Cinematicity in Media History

This collection for the first time brings together scholars to explore the ways that various people and groups in Italian society reacted to the advent of cinema. Looking at the responses of writers, scholars, clergymen, psychologists, philosophers, members of parliament,and more, the pieces collected here from that period show how Italians developed a common language to describe and discuss this invention that quickly exceeded all expectations and transcended existing categories of thought and artistic forms.

This book explores the history of literature as a history of changing media and modes of communication, from manuscript to print, from the codex to the computer, and from paper to digital platforms. It argues that literature has evolved, and continues to evolve, in sync with material forms and formats that engage our senses in multiple ways. Because literary experiences are embedded in, and enabled by, media, the book focuses on literature as a changing combination of material and immaterial features.

One of the iconic directors of twentieth-century cinema, Sergei Eisenstein is best known for films such as The Battleship Potemkin, Alexander Nevskii, and Ivan the Terrible. His work, in turn, has inspired other great moviemakers, including Akira Kurosawa and Francis Ford Coppola.

Film criticism is in crisis. Bemoaning the current anarchy of Internet amateurs and the lack of authoritative critics in a time of laid-off film reporters, many journalists and scholars claim that cultural commentary has become dumbed down and fragmented in the digital age.