In the years since Georges Méliès’s Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon) was released in 1902, more than 1000 science fiction films have been made by filmmakers around the world. The versatility of science fiction cinema has allowed it to expand into a variety of different markets, appealing to age groups from small children to adults. The technical advances in filmmaking technology have enabled a new sophistication in visual effects. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Cinema contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, films, companies, techniques, themes, and subgenres. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about science fiction cinema.

Italy is not a country generally known for its science fiction cinema. Over the years, however, a number of films belonging to the genre have been made and - while there might not be a single, defining science fiction 'movement' as such - they make for a curious, compellingly disparate whole. From critically acclaimed futuristic satires to cheapjack exploitation films featuring deadly extra-terrestrials; from counterculture polemics set in an imminent dystopia to post-apocalyptic action movies populated by Mohican-sporting thugs. There might be many different types of films, but they all deal with shared themes and concerns. And that's not even mentioning the giant chickens and flesh-eating fish. This is the first English language book to deal comprehensively with the subject. Covering all Italian science fiction films made between 1958 and 2000 in detail - as well as including an overview of productions made in subsequent years - it examines a range of interconnected sub-genres, looking into how recurrent narratives came about, evolved and eventually faded. So... zip up your space suit, settle back in your anti-gravity seating device... and welcome to the wild, wild world of Science Fiction, Italian Style.

The history of Italian cinema includes, in addition to the renowned auteurs, a number of peculiar and lesser-known filmmakers. While their artistry was often plagued with production setbacks, their works--influenced by poetry, playwriting, advertising, literature, comics and a nonconformist, sometimes antagonistic attitude--were original and thought provoking. Drawing from official papers and original scripts, this book includes much previously unpublished information on the works and lives of post-World War II filmmakers Pier Carpi, Alberto Cavallone, Riccardo Ghione, Giulio Questi, Brunello Rondi, Paolo Spinola, Augusto Tretti and Nello Vegezzi.

Communicating science and technology is a high priority of many research and policy institutions, a concern of many other private and public bodies, and an established subject of training and education. Over the past few decades, the field has developed and expanded significantly, both in terms of professional practice and in terms of research and reflection. The Routledge Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology provides a state-of-the-art review of this fast-growing and increasingly important area, through an examination of the research on the main actors, issues, and arenas involved. In this brand-new revised edition, the book brings the reviews up-to-date and deepens the analysis. As well as substantial reworking of many chapters, it gives more attention to digital media and the global aspects of science communication, with the inclusion of four new chapters. Several new contributors are added to leading mass-communication scholars, sociologists, public-relations practitioners, science writers, and others featured herein. With key questions for further discussion highlighted in each chapter, the handbook is a student-friendly resource and its scope and expert contributors mean it is also ideal for both practitioners and professionals working in the field. Combining the perspectives of different disciplines and of different geographical and cultural contexts, this original text provides an interdisciplinary and global approach to the public communication of science and technology. It is a valuable resource for students, researchers, educators, and professionals in media and journalism, sociology, the history of science, and science and technology.

 The birth and rise of popular Italian cinema since the early 1950s can be attributed purely to necessity. The vast number of genres, sub-genres, currents and crossovers and the way they have overlapped, died out or replaced each other has been an attempt, in postwar years, to contain the invasion of U.S. product while satisfying the demands the American industry had created in Italy. The author explores one of the most multi-faceted and contradictory industries cinema has ever known through the careers of those most closely associated with it. His recorded interviews were conducted with directors and actors both well-known and upcoming.

While students and general readers typically cannot relate to esoteric definitions of science fiction, they readily understand the genre as a literature that characteristically deals with subjects such as new inventions, space, robot and aliens. This book looks at science fiction in precisely this manner, with twenty-one chapters that each deal with a subject that is repeatedly addressed in science fiction of recent centuries. Based on a packet of original essays that the author assembled for his classes, the book could serve as a supplemental textbook in science fiction classes, but also contains material of interest to science fiction scholars and others devoted to the genre. In some cases, chapters offer thorough surveys of numerous works involving certain subjects, such as imagined vehicles, journeys beneath the Earth and undersea adventures, discovering intriguing patterns in the ways that various writers developed their ideas. When comprehensive coverage of ubiquitous topics such as robots, aliens and the planet Mars is impossible, chapters focus on major themes referencing selected texts. A conclusion discusses other science fiction subjects that were omitted for various reasons, and a bibliography lists additional resources for the study of science fiction in general and the topics of each chapter.

This volume covers all aspects of film studies, including critical terms, concepts, movements, national and international cinemas, film history, genres, organizations, practices, and key technical terms and concepts. It is an ideal reference for students and teachers of film studies and anyone with an interest in film studies and criticism.