Italy in the 1960’s seems to have been very similar to America in the 1960’s. Protest and the mentality of peace and love as depicted in La Dolce Vita seem to have been common. Much like America, there was a cultural revolution. Women finally gained the right to abortion, gay and lesbian movements were started and divorces became more acceptable. Italy was changing during this time period, not only were they moving forward socially, but they were also trying to hold on to the past to keep regional traditions alive.
I know that the articles talked about if La Dolce Vita should be considered Neorealist or not, but to be completely honest, I don’t think that I completely understand what Neorealism is. I thought that Neorealism was supposed to show things how they really are- almost documentary style. However I don’t believe that La Dolce Vita does that. I think that La Dolce Vita shows an exaggerated version of the world as Fellini sees it. I think that he is trying to convey the message to people that the road Italy is heading down is not very moral. Also because of the way Fellini is so creative and uses so many symbols I don’t see how that fits into Neorealism. Then again I could be completely mistaken about what Neorealism is and may need to edit this blog entry….

Life Is Beautiful Part 2

I have finally finished watching Life Is Beautiful, and my opinion of the movie has changed dramatically. While I still wish that I had seen the movie with sub titles, I no longer believe that Gudio’s humor takes away from the story. In fact I think that his ability to maintain a sense of optimisms throughout the movie is apart of the story. The movie was incredibly sad, and I could not believe that Gudio died at the end. But I loved how Joshua was picked up in the tank.
After reading the articles on the Holocaust, I’m not sure how I feel about that aspect of the movie. Yes, it is in a way offending that Benigni played down the horrors of the Holocaust, but at the same time is it possible to reproduce them? I also think that this movie was not intended to offend anyone, rather to make the point that no matter how bad life is, there is always good in it. In fact, Levi says just that in his article, and he is a survivor of the Holocaust.

Life Is Beautiful

Life Is Beautiful
So far I have only seen the first half of the movie, and honestly I am a bit confused. The humor in the movie, although it is deliberate seems to take away from the plot, which seems more serious. The humor is childish am seems more fitting for a Saturday morning cartoon then a movie dealing with Fascist Italy at the verge of World War II. The version of the movie that I watched is dubbed over in English. The voices are done is horrible fake Italian accents that make it hard to take anyone seriously. It seems as if the movie could have a truly heartwarming love story set along with the drama of the war- but the voices and the humor ruins the mood of the movie for me. I also feel as if the filming of the movie is weak. I have yet to see any breath taking shots- but I am only half through the movie so maybe something impressive is up ahead.

The Garden of the Finizi-Continis

The Garden of the Finizi-Continis directed by De Sica, is perhaps my favorite movie that we have seen so far in this class. But in all honesty, I could not tell you what it was about the movie that I enjoyed so much. I thought that the acting was weak along with the character development. I know that in neorealism films it is common to use unprofessional actors, but I feel as if sometimes the unprofessional actors take away from the movie. Those actors always seem to have the same expression on their faces throughout the movie, like Micol. I also hated the ending of the movie. Not only was it sad, but it just kinda ended. Without much closure; I personally enjoy closure at the end of the movie.
But besides all of that, I really enjoyed the movie. I thought that the story was interesting, if not a bit confusing. And for the first time I really appreciated the cinematography of the movie. One of my favorite scenes was the first one, when everyone was riding their bikes to go and play tennis. I loved how that scene was shot. My other favorite scene was during Passover when the Finizi-Continis were trying to predict the future with the cup that Micol brought from Venice. The last shot in that scene were you see the glass and the persons face in the reflection of the table was amazing. It was eerie and almost sent chills up my spine. I only wish that I knew what happened after the movie was over.

Bicycle Thieves

The Bicycle Thieves, directed by De Sica, follows the story of a man on the hunt to find his stolen bicycle. After finally receiving a job, Antonio Ricci must buy back his bicycle in order to keep his job hanging up posters. While hanging up one of his posters his bicycle is stolen.
What I found most interesting in this movie is the relationship between Antonio and his son Bruno. Bruno, unlike his father has had a job for sometime, even though he is still a young child. It is obvious that Bruno looks up to his father, for the fact that Antonio is his father, but for no other reason. There are moments in the movie when Bruno is even ashamed of his father because of how desperate he becomes in the search for his bicycle.
In a movie like this, where the main character loses everything, I feel as if I should feel for him, but instead I feel like he deserves what he got. I don’t know if it was because I couldn’t relate to Antonio that I didn’t feel bad for him, or if it was just because I thought he was a self-absorbed jerk.

