Week 1a. Epic Rome
Screening: Spartacus (1960) dir. Stanley Kubrick
Clips from: Gladiator (2000) dir. Ridley Scott; Cabiria (1914) dir. Giovane Pastrone; Ben-Hur (1925) dir. Fred Niblo; Quo Vadis (1951) dir. Mervyn LeRoy [Anthony Mann]; Ben-Hur (1959) dir. William Wyler; Cleopatra (1963) dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz; The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) dir. Anthony Mann
Readings:
1) Mora, Carl J. “The Image of Ancient Rome in the Cinema”: http://www.publicacions.ub.es/bibliotecadigital/cinema/filmhistoria/Art.Mora.pdf
2) Murphy, Geraldine. “Ugly Americans in Togas: Imperial Anxiety in the Cold War Hollywood Epic.” Journal of Film and Video 56 (2004): 3-19.
3) Urbainczyk, Theresa. “Spartacus: A Hero Turns 50.” Film International 8 (2010): 7-13.
Week 1b. Fascist Rome
Screening: Scipione l’africano (1937) dir. Carmine Gallone
Readings:
1) Ricci, Steven. Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922-1943 (University of California Press, 2008), pp. 95-104.
2) Reich, Jacqueline. "Mussolini at the Movies: Fascism, Film and Culture," in Re-Viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-1943 (Indiana University Press, 2002), pp. 3-29.
Week 2a. Fascism Revisited
Screening: Il conformista (The Conformist, Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970).
Clips from C’eravamo tanto amati (We All Loved Each Other So Much, Ettore Scola, 1974)
1) Mellen, Joan. “Fascism in the Contemporary Film.” Film Quarterly 24 (1971): 2-19.
2) Marcus, Millicent. "Bertolucci's The Conformist: A Morals Charge," in Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism (Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 285-312.
Week 2b. Neorealist Rome
Screening: Umberto D. (1952) dir. Vittorio De Sica
Clips from and recommended full viewing: Rome Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945); Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1946).
Readings:
1) Lawton, Ben. “Italian Neorealism: A Mirror Construction of Reality.” Film Criticism 3 (1978): 8-23.
2) Shiel, Mark. “Imagined and Built Spaces in the Rome of Neorealism.” In Cinematic Rome, edited by Richard Wrigley, 27-42. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing, Ltd., 2008.
Week 3a. America in Rome
Screening: Roman Holiday (1953) dir. William Wyler
Clips from: Un Americano a Roma (Steno, 1954); Three Coins in the Fountain (Jean Negulesco, 1955); When in Rome (Mark Steven Johnson, 2010); To Rome With Love (Woody Allen, 2012)
Readings:
1) Shandley, Robert. “How Rome Saved Hollywood.” In Cinematic Rome, edited by Richard Wrigley, 53-62. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing, Ltd., 2008.
2) TBD
Week 3b. Fellini's Rome 1
Screening: Lo sceicco bianco (The White Sheik, 1952)
Clips from and recommended full viewing: Le notti di Cabiria (1957); La dolce vita (1960)
Readings:
1) Gundle, Stephen. “La Dolce Vita.” History Today 50 (2000): 29-35.
2) Gordon, Mary. “Rome: The Visible City.” Salmagundi 124 (1999): 79-94.
3) Harcourt, Peter. “The Secret Life of Federico Fellini.” Film Quarterly 19 (1966): 4-19.
Week 4a. Fellini's Rome 2
Screening: Roma (1972)
Clips from: Fellini Satyricon (1969)
Readings:
1) Paul, Joanna. “Rome Ruined and Fragmented: The Cinematic City in Fellini-Satyricon and Roma.” In Cinematic Rome, edited by Richard Wrigley, 109-121. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing, Ltd., 2008.
2) Bondanella, Peter. The Cinema of Federico Fellini (Princeton University Press, 1992), extracts.
Week 4b. The Roman Borgata
Screening: Accattone (1961) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Readings:
1) Orr, Christopher. “Pasolini’s ‘Accattone,’ or Naturalism and Its Discontents.” Film Criticism 19 (1995): 54-66.
2) Rhodes, John David. Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini's Rome (University of Minnesota Press, 2007), extracts.
Week 5a. Modernist Rome
Screening: L’Eclisse (1962) dir. Michelangelo Antonioni
Readings:
1) Benci, Jacopo. “Michelangelo’s Rome: Towards an Iconology of L’Eclisse.” In Cinematic Rome, edited by Richard Wrigley, 63-85. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing, Ltd., 2008.
2) Esposito, Joan. “Antonioni and Benjamin: Dialectical Imagery in ‘Eclipse’.” Film Criticism 9 (1984): 25-38.
Week 5b. Contemporary Rome 1
Screening: The Belly of an Architect (Peter Greenaway, 1987)
Readings:
1) Baumgarter, Michael. “’A Walk through R’: Peter Greenaway’s Mapping of Rome in The Belly of an Architect.” In Cinematic Rome, edited by Richard Wrigley, 143-172. Leicester, UK: Troubador Publishing, Ltd., 2008.
2) Keesey, Douglas. "Death by Design in The Belly of an Architect," in The Films of Peter Greenaway: Sex, Death and Provocation (McFarland, 2006), pp. 42-61.
3) "Belly of An Architect: Peter Greenaway Interviewed," in Peter Greenaway: Interviews, ed. Vernon Gras and Marguerite Gras (University Press of Mississippi, 2000), pp. 42-49.
Week 5c. Contemporary Rome 2
Screening: La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
Clips from L'ora di religione (Marco Bellocchio, 2003)