Luchino Visconti and the Alchemy of Adaptation

Author:   Brendan Hennessey
Publisher:   State University of New York Press
ISBN:  

9781438484983


Pages:   268
Publication Date:   02 January 2022
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

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Luchino Visconti and the Alchemy of Adaptation


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Overview

Since the beginning, much of Italian cinema has been sustained by transforming literature into moving images. This tradition of literary adaptation continues today, challenging artistic form and practice by pressuring the boundaries that traditionally separate film from its sister arts. In the twentieth century, director Luchino Visconti is a keystone figure in Italy's evolving art of adaptation. From the tumultuous years of Fascism and postwar Neorealism, through the blockbuster decade of the 1960s, into the arthouse masterpieces of the 1970s, Visconti's adaptations marked a distinct pathway of the Italian cinematic imagination. Luchino Visconti and the Alchemy of Adaptation examines these films together with their literary antecedents. Moving past strict book-to-film comparisons, it ponders how literary texts encounter and interact with a history of cultural and cinematic forms, genres, and traditions. Matching the major critical concerns of the postwar period (realism, political filmmaking, cinematic modernism) with more recent notions of adaptation and intermediality, this book reviews how one of Italy's greatest directors mined literary ore for cinematic inspiration.

Full Product Details

Author:   Brendan Hennessey
Publisher:   State University of New York Press
Imprint:   State University of New York Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.227kg
ISBN:  

9781438484983


ISBN 10:   1438484984
Pages:   268
Publication Date:   02 January 2022
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Literary Sources, Cinematic Frameworks Part I: Neorealist Interiors in Word and Image 1. La terra trema (The Earth Trembles, 1948): Inhabiting The House by the Medlar Tree, from Verga to Visconti 2. Ossessione (Obsession, 1941): In from the Outside: Literary Interiors in Neorealist Exteriors 3. Senso (1954) and Le notti bianche (White Nights, 1957): Voice and Body: Books through Stars of the Screen Part II: The Super-Spectacle Adaptations 4. Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Rocco and His Brothers, 1960): Passion and Pugilism in Visconti's Boxing Film 5. Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963) and Il lavoro (The Job, 1962): Wedding Bestseller with Blockbuster 6. La caduta degli dei (Götterdämmerung) (The Damned, 1969): A Queer Macbeth in Nazi Uniform Part III: The Late Works, Page to Screen 7. Vaghe stelle dell'Orsa (Sandra, 1965) and L'Innocente (The Intruder, 1976): D'Annunzio, Decadence, and Tragic Masculinity 8. Lo straniero (The Stranger, 1967): Crime and Punishment in a ""Failed"" Adaptation 9. Morte a Venezia (Death in Venice, 1971): Ode to the Elegant Art of Adaptation Bibliography Filmography Index"

Reviews

"""…the book has an admirable range and supplies a convincing account of the director's work in its Italian social context and of international film culture in the postwar decades."" — CHOICE"


...the book has an admirable range and supplies a convincing account of the director's work in its Italian social context and of international film culture in the postwar decades. - CHOICE


Author Information

Brendan Hennessey is Associate Professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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