We Want Roses Too. The Women's Movement and Cinema

Vogliamo anche le rose / We Want Roses Too (Alina Marazzi, 2008)

Screening link above.

Half The Picture: Screening + Q&A with director Amy Adrion

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3 @ 6.30pm in G.1.1
Please note this surprise addition to our events this semester.
Director Amy Adrion will be presenting and taking questions from the audience at a special screening of her HALF THE PICTURE, a film that celebrates women filmmakers and investigates the mechanisms of systemic discrimination that has denied opportunities to women in Hollywood.
This should be required viewing for students in CMS 360 Race and Gender in Media and COM 470 Theory. CMS 241 Italian Cinema, given our discussion of the dearth of women directors in the national cinema of Italy.

Cinema, Postmodernism and Television

Nichetti's 'Ladri di Saponette' being broadcast on the Canale5 network: a film about the impact of commercial television as it airs on Italy's preeminent commercial network owned by Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest/Mediaset.

Millicent Marcus, "From Conscience to Hyperconsciousness: Maurizio Nichetti's The Icicle Thief"

Umberto Eco, "Make Your Own Movie"

Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society"

For context:

Umberto Eco, "A Guide to the Neo-Television of the 1980s"

Paul Ginsborg, "The Making of a Television Empire"

The clips below are from Videocracy (2009), a documentary by Erik Gandini.

History, Memory, Terror: The Strategy of Tension

The 'angel of history' in the Taviani's Night of San Lorenzo

See below for link to Scola's We All Loved Each Other So Much

In Bondanella read Chp. 9, 10 & 15.

Some context on the 'anni di piombo' (the 'lead years'):
John Foot, "The Strategy of Tension and Terrorism: Piazza Fontana and the 'Moro Case'"
from John Foot's Italy's Divided Memory

Millicent Marcus,"The Taviani Brothers's Night of the Shooting Stars: Fascism and War Reconsidered"

For a philosophical and critical reflection on history:
Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History"

The image above is Klee's Angelus Novus the inspiration for Benjamin's image of the 'angel of history': "There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm."

Remember Theodor Adorno's "What Does Coming To Terms With the Past Mean?" that we talked about in relation to The Conformist.

Ettore Scola's WE ALL LOVED EACH OTHER SO MUCH (C'eravamo tanto amati, 1974) is here.

The Conformist and Investigation of a Citizen: Coming To Terms With The Past and Power in the Present

Readings for Bertolucci's The Conformist.

Marcus, "Bertolucci's The Conformist: A Morals Charge"
Walker, "Style and Narrative in Bertolucci's The Conformist" from Cineaction #41, 1996
+
Theodor Adorno, "What Does Coming To Terms With the Past Mean?"


For the extra screening of Elio Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion:

Marcus, Elio Petri's Indagine: Power as Pathology

LINK TO FILM HERE

Cinema Going as Social Act: Westerns, Giallos and More Generic 'Trash'

Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace

Bondanella, Chp. 11-14

Wagstaff, "A Forkful of Westerns: Industry, Audiences and the Italian Western"
from Dyer & Vincendeau, Popular European Cinema (Routledge, 1992)
Koven, "What Is Giallo?" + "Toward an Understanding of Vernacular Cinema"
from Koven, La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film (Scarecrow Press, 2006)

Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars

Return to the Real: New Wave Neo-Realism + Midterm Guide & La Dolce Vita Link

Anna Magnani as Mamma Roma (Città Aperta)

Antonioni and Fellini, although in very different ways and with different degrees, did share an apparent obliviousness to concrete social issues and a much more evident interest in larger framing questions and issues of form. Pierpaolo Pasolini is one of a handful of filmmakers who mark a return to the concerns of realism --even though if you look at the dates to the films you will realize that all of this is happening in sync with the other more formally oriented films-- and to concrete social investigation. This 'return' however, as we will see, is certainly not a stale or naive re-proposal of neo-realism's outlook and is operating from a modernist perspective and includes a concern with intertextuality, formal experimentation and stylistic specificity.

