Italian3641: Contemporary Italian Cinema: Finding Articles, Reviews, and Criticism

Finding film reviews and film criticism is a matter of knowing where to look. For foreign films, the hunt can be more difficult, because the United States did not traditionally cover foreign film in major newspapers and magazines until the 1970s and 1980s, and even then there was not a major following. What following there was has not often been saved for posterity and can often be found only in print in libraries with dedicated film history or film studies collections.

For the last ten years, you can try several strategies. Start with the archives of major national newspapers, like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. All three of those newspapers have searchable online archives, but only the Times can be depended on to allow full free access to its review archive. Another place to look is ProQuest Newspapers, which is a database that is available through VU using your VuNet credentials. ProQuest will have reviews and criticism from major newspapers that are not available freely at the papers' websites.

ProQuest News and Newspapers is also the place to start to look for film reviews and criticism older than 10 years. Other places to look:

1. Print compilations. The library has Variety Film Reviews 1907-1996 (call number PN1993 .V36) and New York Times Film Reviews 1913-2000 (call number PN1995 .N4), and Film Review Index 1882-1985 (call number Z5784 .M9 F513). These compilations are all available by request from the library Annex (request form can be accessed by signing into your Library Catalog account using your VUNet ID). 
2. Library databases. The library has access to Art Full Text (VUNet ID access only), which collects reviews and criticism from a number of journals in one database. Some of the journals that are covered by Art Full Text include: Film Comment, Film Criticism, Film History, Filmmaker, Film in Review, and Sight & Sound.
3. The library also has access to Readers Guide Retrospective (VUNet ID access only), which covers 1890-1982 and is a good source for citations to articles from older popular magazines (bot not full-text). The library has in print a large selection of bound-voulme popular magazines, such as Time and Newsweek, that can be called back from the library Annex if you find an article that interests you.

For reviews generally, you can also try the Movie Review Query Engine, which collects reviews from across the web, though be aware that some of the linked articles may be dead, contain reviews that are mostly industry press releases, are too brief or superficial, or from sources (like blogs) that are not necessarily considered useful as source material for academic research.

Be sure to remember that your best resource if you are running into obstacles is to ask a librarian. He will be able to help you find ways of locating criticism or reviews if you are stuck. You should also remember that if you are seeing an article that you need that the library does not have, we can almost always get it for you through interlibrary loan within 72 hours or less. 

An excellent source for more details on finding film reviews and film criticism is here:

Strategies for Finding Reviews and Critical Analyses

Using the databases below should help you find articles and reviews on the films you are writing about:

The top two databases especially are limited to coverage of TV and film articles. For some directors and films, you will see what looks like a disappointingly small number of results when you do a keyword search. In many cases, these databases are limited because they have links only to bibliographical citations for these articles (not full-text). You will be able to find out if we have the full text of an article by clicking the FindIt@VU button next to the article information. 

If we do not have an article that you need, request it through the Interlibrary Loan form.

These sites and blogs are by writers who love the cinema and have some expertise in cinema studies, either in a particular genre or other aspects of filmmaking and cinema arts. They are also great sources for ideas and even as a way of finding other sources. Browse the blogrolls of each and get lost in a world of film critics and film criticism that you never knew existed.

There are also many other print publications that give you reproductions of film reviews and criticism when you are not able to find source material online. Below is a list of some of what the library has in print for finding these materials.

• American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States (call number PN1998 .A57, location PAYNE-6FL): covers 1971-1988
• Film Review Annual (call number PN1995 .F465; location PAYNE-6FL)
• Various books on Italian cinema are available at the call number PN1993.5 I88 (7th floor)
• Various books on and/or about Italian film directors are available at the call number range PN1998.3, also 7th floor (for example, Michelangelo Antonioni at PN1998.3 .A58)
• Various books that can be used by searching the subject heading "Motion pictures — Italy"
   

These are the film journals available through JSTOR, along with years of coverage:

• Black Camera 1985 - 2017
• Cinéaste 1967 - 2014
• Cinema Journal 1966 - 2014
• Journal of the Society of Cinematologists 1961 - 1964
• Cinémas d'Amérique Latine 1992 - 2014
• Film Comment 1962 - 2014
• Vision: A Journal of Film Comment 1962
• Film Criticism 1976 - 2015
• Film History 1987 - 2017
• Film Quarterly 1958 - 2015
• Quarterly of Film Radio and Television 1951 - 1957
• Hollywood Quarterly 1945 - 1951
• Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media 1980 - 2017
• Frauen und Film 1974 - 2011
• Jewish Film & New Media 2013 - 2017
• Journal of Film and Video 1984 - 2018
• Journal of the University Film and Video Association 1982 - 1983.
• Journal of the University Film Association 1968 - 1981.
• Journal of the University Film Producers Association 1949 - 1967.
• Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 1988 - 2014
• Literature/Film Quarterly 1973 - 2014
• The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists 2001 - 2017
• Music and the Moving Image 2008 - 2017
• PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 1998 - 2012
• Performing Arts Journal 1976 - 1997
• Revue Canadienne d'Études cinématographiques / Canadian Journal of Film Studies 1990 - 2016
• Studies in Popular Culture 1977 - 2016

For brainstorming and getting more ideas, try these cinema studies journals that are freely available via the web.

Google Scholar is another tool you can use to search for scholarly literature online. Google Scholar provides access to "peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations."

What Google Scholar does not contain, in most cases, is the fulltext of the articles -- but it does work with the library's Findit@VU service to help you get to the fulltext when available.  If you are on campus, Findit@VU will automatically appear -- but if you are off campus it won't.   Not clicking on Findit@VU may lead to you receiving a message indicating that you must purchase the article to view it. 

Bookmark this link as your access point to Google Scholar to ensure that the Findit@VU links appears in your searches or follow the instructions for setting your preferences on the linked handout.  Don't get caught paying for articles when you don't have to!