A Lexicon for Italian cinema: A conversation about history, theory and critique

This article represents the outcome of a round table organized and conducted by Giacomo Tagliani about the Lessico del cinema Italiano/Lexicon of Italian Cinema (2014–2016). This research and editorial project comprises three volumes and 21 entries that address the history of Italian cinema through an original and challenging approach, namely to detect a list of conceptual clusters able to provide new perspectives over the heritage of Italian films. In this refined version, the authors who took part in that round table, that is, Roberto De Gaetano (also editor of the volumes), Massimiliano Coviello, Luca Venzi and Francesco Zucconi, outline their involvement in the research project, their specific methodological references, their peculiar vision of the history of Italian cinema and eventually their point of view onto its current situation. This written conversation offers a broad survey of Lessico’s key aspects and addresses important methodological, theoretical and critical issues, trying to establish an interdisciplinary dialogue among different fields of studies.