La Dolce Vita is here.
(Remember to download the subtitles files --the one with the .srt extension)

Viano, Mamma Roma from Pasolini: A Certain Realism
Sitney, "New Wave Neorealism: Pasolini, Olmi and Rosi" from Vital Crises in Italian Cinema

The following articles are short pieces that were included in the Criterion Edition of the Mamma Roma DVD. They include information on the short, La Ricotta, which we will be watching in class. You are not responsible for these but they are interesting and informative readings and help you to approach and appreciate Pasolini's very particular style and poetic.
Indiana, Pasolini, Mamma Roma and La Ricotta + Pasolini Interview
Siciliano, La Ricotta + Pasolini Interview


These are some essential readings that are, however, not required. I recommend these to anyone interested in investigating further issues of 'realism', reality and cinema.
Barthes, "The Reality Effect"
McCabe, "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses"
McCabe, "Theory and Film: Principles of Realism and Pleasure"
Abercrombie, Lash & Longhurst , "Popular Representation: Recasting Realism".

Midterm Study Guidelines here.

Art, Modernism: Antonioni, Fellini

Bondanella, History of Italian Cinema; Chapters 5-9

Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"
from Poetics of Cinema

Marcus, "Antonioni's Red Desert: Abstraction as the Guiding Idea"

from Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism

Godard, "Jean-Luc Godard Interviews Michelangelo Antonioni"
from Cahiers du Cinema #160, November 1964

Barthes, "'Dear Antonioni...'"

Text of a speech given by Roland Barthes in 1980; from Cahiers du Cinema #311, May 1980

Bondanella, "La Dolce Vita: The Art Film Spectacular" 

from The Films of Federico Fellini

(nb. You are responsible for the Bordwell, Marcus and Bondanella on La Dolce Vita. The Godard interview and the Barthes letter are extra readings which we will talk about in class --but they are short really interesting pieces of artists and critics confronting themselves with Antonioni's work)

The 'Boom': Big Deals and the Easy Sweet Life (aka The Consequences of 'the Miracle')

Essays around the 'economic miracle' (aka The Boom). These cover our discussion of Monicelli's I Soliti Ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street) and Risi's Il Sorpasso (The Easy Life).
In the Bondanella book you should read up to Chp. 8. Chapter 7 ("Commedia all'italiana: Social Criticism for Laugter's Sake") you should read with particular attention.

Remì Fournier Lanzoni, "The Years of Euphoria and the Commedia all'Italiana"

Remì Fournier Lanzoni, "The Age of Neorealismo Rosa" (concentrate on pg. 28-43)
Paul Ginsborg, "The 'Economic Miracle', Rural Exodus and Social Transformation, 1958-1963"

Luisa Passerini, "Gender Relations"

from Dino Risi's 'I Mostri' (1963)

The Limits to Neorealism

Silvana Mangano and Doris Dowling photographed by Robert Capa on the set of Riso Amaro (1949)

Millicent Marcus, "De Santis's Bitter Rice: A neorealist hybrid"
Millicent Marcus, "De Sica's Umberto D: Dark Victory for Neorealism"

'Maria wakes up' sequence from De Sica's Umberto D

Neo-Realism II: An Aesthetic of Reality

Marcus, De Sica's Bicycle Thief: Casting Shadows on the Visionary City

In the Bazin document you should read the following short articles: "An Aesthetic of Reality", "Bicycle Thief", "De Sica: Metteur-en-scene", "Umberto D"

Following the Overbey article you will find a number of short artist declarations regarding neo-realism proper. You should read Zavattini's "A Thesis on Neo-Realism", De Sica's "Why Ladri di Biciclette" and Rossellini's "A Few Words on Neo-Realism". 

(Neo) Realism I: Cinema, The World and Truth

still from Roberto Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (Italy, 1948)

Bondanella: Chapters 1-4

Overbey, Introduction to Springtime in Italy
(This includes a number of short articles by Zavattini, Antonioni, De Sica & Rossellini)

Marcus, Rossellini's Open City: The Founding
Bazin's collection of articles on neo-realism from What Is Cinema?; Vol. II

Merleau-Ponty, Preface to Phenomenology of Perception
Kracauer, The Found Story and the Episode from Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality

Instructions for Accessing Audio/Visual Files on Network Servers

Follow these instructions to access the folder called 'SarramCourses' on the CINEMA network drive. You will need to log in to a campus computer (the PCs in one of the Computer Labs or the Macs in the Digital Media Lab and Mac Lab). Make sure you have a pen drive or an external hard disk with enough capacity as the files that you will find on the server are usually quite large. You will most probably need the VLC player in order to play the files on your computer.

