[1][2] Born to Venetian parents displaced during the Second World War, he graduated from the University of Padua in 1966 with a thesis on the formation of film theory and criticism in Italy in the 1930s and the genesis of the idea of neorealism.
His training is led by masters such as Gianfranco Folena and Sergio Bettini: hence his semiotic and linguistic interests with those of narratology and contemporary art history.
From the second half of the seventies his work takes on a historical dimension.
He collaborated with the director Gianfranco Mingozzi for the television programs The Last Diva: Francesca Bertini (1982) and Stories of cinema and emigrants (1988), and was a consultant for the film Splendor (1988), by Ettore Scola.
On November 16, 2017 he received the "Antonio Feltrinelli" award from the Accademia dei Lincei.