Giorgio Bertellini
· ProfessorVerifiedUniversity of Michigan · Film, Television, and Media Studies
Active 1997–2024
About
Giorgio Bertellini is a visual historian and professor in the Department of Film, Television, and Media at the University of Michigan. His research interests focus on film aesthetics within the context of dense artistic and cultural exchanges across the Atlantic. Bertellini's work explores the historical and geographic journeys of aesthetic forms, such as the picturesque, from 17th-century paintings and 18th-century prints to turn-of-the-20th-century films, emphasizing the role of Southern Italians as both protagonists and consumers of picturesque works. His scholarship seeks to recast traditional notions of cinematic modernity by incorporating concepts of geographic variance, racial difference, and migration. He is the author of several influential books, including 'Italy in Early American Cinema: Race, Landscape, and the Picturesque' (2009), which traces the evolution of the picturesque aesthetic and its cultural implications across Italy and North America. His latest monograph, 'The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920's America,' examines the convergence of celebrity culture, charismatic leadership, and national sovereignty through the historical popularity of Hollywood star Rudolph Valentino and dictator Benito Mussolini in 1920s America. This volume has received multiple awards, including the 2019 American Association for Italian Studies Book Award and the 2020 Italian American Association Book Award. Bertellini has also contributed extensively to scholarly journals, newspapers, and academic series, and has revised and expanded his earlier work on Emir Kusturica. He serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies and co-editor of the 'Cinema Cultures in Contact' book series, actively engaging in the dissemination of research on film and media history.
Research topics
- Computer Science
- History
- Epistemology
- Philosophy
Selected publications
Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024 · 1 citations
1st authorCorresponding- Philosophy
- Epistemology
Abstract Long-established narratives of early cinema’s modernity, with their emphasis on instrumental rationality, have relied on the alleged similarity of the European and North American contexts and on a periodization opposing the pre-1914 period to the 1920s. In between these two time periods and regularly ignored by scholars is World War I and its aftermath. This chapter looks at the Great War as the key framework for a proposed notion of cinema’s global cultural and economic modernity. The conflict shaped film cultures around the world in radically different ways: it dramatically weakened the European film industry (and the continent’s financial centers) and enabled Hollywood’s new hegemony domestically and internationally. The American film industry’s ensuing alliances with both the US government and Wall Street taught filmmakers, government officials, and journalists around the world that cinema was both a formidable medium for public opinion and one increasingly dominated by the US.
University of California Press eBooks · 2023
- Computer Science
- Computer Science
L'italianità pittoresca nella Hollywood dei primi anni: il caso della star George Beban
STORIA E PROBLEMI CONTEMPORANEI · 2023-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingJournal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies · 2023-01-01
article1st authorCorrespondingReview of: Ugo Casiraghi e Glauco Viazzi: Il cervello di Carné: Letterario 1941–1943 , Simone Dotto and Andrea Mariani (eds) (2021) Milan: La Nave di Teseo, 536 pp., ISBN 978-8-89395-104-3, p/bk, €25.00
Fordham University Press eBooks · 2022 · 1 citations
1st authorCorresponding- History
Neorealist Film Culture, 1945–1954: Rome, Open Cinema, Francesco Pitassio (2019)
Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies · 2021-09-16
article1st authorCorrespondingReview of: Neorealist Film Culture, 1945–1954: Rome, Open Cinema , Francesco Pitassio (2019) Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 384 pp., ISBN 978-9-08964-800-6, h/bk, £99.00
Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies · 2021-09-16
article1st authorCorrespondingReview of: Viaggio sulla luna: Voyage dans la Lune (Georges Méliès, 1902) , Antonio Costa (2013) Milan: Mimesis, 120 pp., ISBN 978-8-85751-624-0, p/bk, €10.00 Cabiria: (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914). Lo spettacolo della Storia , Silvio Alovisio (2014) Milan: Mimesis, 114 pp., ISBN 978-8-85752-157-2, p/bk, €8.00 Ma l’amor mio non muore! (Mario Camerini, 1913): La diva e l’arte di comporre lo spazio , Stella Dagna (2014) Milan: Mimesis, 96 pp., ISBN 978-8-85752-296-8, p/bk, €8.00 La presa di Roma - 20 Settembre 1870 (Filoteo Alberini, 1905): La nascita di una nazione , Giovanni Lasi (2015) Milan: Mimesis, 108 pp., ISBN: 978-8-85753-048-2, p/bk, €9.00 I topi grigi: (Emilio Ghione, 1918) Il romanzo cinematografico di Za la Mort , Denis Lotti (2018) Milan: Mimesis, 98 pp., ISBN 978-8-85755-214-9, p/bk, €9.00
Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2020-05-28
bookToday, we are so accustomed to consuming the amplified lives of film stars that the origins of the phenomenon may seem inevitable in retrospect. But the conjunction of the terms "movie" and "star" was inconceivable prior to the 1910s. Flickers of Desire explores the emergence of this mass cultural phenomenon, asking how and why a cinema that did not even run screen credits developed so quickly into a venue in which performers became the American film industry's most lucrative mode of product individuation. Contributors chart the rise of American cinema's first galaxy of stars through a variety of archival sources--newspaper columns, popular journals, fan magazines, cartoons, dolls, postcards, scrapbooks, personal letters, limericks, and dances. The iconic status of Charlie Chaplin's little tramp, Mary Pickford's golden curls, Pearl White's daring stunts, or Sessue Hayakawa's expressionless mask reflect the wild diversity of a public's desired ideals, while Theda Bara's seductive turn as the embodiment of feminine evil, George Beban's performance as a sympathetic Italian immigrant, or G. M. Anderson's creation of the heroic cowboy/outlaw character transformed the fantasies that shaped American filmmaking and its vital role in society.
7. George Beban: Character of the Picturesque
Rutgers University Press eBooks · 2020-12-31
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingFordham University Press eBooks · 2020-12-22
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 11 shared
Richard Abel
- 5 shared
Matthew Solomon
- 5 shared
Kaveh Askari
University of California System
- 4 shared
Courtney Ritter
- 4 shared
Rob King
Columbia University
- 4 shared
Masha Salazkina
- 3 shared
Jacqueline Reich
- 2 shared
Scott Curtis
Citadel
Education
- 2001
PhD, Tisch school of the Arts/Cinema Studies
New York University
- 1993
MA, Tisch School of the Arts / Cinema Studies
New York University
Awards & honors
- 2019 American Association for Italian Studies book award, fo…
- 2020 Italian American Association Book Award
- Honourable Mention for the Robert K. Martin Book Prize (2019…
- Finalist for the 2020 LIMINA Award/Best International Film S…
- Premio Internazionale di Letteratura Città di Como (2023), C…
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