Welcome to Fall 2019: Theory, R/G/S, Italian Cinema

Cinema, Postmodernism and Television

Nichetti's 'Ladri di Saponette' being broadcast on the Canale5 network: a film about the impact of commercial television as it airs on Italy's preeminent commercial network owned by Silvio Berlusconi's Fininvest/Mediaset.

Millicent Marcus, "From Conscience to Hyperconsciousness: Maurizio Nichetti's The Icicle Thief"

Umberto Eco, "Make Your Own Movie"

Fredric Jameson, "Postmodernism and Consumer Society"

For context:

Umberto Eco, "A Guide to the Neo-Television of the 1980s"

Paul Ginsborg, "The Making of a Television Empire"

The clips below are from Videocracy (2009), a documentary by Erik Gandini.

History, Memory, Terror: The Strategy of Tension

The 'angel of history' in the Taviani's Night of San Lorenzo

Some context on the 'anni di piombo' (the 'lead years'):
John Foot, "The Strategy of Tension and Terrorism: Piazza Fontana and the 'Moro Case'"
from John Foot's Italy's Divided Memory

Millicent Marcus,"The Taviani Brothers's Night of the Shooting Stars: Fascism and War Reconsidered"

For a philosophical and critical reflection on history:
Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History"

The image above is Klee's Angelus Novus the inspiration for Benjamin's image of the 'angel of history': "There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair [verweilen: a reference to Goethe’s Faust], to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm."

Remember Theodor Adorno's "What Does Coming To Terms With the Past Mean?" that we talked about in relation to The Conformist.

For the extra screening of Elio Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion:

Marcus, Elio Petri's Indagine: Power as Pathology

The Conformist: Coming To Terms With The Past

Readings for Bertolucci's The Conformist.

Marcus, "Bertolucci's The Conformist: A Morals Charge"
Walker, "Style and Narrative in Bertolucci's The Conformist" from Cineaction #41, 1996
+
Theodor Adorno, "What Does Coming To Terms With the Past Mean?"

Cinema Going as Social Act: Westerns, Giallos and More Generic 'Trash'

Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace

Wagstaff, "A Forkful of Westerns: Industry, Audiences and the Italian Western"
from Dyer & Vincendeau, Popular European Cinema (Routledge, 1992)
Koven, "What Is Giallo?" + "Toward an Understanding of Vernacular Cinema"
from Koven, La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film (Scarecrow Press, 2006)

Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars

Return to the Real: New Wave Neo-Realism + Midterm Guide

Anna Magnani as Mamma Roma (Città Aperta)

Antonioni and Fellini, although in very different ways and with different degrees, did share an apparent obliviousness to concrete social issues and a much more evident interest in larger framing questions and issues of form. Pierpaolo Pasolini is one of a handful of filmmakers who mark a return to the concerns of realism --even though if you look at the dates to the films you will realize that all of this is happening in sync with the other more formally oriented films-- and to concrete social investigation. This 'return' however, as we will see, is certainly not a stale or naive re-proposal of neo-realism's outlook and is operating from a modernist perspective.

Viano, Mamma Roma from Pasolini: A Certain Realism
Sitney, "New Wave Neorealism: Pasolini, Olmi and Rosi" from Vital Crises in Italian Cinema

The following articles are short pieces that were included in the Criterion Edition of the Mamma Roma DVD. They include information on the short, La Ricotta, which we will be watching in class. You are not responsible for these but they are interesting and informative readings and help you to approach and appreciate Pasolini's very particular style and poetic.
Indiana, Pasolini, Mamma Roma and La Ricotta + Pasolini Interview
Siciliano, La Ricotta + Pasolini Interview


These are some essential readings that are, however, not required. I recommend these to anyone interested in investigating further issues of 'realism', reality and cinema.
Barthes, "The Reality Effect"
McCabe, "Realism and the Cinema: Notes on Some Brechtian Theses"
McCabe, "Theory and Film: Principles of Realism and Pleasure"
Abercrombie, Lash & Longhurst , "Popular Representation: Recasting Realism".

Midterm Study Guidelines.