From the silent era and The Black Hand (1906) to The Sopranos, Hollywood has had a love-hate affair with Italian Americans. This book is a celebration of nearly one hundred years of images of Italians in American motion pictures. It covers all the stars as well as directors: Danny Aiello, Frank Capra, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro, Brian De Palma, Leonardo Di Caprio, James Gandolfini, Ray Liotta, Dean Martin, Vincente Minnelli, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Martin Scorsese, Frank Sinatra, Marisa Tomei, John Travolta, Rudolph Valentino, and scores of others. Dozens of films are discussed, including, very often, their literary and European-cinematic roots. Hollywood Italians is capped by a definitive examination of Coppola's Godfather films as well as the international-television phenomenon The Sopranos.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Stereotypes have their uses. Just ask Bondanella, a professor of comparative literature and Italian at Indiana University, who has organized his study of Italian-Americans in film by examining conventional roles. Italians may be prominent as immigrants, boxers, lovers and gangsters, but Bondanella employs the categories to showcase the values associated with Italian culture, such as hard work and loyalty to family. He claims negative portrayals haven't prevented Italian-Americans from receiving full acceptance in American society, and he emphasizes their rejection of victim status to gain upward mobility. His critique covers a wide range, beginning with the classic 1915 tale The Italian, which addresses immigration, to Rocky and Saturday Night Fever, and ends with The Sopranos, which he treats as film. In a few generations, Bondanella notes, Italians have gone from outsider to ordinary citizen. In fact, The Sopranos is his strongest argument for a multidimensional Italian-American portrayal, since its characters enjoy range: mob king to doctor, teacher to FBI agent. Not surprisingly, half the book examines the association of the Italian-American with the gangster milieu. Bondanella is intrigued by films that pair a criminal with an ethnic law-enforcement officer, the "bad-wop-and-good-wop theme," from 1909's The Detectives of the Italian Bureau through 1997's Donnie Brasco. Predictably, much of Bondanella's attention focuses on the Godfather trilogy and the variations in Martin Scorsese's films that deromanticized the Mafia. Throughout, Bondanella offers engaging plot lines, astute observations and compelling behind-the-scenes tidbits, which make for entertaining reading as both cultural and film history. Photos.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“This is the overview that the field has been waiting for … . Bravo!” —Fred Gardaphé, Director, Italian American Studies Program, SUNY Stony Brook
"An engaging look at the Italian American of make-believe, as portrayed and marketed by others and by himself, as seen by others and himself." - NICK TOSCHES
“Bondanella documents the evolution of Italian American stereotyping in this interesting, well researched book.” – The Sons of Italy Book Club, Summer 2004
“He [Bondanella] expertly blends history, analysis, and commentary in an informative reference that is also an entertaining read. Recommended.” -Library Journal, 5/1/04 (Carol J. Binkowski )
“A top scholar of Italian literature and film at Indiana University… Bondanella turns his attention to the larger Dream Factory’s portrayal of Italians over nearly a century in Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos, a sweeping, scholarly, virtually film-by-film analysis of its subject. An so, with graceful scholarly confidence, Bondanella reflects in Chapter 1 on how ‘people are generally more sophisticated about dealing with stereotypes in their cultures than is generally assumed or acknowledged.’… In his comprehensive, common-sense approach, packed with full plot descriptions, Bondanella… cites Hollywood’s many positive depictions of Italians over the years.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 5, 2004 (Carlin Romano Philadelphia Inquirer )
"perceptive….essential for understanding how "the Sopranos" employs, celebrates and sometimes satirizes the images of Italian-Americans that have enabled Hollywood to transform this ethnic group into a mythical entity that embodies some of this country's deepest and most cherished ideals." --St. Petersburg Times, 8/1/04 (Tom Valeo )
"Hollywood Italians is...a tour de force of knowledge spanning nearly a century of Italian-Americans in American cinema." --The Italian Newspaper, December 2004 issue
"…When Bondanella traces the frequently distorted and unflattering representations Italian Americans have endured on screen he does so with a relatively light touch attuned to the artistry and fun of so many of these films." --Marco Calavita, Cineaste, January 2005
"With Peter Bondanella's 'Hollywood Italians' we finally have a thorough survey of the ways and means Italians have made and been made by Hollywood….Bondanella has done the field and the culture a great service by taking on such a grand study. Bravo!" --Fred L. Gardaphe, Fra Noi: Chicagoland's Italian-American Voice, January 2005
