A guide to Italian film. It traces the history of filmmaking in Italy, since its origins in the silent era through its golden age in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, and its subsequent decline to its resurgence. It covers more than 1,500 films, discussing renowned masters, as well as directors lesser known outside Italy. "It is impossible to read this book without gaining new insight into Italian cinema, and twentieth-century Italian culture and history."---Frank Caso, Simply Charly