COURSE SCHEDULE:
The program may be subject to change at the discretion of the professor.
Week 1 (Jan. 15, 17): Neorealism
Screening: Ladri di biciclette (De Sica, 1948)
Readings:
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 (Jan. 22, 24): 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 (Jan. 29, 31): The Economic Miracle (1958-63)
Screening: Il posto (Olmi, 1961)
Readings:
Millicent Marcus, “Il posto: Discrediting the economic miracle” (1986).
Week 4 (Febr. 5, 7, 9): 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 (Feb. 12, 14): 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 (Feb. 19, 21): 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: February 21
BREAK Feb. 26 - Mar. 1
Week 7 (Mar. 4, 6): 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 (Mar. 11, 13): 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 (Mar. 18, 20): 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 (Mar. 25, 27): 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 (Apr. 3): 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 (Apr. 8, 10): 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 (Apr. 15, 17): 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 (Apr. 22, 24):
Oral Presentations: April 22
Final Exam: April 24