COURSE SCHEDULE:
Week 1 (Sept. 5, 7): Neorealism
Screening: Ladri di biciclette (De Sica, 1948)
Reading:
Millicent Marcus, “De Sica’s Bicycle Thief: Casting Shadows on the Visionary City” (1986).
Peter Bondanella, “The Masters of Neorealism: Rossellini, De Sica, Visconti” pp. 31-37 (1983).
Week 2 (Sept. 12, 14, 15): After Neorealism: Comedy, Italian Style
Screening: I soliti ignoti (Monicelli, 1958)
Readings:
Remì Fournier Lanzoni, Comedy Italian Style: The Golden Age of Italian Film Comedies (2008), pp. 7-11; 34-43.
Week 3 (Sept. 19, 21): The Economic Miracle (1958-63)
Screening: Il posto (Olmi, 1961)
Readings:
Millicent Marcus, “Il posto: Discrediting the economic miracle” (1986).
Week 4 (Sept. 26, 28): Modernism I: Authors, Abstraction, Alienation and Modernist Narratives
Screening: La notte (Antonioni, 1964)
Readings:
Torunn Haaland, “Flanerie, spatial practices and nomadic thought in Antonioni's La notte” (2013).
Week 5 (Oct. 3, 5): Modernism II: the Myths of Modernization and the representation of the periphery
Screening: Mamma Roma (Pasolini, 1962)
Readings:
John David Rhodes, “Mamma Roma and Pasolini’s Oedipal (Housing) Complex” in Stupendous miserable city (2007). AA
Week 6 (Oct. 10, 12): Popular Genres I: Spaghetti Westerns
Screening: C’era una volta il west (Leone, 1964) (to be watched at home)
Readings:
Christopher Frayling, “Once Upon a Time in the West” in Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone (2006).
Christopher Wagstaff, “Popular European cinema: A Forkful of Westerns: Industry, Audiences and the Italian Western” (1992).
Midterm Exam: October 12
Week 7 (Oct. 17, 19): Rethinking the Past, Questioning the Present – Terrorism and the “Anni di Piombo”
Screening: Il conformista (Bertolucci, 1970)
Readings:
Kline, T. Jefferson, “Il Conformista/The Conformist” in The Cinema of Italy (2004).
Week 8 (Oct. 24, 26): Popular Genres II: Giallo films
Screening: Suspiria (Argento, 1977)
Readings:
Mikel Koven, “What is Giallo?” in La dolce morte (2006), pp. 1-18.
Joshua Schulze, “The ornamental and the monstrous- Exploring feminine architecture in Dario Argento’s Suspiria” (1977).
Week 9 (Oct. 31, Nov. 2): The 1980s: New Forms of De-legitimation
Screening: Vacanze di Natale (Carlo Vanzina, 1983)
Readings:
Alan O’Leary, “The Phenomenology of the cinepanettone” (2011).
Week 10 (Nov. 7, 9): Ethics for an Encounter: Secession, Immigration and Refugees
Screening: Lamerica (Amelio, 1995)
Readings:
Luca Carminati, “The Return of History: Gianni Amelio's "Lamerica", Memory, and National Identity” (2006).
Week 11 (Nov. 14 16): Mafioso films
Screening: Gomorra (Garrone, 2008)
Readings:
Dana Renga, “The Corleone at Home and Abroad”, in Mafia Movies: A Reader (2016).
Pierpaolo Antonello, “Dispatches from Hell: Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah”, in Mafia Movies: A Reader (2016).
Week 12 (Nov. 21): Representing the female: Rural Idyll
Screening: Le meraviglie (Rohrwacher, 2014)
Readings:
Silvia Angeli, “From the margins: Alice Rohrwacher’s liminal adolescents”, Jun 2020, p. 339 – 356.
Week 13 (Nov. 28, 30): 2010s: New Directions
Screening: Chiamami con il tuo nome (Guadagnino, 2017)
Readings:
Rosalind Galt & Karl Schoonover, “Untimely Desires, Historical Efflorescence, and
Italy in Call Me by Your Name” (2019).
Week 14 (Dec. 5, 7):
Oral Presentations: December 5
Final Exam: December 7