Francesco Casetti (born April 2, 1947 in Trento, Italy) is an Italian naturalized US citizen
film and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
theorist
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be ...
. He is
Sterling Professor of Humanities and Film and Media Studies at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...
. He has been described as "the best analyst of
cinematographic
Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography.
Cinematographers use a lens to foc ...
enunciation."
Biography
In 1970 he earned an MA at the
Catholic University of Milan
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, where in 1974 he also received an "advanced degree" in Film and Communication Studies. His positions include Assistant Professor at the
University of Genova
The University of Genoa, known also with the acronym UniGe ( it, Università di Genova), is one of the largest universities in Italy. It is located in the city of Genoa and regional Metropolitan City of Genoa, on the Italian Riviera in the Liguri ...
(1974–1980), Associate Professor at Catholic University of Milan (1984–1994), Full Professor at the
University of Trieste
The University of Trieste ( it, Università degli Studi di Trieste, or UniTS) is a public research university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. The university consists of 10 departments, boasts a wide and almos ...
(1994–1998) and then at Catholic University of Milan, where he served also as the Chair of the Department in Communication and Performing Arts.
He taught as "professeur associé" at
University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle (1977) and as visiting professor at the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 col ...
(1988, 1991 and 1998). In 2000 he was awarded with the Chair of Italian Culture for a distinguished scholar at the
University of California
The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...
– Berkeley (2000). He was William P. Evans Fellow at the University of Otago (New Zealand) in 2012, and Fellow at the IKKM, Bauhaus University at Weimar in 2013.
He has largely written on semiotics of film and television, about genres, intertextuality, and enunciation. After an expansive study on the implied spectator in film (''Inside the Gaze'', Indiana, 1999, or. 1986) and in television (''Tra me e te'', 1988), he combined in an original way close analyses of media texts and ethnographic researches of actual audiences (''L’ospite fisso'', 1995), defining the notion of "communicative negotiations" (''Communicative Negotiation in Cinema and Television'', 2002). He has also written extensively on film theories (''Theories of Cinema. 1945-1995'', Texas, 1999, or. 1993). More recently he explored the role of cinema in the context of modernity (''Eye of the Century. Film, Experience, Modernity'', Columbia, 2008, or. 2005), and the reconfiguration of cinema in a post-medium epoch, comparing this shift with the rise of cinema at the beginning of the 20th century (''The Lumière Galaxy: Seven Key words for the Cinema to Come'', Columbia, 2015). His next project is a wide-ranging analysis of the anxieties that cinema raised in the first decades of the 20th century, compared with the iconophobic tradition in the western culture and with the fears triggered by the contemporary media.
With Jane Gaines (Columbia University, Film and Media Studies Graduate Chair), Casetti is the co-founder of th
Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories an international network of film scholars aimed at a systematic exploration of the field of film and media theories.
Bibliography
* Casetti, Francesco (2015)
''The Lumière Galaxy: Seven Key words for the Cinema to Come'' New York: Columbia University Press.
* Casetti, Francesco (2008)
''Eye of the Century. Film, Experience, Modernity'' New York: Columbia University Press.
* Casetti, Francesco (2002)
''Communicative Negotiation in Cinema and Television'' Milan: Vita e Pensiero.
* Casetti, Francesco (1999)
Austin: University of Texas Press.
* Casetti, Francesco (ed.) (1995). ''L'ospite fisso. Televisione e mass media nelle famiglie italiane''. Milan: San Paolo.
* Casetti, Francesco (ed.) (1988). ''Tra me e te. Strategie di coinvolgimento dello spettatore nella neotelevisione''. Rome: Eri-VQPT.
* Casetti, Francesco (1986). ''Dentro lo Sguardo. Il Film e il suo Spettatore''. Milan: Bompiani.
References
External links
Personal web sitePersonal page in Yale University's web site*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Casetti, Francesco
Living people
Film theorists
Yale University faculty
Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia
1947 births
Yale Sterling Professors