Orienting Italy

Mary Ann McDonald Carolan is Professor of Italian and Director of the Italian Studies program at Fairfield University. She is the author of The Transatlantic Gaze: Italian Cinema, American Film, also published by SUNY Press.

"The book is a significant and original contribution to the study of contemporary China–Italy cultural relations. It effectively bridges the gap between historical scholarship and contemporary cultural analysis, offering a fresh perspective on how cinema can reflect and shape intercultural dynamics. The author's rigorous research and her engaging style make this work a valuable addition to the field and highly recommended for anyone interested in the evolving cultural interactions between China and Italy." — Journal of Modern Italian Studies"Orienting Italy presents a highly innovative approach to the subject by adopting Rey Chow's focus on exploring areas of intersections between the Chinese informant and the Italian foreign observer, thus expanding current scholarship … Orienting Italy is an important contribution that will appeal to scholars in the expanding field of transnational Italian studies." — Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies"In Orienting Italy Mary Ann Carolan has achieved a difficult task in the humanistic and interdisciplinary scholarship on Italy and China. She has provided an eminently readable and yet well-contextualized text on major Italian films about mainland Chinese and Chinese in diaspora. This is the first book in any language that offers an at once panoramic and close-up view of Italian cinematic representations of China from the late 1950s to the early 2010s. Carolan considers both documentary and fiction films, and both widely-viewed major productions and little-known gems, carefully explaining the filmmakers' diverse experiences with China. This is a must-read for anyone with an interest in understanding the Italian tradition of screening China and Chinese people over the past few decades." — Gaoheng Zhang, University of British Columbia"Orienting Italy provides a concise introduction to films made by Italian directors about China as well as about the Chinese in Italy, focusing primarily on films made after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949 and including key films from the twenty-first century. Only recently have scholars turned their attention to the depiction of China in European cinema, particularly French cinema. More needs to be done on the rich cinematic history that links other European nations, such as Italy, to China, and this book helps to fill that gap." — Gina Marchetti, author of Citing China: Politics, Postmodernism, and World Cinema

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Documenting China between Fact and Fiction: La muraglia cinese/Behind the Great Wall (Carlo Lizzani, 1958)2. An Italian Director in China: Chung Kuo—Cina/Chung Kuo—China (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1972)3. A Tale of the Forbidden City: Bernardo Bertolucci's L'ultimo imperatore/The Last Emperor (1987)4. Orienting Neorealism: Gianni Amelio's La stella che non c'è /The Missing Star (2006)5. The Chinese Woman in Italy: Gorbaciof (Stefano Incerti, 2010) and Io sono Li/Shun Li and the Poet (Andrea Segre, 2011) 6. Documenting Chinese Immigrant Youth and Italian Anti-Immigrant Prejudice: Miss Little China (Riccardo Cremona and Vincenzo De Cecco, 2009)ConclusionNotesFilmography and Works CitedIndex