This book challenges past definitions of Italian American cinema and media studies by introducing fresh critical models into the discourse. Proposing new intersectional debates about ethnic identity, including race, class, gender, and sexuality studies, contributors establish new interpretations concerning Italian Americans on screen.

"[This book] explores the different ways in which Italian American directors from the 1920s to the present have responded to their ethnicity. While some directors have used film to declare their ethnic roots and create an Italian American 'imagined community,' others have ignored or even denied their background . . . Cavallero's exploration of the films of Capra, Scorsese, Savoca, Coppola,and Tarantino demonstrates how immigrant Italians fought prejudice, how later generations positioned themselves in relation to their predecessors, and how the American cinema, usually seen as a cultural instituion that works to assimlate, has also served as a forum where assimilation was resisted." -- Book cover.

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.

The entire Italian American experience—from America's earliest days through the present—is now available in a single volume. This wide-ranging work relates the entire saga of the Italian-American experience from immigration through assimilation to achievement. The book highlights the enormous contributions that Italian Americans—the fourth largest European ethnic group in the United States—have made to the professions, politics, academy, arts, and popular culture of America. Going beyond familiar names and stories, it also captures the essence of everyday life for Italian Americans as they established communities and interacted with other ethnic groups. In this single volume, readers will be able to explore why Italians came to America, where they settled, and how their distinctive identity was formed. A diverse array of entries that highlight the breadth of this experience, as well as the multitude of ways in which Italian Americans have influenced U.S. history and culture, are presented in five thematic sections. Featured primary documents range from a 1493 letter from Christopher Columbus announcing his discovery to excerpts from President Barack Obama's 2011 speech to the National Italian American Foundation. Readers will come away from this book with a broader understanding of and greater appreciation for Italian Americans' contributions to the United States.

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.