Overview

What links Italian neorealism to Django Unchained, French comic books to Third-World insurgency, and Bollywood song-and-dance to Eastern Bloc film distribution? As this volume illustrates, the answers lie in the Spaghetti Western genre. As the reference points of American popular culture became ever more prominent in post-war Europe, the hundreds of films that make up the Italian (or 'Spaghetti') Western documented profound shifts in their home country's cultural outlook, while at the same time denying specifically national discourses. An object of fascination and great affection for fans, filmmakers and academics alike, the Western allitaliana arose from a diverse confluence of cultural strands, and would become a pivotal moment in cinematic history. Reappraising a diverse selection of films, from the internationally famed works of Sergio Leone to the cult cachet of Sergio Corbucci and the more obscure outputs of such directors as Giuseppe Colizzi and Ferdinando Baldi, this comprehensive study brings together leading international scholars in a variety of disciplines to both revisit the genre's cultural significance and consider its on-going influence on international film industries.

Full Product Details

Author:   Austin Fisher (Associate Professor, Bournemouth University)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
Weight:   0.476kg
ISBN:  

9781474425926

ISBN 10:   1474425925
Pages:   312
Publication Date:   01 August 2017
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1: The Quiet Man Gets Noisy: Sergio Leone, the Italian Western and Ireland, Christopher Frayling; Section I: Trans-Genre Roots; 2: Pietro Germi, Hybridity and the Roots of the Italo-Western, Pasquale Iannone ; 3: Malaysian Pirates, American Cowboys, and the Marginalised Outlaw: Constructing Other-ed Adventurers in Italian Film, Aliza S. Wong; Section II: Ethnic Identities, Transnational Politics; 4: Spectacles of Insurgency: Witnessing the Revolution as Incoherent Text, David Hyman and Patrick Wynne; 5: Emancipation all’Italiana: Giuseppe Colizzi and the Representation of African Americans in Italian Westerns, Lee Broughton; 6: Corbucci Unchained: Miike, Tarantino and the Postmodern Discursivity of Exploitation Cinema, Mikel J. Koven; Section III: Asian Crossovers; 7: Bounty Hunters, Yakuzas and Rōnins: Intercultural Transformations between the Italian Western and the Japanese Swordfight Film in the 1960s, Thomas Klein; 8: Spaghetti Westerns and Asian Cinema: Perspectives on Global Cultural Flows, Ivo Ritzer; 9: Cowboys and Indians: Transnational Borrowings in the Indian Masala Western, Iain Robert Smith; Section IV: Routes of Relocation, Transition and Appropriation; 10: For a Few Comic Strips More: Reinterpreting the Spaghetti Western through the Comic Book, William Grady; 11: Transit to East Germany: the Distribution and Reception of Once Upon a Time in the West in the German Democratic Republic, Rosemary Stott; 12: Spaghetti Westerns and the ‘Afterlife’ of a Hollywood Genre, Pete Falconer; Filmography

Reviews

This collection of essays moves over territory and across borders previously uncharted and undocumented in existing accounts of the Western. In taking paths and routes less travelled, Fisher and his contributors show how rich and diverse the genre is in its many international, national and local guises. This is scholarship of high merit.--Peter Stanfield, University of Kent An ambitious, interdisciplinary undertaking...all twelve of the studies in Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads are well-written, cogent, and topical discussions appropriate for students working at the graduate level and specialists working in the areas of film and cultural studies. The images which accompany them are well chosen and interesting.'--Sue Matheson ""Journal of Popular Film and Television""

An ambitious, interdisciplinary undertaking...all twelve of the studies in Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads are well-written, cogent, and topical discussions appropriate for students working at the graduate level and specialists working in the areas of film and cultural studies. The images which accompany them are well chosen and interesting. -- Sue Matheson, Journal of Popular Film and Television

'An ambitious, interdisciplinary undertaking...all twelve of the studies in Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads are well-written, cogent, and topical discussions appropriate for students working at the graduate level and specialists working in the areas of film and cultural studies. The images which accompany them are well chosen and interesting.' --Sue Matheson Journal of Popular Film and Television

An ambitious, interdisciplinary undertaking...all twelve of the studies in Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads are well-written, cogent, and topical discussions appropriate for students working at the graduate level and specialists working in the areas of film and cultural studies. The images which accompany them are well chosen and interesting. -- Sue Matheson, Journal of Popular Film and Television

"This collection of essays moves over territory and across borders previously uncharted and undocumented in existing accounts of the Western. In taking paths and routes less travelled, Fisher and his contributors show how rich and diverse the genre is in its many international, national and local guises. This is scholarship of high merit.--Peter Stanfield, University of Kent An ambitious, interdisciplinary undertaking...all twelve of the studies in Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads are well-written, cogent, and topical discussions appropriate for students working at the graduate level and specialists working in the areas of film and cultural studies. The images which accompany them are well chosen and interesting.'--Sue Matheson ""Journal of Popular Film and Television"""

Author Information

Austin Fisher is Associate Professor of Popular Culture at Bournemouth University. He is the author of Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western, editor of Spaghetti Westerns at the Crossroads and Grindhouse: Cultural Exchange on 42nd Street, and Beyond, and founding co-editor of the ‘Global Exploitation Cinemas’ book series. His main area of expertise concerns popular Italian cinema’s relationship with political movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

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