8 1/2
I am currently a student in an Italian Film class, and I never imagined that I would be taking an Italian film class at any point in my life. I am certainly grateful that I have. We’ve watched and discussed several movies to this point in the semester. Here is the schedule:
Readings: Course Pack, Glossary (for consultation), Bondanella, Giannetti
Jan. 16 T Introduction to the course
17 W Screening of Cinema Paradiso
18 Th Film analysis
Readings: Course Pack, Duggan, 9-30, 116-141, 205-237
23 T Fascism, War, and the Career of Roberto Rossellini
24 W Screening of Rome, Open City
25 Th Film analysis
Readings: Course Pack, Zavattini, Bazin, interview with De Sica
30 T Vittorio De Sica and the Theory of Neorealism
31 W Screening of Bicycle Thief
Feb. 1 Th Film analysis
Readings: Course Pack, Cinema of Poetry; An Epical Religious View
6 T Pier Paolo Pasolini in the Wake of Neorealism
7 W Screening of Mamma Roma
8 Th Film analysis
Unit II: Self Reflexivity and Meta-Cinema
Readings: Course Pack, Italian Film Theory, Visconti
13 T Luchino Visconti and Critical Realism
14 W Screening of Bellissima
15 Th Film analysis
Readings: Course Pack, Interview with Fellini; Metz article
20 T Federico Fellini and the Hyperfilm
21 W 8 ½
22 Th Film analysis
Readings: Course Pack, Cortázar story, Interview with Antonioni
27 T Michelangelo Antonioni and the Cinema of Abstraction
28 W Screening of Blow-Up
29 Th Film analysis
Unit III: Fascism and War Revisited
Readings: Course Pack, Adorno; Reich; Milgram
5 T Bernardo Bertolucci and Father Fascism
6 W Screening of The Conformist
7 Th Film analysis
SPRING BREAK
Readings: Course Pack, Tannenbaum
26 T Ettore Scola: Comedy with a Social Conscience
27 W Screening of A Special Day
28 Th Analysis of film
Readings, Course Pack, Zuccotti, Chs. 3, 9. and Conclusion
April 2 T Return of the Repressed: Italian Holocaust Memory
3 W Screening of Life Is Beautiful
4 Th Film analysis
Unit IV: Postmodernism and Beyond
Course Packet, Jameson, Collins
April 9 T Theories of Postmodernism, Maurizio Nichetti
10 W Screening of Icicle Thief
11 Th Analysis of film
Readings: Encyclopedia entries on Giulio Andreotti and Aldo Moro
16 T Paolo Sorrentino and the New Aestheticism
17 W Screening of Il Divo
18 Th Film analysis
Supplemental Screening: Marco Giulio Giordana, I cento passi, available on-line
23 T Analysis of film
24 W Screening of The Mafia Only Kills in the Summer
25 Th Analysis of film
This week, Fellini’s 8 1/2 was our cinematic feast, and it was amazing. I had seen the film once before, but never with any context or inside information on the human behind the "genius" as Fellini is often called. The most amazing part of these films, and it holds true today with Italian directors like Sorrentino, is that there are no special effects or heroes in these films, only humans. Human characters identifiable by all of us and one of us. The true gift given by the Italian films I have seen so far is that they tell us, shout at us, and scream at us to open our hearts and realize how amazing we are as humans. We don't need special effects or heroes to love life, to find vigor in it. The Italian directors I have seen so far give us the gift that our lives are amazing sagas of trial, love, pain, and beauty. Cinema Paradiso was our first film, and the layers contained there are significant. War, death, community, personalities, loss, hope, privation, generosity, all in a small town that benefits from the one place where all can meet to experience together, a chunk of life, a celebration of humanity, even if the priest had to screen the films and block all the kisses. Rome, Open City is amazing on many levels, but primarily because the movie was produced very shortly after the Nazi occupiers looted and left Rome. The movie was performed by non-professional actors and it was done on a shoe-string, but Rossellini siphoned electricity from the US Army base and made a painfully beautiful movie. A tribute to the human spirit.The Bicycle Thieves was a rollercoaster of beautifully painful images and heart wrenching dichotomies. A kind of madness that can only accompany war and its debris. The father/son characters are painfully potent and the community shows the reality of what privation can do to turn humans into a far more primitive species. Mama Roma is another excruciatingly beautiful film that opens our souls to the holes we have in our souls. It is a monument to the dogmas we accept and then, with no “users manual” try to live by. Painful.
Back to 8 1/2 — one must wonder why these movies still matter and appeal to young people seventy years after they first rolled into cinemas all over Italy. I am no film critic, but I believe these films resonate because their genius lies in their representing the beautiful simplicity of humanity on the surface, with a keen understanding of the nuances that lie underneath. I’ll keep at it, but I gotta tell you, you really should watch these movies.
In closing, how amazing is it that I am a senior at Yale and learning about Italian Film as a fifty-six year old man?
Fortunate is my middle name.
