Italian and Italian American Cinema: Not Just Mafia Movies
RL&L 242
Spring 2024
| Section:
01
|
| Crosslisting:
AMST 230 |
The entanglements of Italian and Italian American cinema date to the medium's silent era. If the Taviani Brother's 1987 film Good Morning, Babylon is to be believed, while filming Intolerance (1916) D.W. Griffith lauded and lamented the genius of Giovanni Pastrone's colossus Cabiria (1912), doubting that his own epic film would be able to match the virtuosity of the earlier Italian example. Flash forward to 1931-32 and the trio Little Caesar (1931), Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932) sear into the American imaginary the cinematic representation of the Italian mobster. Beyond Italian artistry and aesthetics of the sort Griffith ostensibly applauded, and the numerous examples of the violent, lawless gangster of Italian descent, what are some other (stereo) typical intersections between Italian and Italian American cinema?
Mapping the Transatlantic transmissions of representations, stereotypes, and aesthetic values reveals how these two cinematic traditions co-articulate and condition each other, with "Hollywood on the Tiber" offering a chief example of the ways Italian and American industrial contexts invoke and implicate each other. How do Hollywood's glamorized gangsters inform Italian representations of organized crime? How do American cinematic "Latin lovers" draw on Italian models? How have representations of masculinity, men, and fathers; femininity, women, and mothers; (large) families, food, religion, class mobility, questions of race and racism, and immigration unfolded in their respective contexts and what do intersections among them reveal?
Two non-fiction films from Scorsese help draw our parameters for our discussion: Italianamerican (1977), for socio-cultural codes; for cinematic contexts, My Voyage to Italy (1999), in which the director reviews his Italian influences and which also serves as an introduction to Italian cinema. We subsequently investigate the indicated themes and topics as they range across a corpus of texts which includes, on the Italian American side: Scarface (Hawks, 1932), Not Wanted (Lupino, 1949), The Godfather (Coppola, 1972), Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973), Rocky (Avildson, 1977), Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980), Moonstruck (Jewison, 1987), Married to the Mob (Demme, 1988), True Love (Savoca, 1989), Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989), The Freshman (Bergman, 1990), Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990), My Cousin Vinny (Lynn, 1992), Household Saints (Savoca, 1993), The Sopranos (Chase, 1999), The Departed (Scorsese, 2006), Wendy and Lucy (Reicherdt, 2008), The Miracle at St. Anna (Lee, 2008). Alongside these, we examine Italian films drawn from this list: Cabiria (Pastrone, 1912), Umberto D. (De Sica, 1952), I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953), Rocco and His Brothers (Visconti, 1960), Eclipse (Antonioni, 1962), Amarcord (Fellini, 1974), Kaos (Taviani Brothers, 1984), Mediterraneo (Salvatores, 1990), Johnny Stecchino (Benigni, 1991), Lamerica (Amelio, 1994), Gomorra (film Garrone 2008, series 2014), The Young Pope (Sorrentino, 2016), and The Confessions (Andò, 2016). The films for group presentations will also be drawn from these lists.
This course has no prerequisites. We will work on students' capacity for formal film analysis as we go along and, at the beginning of the course, some students may have greater proficiency in this area. At the same time, other students may initially have a broader knowledge base of Italy and Italian society. Everyone has something to learn. Conducted in English. |
|
| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA RLAN |
| Course Format: Lecture / Discussion | Grading Mode: Student Option |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
|
Fulfills a Requirement for: (FILM-MN) |
|
Past Enrollment Probability: 90% or above |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
MAJOR READINGS
Course Reader. For films, see course description.
|
Examinations and Assignments:
Daily discussion questions, collaborative exercises in class, midterm examination, final examination, for students taking the course for a grade, a final paper. |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
For ITST Majors, this course may be used as the one course that nay be taken through the medium of English on an Italian subject. Prospective students may visit this class. |
| Instructor(s): Nerenberg,Ellen Times: ..T.R.. 02:50PM-04:10PM; Location: FISK101; |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 25 | | SR major: 4 | JR major: 4 | | |
| Seats Available: 9 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 4 | JR non-major: 5 | SO: 5 | FR: 3 |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
|
|