Introductory description

Film is widely credited as having performed a central role in the re-building of an Italian sense of nationhood following the collapse of the fascist regime and World War II. Viewed from both within and outside Italy, Italian cinema of the immediate postwar years was interpreted as a chronicle of the challenges facing ‘ordinary’ Italians in their everyday lives and, by extension, of the issues which faced the nation. This module interrogates this supposition, associated heavily with neorealist cinema, and pursues the questions it raises through selected films made in the decades from the 1940s to the present day. Looking closely at examples which include the auteur cinema of the 1960s, internationally-renowned ‘classics’ of the 1970s, and both mainstream and art-house successes from the 1990s-2000s, the module traces through these films themes such as regional and national identities, landscape, gender relations, changing social structures, and political commitment. You will encounter significant figures and movements in Italian cinema history and form a sense of the interactions between them, whilst developing a complex understanding of factors which have influenced and shaped Italian cinema, from both film-makers’ and spectators’ points of view.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Introduction (week1):
Paisa (Roberto Rossellini, 1946)

• the establishment of a national film vocabularly
• the presence of landscape as a key element of this vocabulary
• femininities and masculinities in Italian cinema
• influences
• neorealism and its legacies.

Section 1. Cinema: society and politics (weeks 2-5)
Accattone (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1961)
Vogliamo anche le rose (Alina Marazzi, 2007)
Il Divo (Paolo Sorrentino, 2008)
Gomorra (Matteo Garrone, 2008)

Section 2. Cinema, history and memory (weeks 7-10)
Il conformista (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1970)
Buongiorno, notte (Marco Bellocchio, 2003)
Lamerica (Gianni Amelio, 1994)
Nuovomondo (Emanuele Crialese, 2006)

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• L6: Demonstrate a nuanced and informed understanding of key aspects of Italian history and society from 1943.
• L6: Show an ability to critically analyse and evaluate the cinematic representation and interpretation of significant events in the nation’s history and the role of cinema in building a sense of nationhood in the post-war period.
• L6: Identify a history of Italian post-war cinema, in terms of movements, themes, and individual directors/practitioners, and to place this within the context of a broader social, political and cultural history of Italy.
• Demonstrate a nuanced understanding of core aspects of film criticism and theory, and the capacity to critically analyse Italian film in terms of formal and technical, as well as narrative factors.
• L6: Conduct independent research. Critically engage with secondary materials and reflect upon current research in the subject area.
• L6 Communicate information, arguments and analysis effectively along with the ability to frame appropriate research questions, devise and sustain persuasive arguments.
• L5: Demonstrate a broad understanding of key aspects of Italian history and society from 1943.
• L5: Show an ability to discuss and assess the cinematic representation and interpretation of significant events in the nation’s history and the role of cinema in building a sense of nationhood in the post-war period.
• L5: Demonstrate a broad and informed knowledge of the development of Italian cinema since 1943, and specifically of key themes, formal questions, and practitioners within this period.
• L5: Demonstrate an understanding of core aspects of film criticism including formal and technical features, and the capacity to analyse and discuss film in an accurate and informed way,
• L5: Use lectures and seminar discussions to inform independent research. Analyse secondary materials and engage with current research in the subject area.
• L5: Communicate information, arguments and analysis effectively along with the ability to organise, synthesize and review existing debates.

Indicative reading list

• Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.). The Cinema of Italy (London & New York: Wallflower, 2004)
• Bondanella, Peter, Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present (New York: Continuum, 1990)
• Bordwell, David & Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, 8th edn (New York, London: McGraw Hill, 2006)
• Dalle Vacche, Angela, The Body in the Mirror: Shapes of History in Italian Cinema (Princeton Princeton UP, 1992)
• Landy, Marcia, Italian Film (Cambridge: CUP, 2000)
• Marcus, Millicent, Italian Film in the Light of Neorealism (Princeton: pRINCETON up, 1986)
• Marcus, Millicnet, After Felini. National Cinema in the Postmodern Age (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins UP, 2002)
• Sorlin, Pierre, Italian National Cinema (London: Routledge, 1996)
• Wood, Mary, Italian Cinema (Oxford & New York: Berg, 2005)
  Giancarlo Lombardi and Christian Uva eds, Italian Political Cinema : Public Life, Imaginary, and Identity in Contemporary Italian Film (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2016)

View reading list on Talis Aspire

International

All modules delivered in SMLC are necessarily international. Students engage with themes and ideas from a culture other than that of the UK and employ their linguistic skills in the analysis of primary materials from a non-Anglophone context. Students will also be encouraged to draw on the experiences of visiting exchange students in the classroom and will frequently engage with theoretical and critical frameworks from across the world.

Subject specific skills

This module will develop students’ linguistic skills through engaging with primary materials in the target language. It will build students’ capacity to engage with aspects of Italian culture through analysis of this primary material and through seminar discussion aimed at deeper critical thinking. Students’ awareness of Italian cinema will be enhanced through lectures and seminars which engage in scholarship in the field. Students will also develop their understanding of Italian history and politics and consider how Italian cinema engages with the memory of historical events.

Transferable skills

All SMLC culture modules demand critical and analytical engagement with artefacts from target-language cultures. In the course of independent study, class work and assessment students will develop the following skills: written and oral communication, creative and critical thinking, problem solving and analysis, time management and organisation, independent research in both English and their target language(s), intercultural understanding and the ability to mediate between languages and cultures, ICT literacy in both English and the target language(s), personal responsibility and the exercise of initiative.