Rome, Open City

Post World War Two brought many changes to Italy. Politically there was a struggle over who would gain control over Italy. In the film industry it brought about Neorealism. Neorealism I found to be difficult to understand. From what I gathered, it combines fantasy and non fiction together. A perfect example of this, and the film we viewed for the class is “Rome, Open City” by Rossellini. The article “The Masters of Neorealism, Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti” describes “Rome, Open City” as using a variety of styles and moods. (Which I’m assuming is what neorealism is about). I thought that the plot of the movie was very heart wrenching and very dramatic.

Caterina In The Big City

For the film Caterina In The Big City, I gave a presentaion- here are clips from the presentation-

Caterina in the Big City

Quick Facts
Director -Paolo Virizi
Released -January 1, 2003 (June 3, 2005 in the US)
Country of Origin- Italy
Genre – Comedy, Drama, Foreign

Cast
Alice Teghil - Caterina Iacovoni
Sergio Castellitto - Giancarlo Iacovoni
Margherita Buy - Agata Iacovoni
Carolina Iaquaniello - Margherita Rossi Chaillet
Federica Sbrenna - Daniela Germano
Zach Wallen - Edward
Galatea - Ranzi Livia
Claudio Amendola - Manlio Germano

Plot
When 12 (15) year old Caterina and her family move from Northern Italy to Rome, Caterina finds that fitting in may be harder then she first imagined. Her class is divided politically with cliques fighting for Caterina’s attention. Her father, Giancarlo, thrilled that Caterina’s new friends have influential parents uses Caterina’s connections to better himself. During all this, Caterina who is still struggling to fit in, loses who she really is inside. When all seems lost to Caterina her Australian neighbor helps her to remember the girl she once was.

Important Scenes
Begging of movie
Class Room Scene
Cliques
Hiding Next Door
Scenes with Margherita and Daniela

Influence of "Cliques"
Giancarlo shows how Italy is divided into more then just North and South and by political parties. Italy is a country that is also torn apart by cliques. According to Giancarlo unless you are apart of a clique you can never be successful.

Social and Political Influences
There is a great divide in Italian society, not only between the North and the South, but also between the different political parties.
Most notably between the Communist and Fascists parties.

Realism Vs Formalism
The film tends to be realistic when showing the feelings and struggles of the characters

Imagined Italies
Why “Italians” don’t exist-
There is no centralized city
North- more European : South- more African
No sense of “we”

Foot Ch 4
Political Parties in Italy
Socialist Party 1892-1993
Italian Communist Party 1921 – 1990-1
Italian Popular Party 1919-1926
Christian Democrats 1942-1994
Fascists Party 1921-1945
Italian Social Movement 1946-1994

Disscusion Questions
How do the relationships within the family change as Caterina begins to make friends?
Giancarlo and Caterina
Agata and Giancarlo
Does this film support the idea of Italians?
What/ who is this film more about? Caterina trying to find her self? Or Giancarlo trying to make a name for himself?

My Thoughts
Gave great insight to what life is really like in Italy
Politics
Family life
Society
Confused as to the age of the characters
Caterina’s father is very irritating


Yet style of the film being fast paced tends to create a more formalistic film

The Leopard

The Leopard (Il Gattopardo)
Directed by Luchino Visconti
Released 1963
Based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel “The Leopard”
Cast-
Burt Lancaster- Prince Don Fabrizio Salina
Claudia Cardinale – Angelica Sedara / Bertiana
Alain Delon- Tancredi Falconeri
Paolo Stoppa – Don Calogero Sedara
Rina Morelli – Princess Maria Stella Salina
Romolo Valli- Father Pirrone

Awards
Cannes Film Festival Winner: Palme d'Or - Luchino Visconti
Academy Awards Nominated: Best Costume Design, Color - Piero Tosi

While this film has an amazing story line, I found it hard to stay concentrated on the film throughout the movie. Visconti uses so many long, slow shots that the film seems to drag on. (Also, I’m not a very patent person; I don’t like to sit through long films). The imagery in the film was beautiful, but whereas the film was shot in 1963, the colors are faded. I wish that the movie was shot using today’s technology. The scenes would have been even more breath-taking. Honestly I didn’t really like this film because of the length, like I mentioned earlier, I found it hard to stay focused on the film and I missed important parts of the movie because I grew so bored with it. In a communications class that I took last semester, we discussed how movies were being cut shorter and shorter so that it didn’t take as long to produce and so that the theaters could show the movie more frequently. While most people are annoyed by this, I personally like it. I like movies that get to the point, not ones that continue for almost 3 hours.

