Details

ONLINE FILM COURSE
Women and Men in Post-War Italian Cinema

Course Description:

The Second World War leveled a first fascist-then partisan Italy. Allied bombs ruined Rome’s Cinecittà, Europe’s major studio complex, shorting all production resources. Forced to use using real locations, a film movement, now called Neorealism jumped forth as first as punch-back at fascism’s devastation, segueing into narratives social examination of an economic blitz where the poor stayed poor and the rich were all dressed up with no place to go, as their money was useless outside of their country. Liberation not only freed Italy physically and politically but freed film’s depiction of gender relation, previously pinned by a fascist male narrative. While Hollywood, for the most part, still pushed a post-war entertainment dressed in glitz and glamour, Italian film canvassed the changing identity in domestic and social reality within which was examination of the vibrant void between women and men. In this course, four legendary film directors sail us through the revelation of female / male dynamic impelled by the jolt of a devastated but subsequent self-examining post-war Italy.

Instructor:

Weller has appeared in more than 70 films and television series, including RoboCop (1987) and its sequel RoboCop 2 (1990) (in which he played the title character), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). He has also appeared in such films as Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite (1995), the Oliver Stone-produced The New Age (1994), and David Cronenberg’s adaptation of William Burroughs’s novel Naked Lunch (1991).

While enrolled at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), he played trumpet in one of the campus bands. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and began his acting career after attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (class of 1972).

In 2004, Weller completed a Master of Arts degree in Roman and Renaissance Art at Syracuse University, and occasionally taught courses in ancient history at the university.

Course Objectives:

• To view the Western world’s social transformation through the lens of Italian film.
• To understand the alienation of post-modern women and men.
• To grasp the distinction that Italian cinema has endowed our modern film narrative.
• To enjoy movies on a more profound level beyond the simplistic formalism narrative of; plot, effects, stunts, and good vs bad people.

Virtual Classroom: Full access to an online educational platform with discussion forum, videos of recordings, syllabus, and exercises.

Location: LIVE INTERACTIVE ON-LINE FILM CLASSES

Complete syllabus will be provided upon registration.

• ALL LECTURES WILL BE RECORDED AND AVAILABLE FOR VIEWING AT YOUR CONVENIENCE IN OUR VIDEO LIBRARY FOR THE DURATION OF THE COURSE

Schedule

First, please read:

• PROJECTIONS 12: Filmmakers on Film Schools by Walter Donohue and John Boorman, (2002, Trade Paperback): Faber & Faber, Inc.
• Article: ACTORS # 22 “Days with the Maestro: My time with Michelangelo Antonioni and Italian Cinema in the making of Beyond the Clouds,” by Peter Weller

LECTURE 1 – Roberto Rossilini: Roma-Città Aperta (Rome: Open City)

– Thursday, April 21

Although fiction, this film is a one off docu-drama, only to be equaled perhaps by Battle of Algiers and I Am Cuba. Shot on the destroyed streets of Nazi-occupied Rome only months after the Allies liberated the city, the reality horror of occupation and survival is an un-paralleled event in the history of cinema that introduced possibly the 20th century’s most powerful and dynamic actress, Anna Magnani.  The entire miracle of Città Aperta is a cornerstone in the history of dramatic art and visual rhetoric. [Extra Credit: Sydney Lumet-Tennessee Williams, The Fugitive Kind]

LECTURE 2 – Michelangelo Antonioni: L’aventurra (The Adventure)

– Thursday, April 28

Honoring Antonioni with his special Oscar from the Academy in 1995, Jack Nicholson stressed that, where most films celebrate the ways in which we connect with one other,” Antonioni “mourns our failure to connect. In the empty silent places in the world he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places of our hearts… a strange and terrible beauty; austere, elegant, enigmatic, and haunting.” There is no film, in my opinion, that is more subtle in depicting both need and space between post-modern man and woman. [Extra credit: Antonioni Il Grido]

LECTURE 3 – Michelangelo Antonioni: L’eclisse (Eclipse)

– Thursday, May 5

Honoring Antonioni with his special Oscar from the Academy in 1995, Jack Nicholson stressed that, where most films celebrate the ways in which we connect with one other,” Antonioni “mourns our failure to connect. In the empty silent places in the world he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places of our hearts… a strange and terrible beauty; austere, elegant, enigmatic, and haunting.” There is no film, in my opinion, that is more subtle in depicting both need and space between post-modern man and woman. [Extra credit: Antonioni Il Grido]

LECTURE 4 – Marco Bolognini: Il Bel’Antonio

– Thursday, May 12

Based on a novel by Vitaliano Brancati, screenplay by controversial writer, director, poet, writer, intellectual, journalist, novelist, playwright, and political figure. A provocative personality in Italy due to his straightforward style, starring Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, and Tomas Milan. What is the dynamic of passion in post-war Italy? What is impotence? A young bourgeois faces a scandal when their marriage remains unconsummated after one year. This film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. [Extra credit: Vittorio De Sica’ Two Women]

LECTURE 5 – Federico Fellini: La Dolce Vita

– Thursday, May 19

This is the original statement on the theft of integrity by media. In 1960 two Italian films hit international box office success. They are constantly compared because of their indictment of postwar Italy’s new economic boom; both films examine the void of this materialism, bouncing off the protagonists of the upwardly mobile. Whereas Antonioni drifts through the bankruptcy of desire and romance, Fellini judges his own bankruptcy of moral pursuit, seduced by new glamor from Hollywood. [Extra credit: Fellini Juliet of the Spirits]

LECTURE 6 – Lina Wertmüller: Travolti da un insolito destino nell’azzurro mare d’agosto (Swept Away…by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August)

– Thursday, May 26

What is does status or social position say about passion? Role reversal! Who is in charge? Who serves whom? Capitalism vs Communism! A wealthy woman on a yacht, vacationing with friends in the Mediterranean sails into modern oblivion, stranded on a desert island with one of the boat’s crew. Swept Away was released to positive criticism but divisive harangue regarding gender/social issues. The film won the 1975 National Board of Review of Motion Pictures for Best Foreign Film. Do not see the remake! [Extra credit: Wertmüller’s The Seven Beauties]

Instructor

Weller has appeared in more than 70 films and television series, including RoboCop (1987) and its sequel RoboCop 2 (1990) (in which he played the title character), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). He has also appeared in such films as Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite (1995), the Oliver Stone-produced The New Age (1994), and David Cronenberg’s adaptation of William Burroughs’s novel Naked Lunch (1991).

While enrolled at North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas), he played trumpet in one of the campus bands. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and began his acting career after attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (class of 1972).

In 2004, Weller completed a Master of Arts degree in Roman and Renaissance Art at Syracuse University, and occasionally taught courses in ancient history at the university.

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