore Scola is a handsome selection of essays by international authors, full of stimulating pathways toward expanding one's understanding of this humanist Italian political director with his roots in the commedia all'italiana. Covering a long career that included directing twenty-seven feature films in addition to documentaries, short films, and omnibus episodes, it is a collection of academic texts that thankfully make do with only a thin veneer of academy speak. Edited by R?mi Lanzoni of Wake Forest University and Edward Bowen at the University of Kansas, it should resuscitate interest in one of modern Italy's most important--and entertaining cultural figures.-- (03/01/2021)Beyond just being illuminating to Scola's filmography, it's an interesting concept to consider in light of obvious parallels to the present day. Taking a plunge into The Cinema of Ettore Scola feels like the intelligent and thoughtful antidote to both the grind of Hollywood escapism and the chaos of this bizarre year. Scola's continued relevance now seemingly acts as an omen of things to come, an echo of the past shining a light onto a potentially avoidable future.-- (09/25/2020)In this volume, leading experts offer brilliant assessments of the themes of comedy, exile, and nostalgia in Scola's work, as well as of his oeuvre as a whole and his activities as a screenwriter and as a public figure. The only volume in English to be entirely dedicated to this important filmmaker, this superb collection is destined to become an indispensable resource for anyone interested in postwar Italian cinema.-- (03/09/2020)Lanzoni and Bowen have assembled and skillfully guided a stellar cast of scholars to produce a coherent, wide-ranging, and illuminating study. This intelligent volume finally mines the complexity of Ettore Scola's work as writer and director, and will become essential reading for anyone interested in the history of Italian cinema.-- (03/09/2020)This brilliantly researched volume by rising and seasoned scholars on Scola's legacy captures his meta-cinematic style from film to digital image; his inventiveness in the use of different narrative forms; interactions with other filmmakers, including Pietrangeli, Pasolini, and Fellini; and powerful uses of space, place, and time in philosophic explorations of history, memory, and politics.--Marcia Landy"Distinguished Professor Emerita of English, Film and Media Studies, French, and Italian, University of Pittsburgh" (03/09/2020)Unfairly, Scola's work is less well-known outside of Italy than is the work of many of his contemporaries. This important edited collection, with its broad array of approaches and methods, makes Scola intelligible for readers and viewers only coming to know his films, but it also refreshes and reframes our understanding of this powerful, curious, and curiously political body of filmmaking.-- (03/09/2020) Product Description The Cinema of Ettore Scola offers contemporary perspectives on Ettore Scola (1931-2016), one of the premier filmmakers of Italian cinema. Scola was a crucial figure in postwar Italy as a screenwriter of comedies in the 1950s and 1960s who later became one of the country's most beloved directors in the 1970s and 1980s with his bittersweet comedies and dramas on history, politics, and social customs. While Scola has received extensive attention from scholars based in Italy and France, R?mi Lanzoni and Edward Bowen's edited volume is the first English-language book on Scola's cinematographic career.The volume (containing fourteen chapters) is organized in four parts, the first two of which focus both on Scola's contributions to Comedy Italian Style-as a screenwriter and director-and his commentaries on the history of Italy, Rome, and the film industry. The second half of the book is divided into sections on Scola's relationship to and use of pl