Review in Italian. –Rosso Fioventino, 3/05
“…an entertaining and information-packed book.” –Cineaste
“…this book is a valuable resource for the sheer breadth of examples and details he includes, and which span nearly a century of Hollywood cinema…” – Reconstruction 5.3, Summer 2005
“This is the overview that the field has been waiting for … . Bravo!” —Fred Gardaphé, Director, Italian American Studies Program, SUNY Stony Brook
"perceptive….essential for understanding how "the Sopranos" employs, celebrates and sometimes satirizes the images of Italian-Americans that have enabled Hollywood to transform this ethnic group into a mythical entity that embodies some of this country's deepest and most cherished ideals." --St. Petersburg Times, 8/1/04 (, )
"An engaging look at the Italian American of make-believe, as portrayed and marketed by others and by himself, as seen by others and himself." - NICK TOSCHES
“Bondanella documents the evolution of Italian American stereotyping in this interesting, well researched book.” – The Sons of Italy Book Club, Summer 2004
“He [Bondanella] expertly blends history, analysis, and commentary in an informative reference that is also an entertaining read. Recommended.” -Library Journal, 5/1/04 (Carol J. Binkowski )
“A top scholar of Italian literature and film at Indiana University… Bondanella turns his attention to the larger Dream Factory’s portrayal of Italians over nearly a century in Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos, a sweeping, scholarly, virtually film-by-film analysis of its subject. An so, with graceful scholarly confidence, Bondanella reflects in Chapter 1 on how ‘people are generally more sophisticated about dealing with stereotypes in their cultures than is generally assumed or acknowledged.’… In his comprehensive, common-sense approach, packed with full plot descriptions, Bondanella… cites Hollywood’s many positive depictions of Italians over the years.” –The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 5, 2004 (Carlin Romano Philadelphia Inquirer )
"perceptive….essential for understanding how "the Sopranos" employs, celebrates and sometimes satirizes the images of Italian-Americans that have enabled Hollywood to transform this ethnic group into a mythical entity that embodies some of this country's deepest and most cherished ideals." --St. Petersburg Times, 8/1/04 (Tom Valeo )
"Hollywood Italians is...a tour de force of knowledge spanning nearly a century of Italian-Americans in American cinema." --The Italian Newspaper, December 2004 issue
"…When Bondanella traces the frequently distorted and unflattering representations Italian Americans have endured on screen he does so with a relatively light touch attuned to the artistry and fun of so many of these films." --Marco Calavita, Cineaste, January 2005
"With Peter Bondanella's 'Hollywood Italians' we finally have a thorough survey of the ways and means Italians have made and been made by Hollywood….Bondanella has done the field and the culture a great service by taking on such a grand study. Bravo!" --Fred L. Gardaphe, Fra Noi: Chicagoland's Italian-American Voice, January 2005
Review in Italian. –Rosso Fioventino, 3/05
“…an entertaining and information-packed book.” –Cineaste
“…this book is a valuable resource for the sheer breadth of examples and details he includes, and which span nearly a century of Hollywood cinema…” – Reconstruction 5.3, Summer 2005
“This is the overview that the field has been waiting for … . Bravo!” —Fred Gardaphé, Director, Italian American Studies Program, SUNY Stony Brook
"perceptive….essential for understanding how "the Sopranos" employs, celebrates and sometimes satirizes the images of Italian-Americans that have enabled Hollywood to transform this ethnic group into a mythical entity that embodies some of this country's deepest and most cherished ideals." --St. Petersburg Times, 8/1/04 (, )
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More About the Author
Until his retirement in 2007, Peter Bondanella was Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, Film Studies, and Italian at Indiana University. A member of the European Academy of Sciences and the Arts and past President of the American Association for Italian Studies, Bondanella has written numerous books and articles on Italian literature and cinema and has translated or edited a number of Italian literary classics (Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Cellini, Vasari). His latest works are A HISTORY OF ITALIAN CINEMA and NEW ESSAYS ON UMBERTO ECO (Eco is shown in the photo on the left with Bondanella on the right). Bondanella now lives in Utah's desert country (St. George, UT) with his two Italian greyhounds Dante and Gianluca and his wife Julia.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
very good but I've read better,
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This review is from: Hollywood Italians: Dagos, Palookas, Romeos, Wise Guys, and Sopranos (Hardcover)
Very good but another recent book by Fred Gardaphe -- "From Wiseguys to Wise Men" tackles a lot of this topic and does it better!
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