National Cinema (351-0-20)

Topic

Italian Cinema

Instructors

Domietta Torlasco
847/491-8269
1860 S. Campus Drive, Crowe Hall #2-131

Meeting Info

Kresge Centennial Hall 2-343: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

As new media and AI challenge our understanding of reality, we will investigate how Italian cinema has created a film language that is able to document reality in its social, political, and ethical complexity. The course is divided into four main parts. The first part will introduce the groundbreaking film movement know as Italian Neorealism and analyze its key films, from Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) to Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948). The second part will explore the remarkable production of the 1950s and 1960s, the so-called years of the "economic miracle," a period of profound transformation for the country. The third part of course will survey the output that followed the events of May 1968. Finally, the fourth part will turn to contemporary Italian cinema and its use of both fiction and documentary to address the country's economic crisis, the Mediterranean migration crisis, and the resurgence of far-right politics. As we contextualize these films, we will work to acquire the critical and methodological tools necessary to analyze film as a complex mode of textual production.