(MORE TO COME!)

Italy- Not As Perfect As I Once Imagined...

As mentioned in my first blog post, my view of Italy is highly romanticized. However, the more movies that we view in the class, the more I see and understand what living in Italy is really like. “Ciao Professore” was not only a well acted film, but it also showed what life is like in Southern Italy, and what hold the mafia still holds over certain areas. Although I only saw clips of the film, I was impressed with the acting of all of the third graders. Hopefully I will have the chance to watch the film in its entirety in the future.

What I found most shocking about the film was the fact that it took place in the slums. Italy is always depicted as such a beautiful country, I never envisioned Italy to have slums similar to the United States. But in some parts of Italy, the conditions are worse then the United States. In Naples corruption in the government and with the Mafia is preventing incinerators to be built to get rid of the regions trash. Riots and protest has lead the region being under military rule. In “Ciao Professore” which was shot in 1999, you can see the issue of garbage already in the streets. Garage lines the streets and is over filling the dumpsters. However, today in that same region the trash is everywhere, along with the smell.

Clearly Italy is not what I had originally envisioned.

Bread And Tulips Scene Selection

1:01:32 – 1:03

This scene was perhaps my favorite scene in the movie. Rosabla is playing the accordion for her friend Grazia. The scene is shot with warm lighting, which matches the feeling of the scene. Behind Rosabla is a mirror, in the mirror you can see Grazia’s face as she watches her friend. The director then zooms in close to Rosabla’s face. The close-up shows Roasbla in a way that makes her seem humble. The emotion in the seen is almost tangible, especially when looking at Rosabla. The shots that show a close-up of the accordion help to show Rosabla’s grace and expertise of the instrument. This is the first scene in the movie where Rosable seems comfortable in her own skin.

Bread And Tulips

Director – Silvio Soldini

Released - March 3, 2000

Genre – Romance, Drama, Comedy

Cast –
Licia Maglietta – Rosalba Barletta
Bruno Ganz – Fernando Girasoli
Giuseppe Battiston – Costantino Caponangeli
Antonio Catarnia – Mimmo Barletta
Marina Massironi – Grazia
Felice Andreasi – fermo

Stranded at a rest stop on a family vacation, housewife Rosalba finally takes her life into her own hands. Instead of waiting for her husband and two sons to come and find her she hitchhikes her way to Venice. After missing her train home, Rosalba finds a job with a florist, and moves in with a waiter. Desperate to find Rosalba, her husband hires an amateur detective to find her. What the detective finds is a woman who has finally found love and happiness in her life.

The main character Rosalba, is an Italian housewife. She is portrayed as a ditzy woman, who is pretty much hopeless. At first I thought that this was merely character development, and that her ditzyness would be the cause of some sort of commotion later on in the film. However, as the movie progressed, Rosalba is not made out to be a silly woman. In Caterina In The Big City. Caterina’s mother who is also a housewife is portrayed in the same manner. This lead to me wonder- are Italian women stereotyped as stupid or inferior to men? What are the social norms for women in Italy? In the movie Bread and Tulips, whenever a women had an occupation other then housewife, they would introduced themselves as such, with a sense of pride in their voice. After reading the article “Gender in Italy” by David Forgacs and Robert Lumley it seemed as if Italy was struggling with the same gender issues that Americans are facing. Now, after viewing the two movies it seems as if Italy is behind America when it comes to gender equality.

How My Image of Italy Has Changed

Growing up in a family with an Italian heritage, my impression of Italians were loud people with a love of pasta and Frank Sinatra. I have always picture Italy as a romantic picturesque country where the only thing that matters is following your heart. Largely this image was derived from the media. Movies set in Italy always seemed to have a carefree vibe, with love being the main focus of the film. As silly of an example this maybe, the one movie that comes to mind is “The Lizzie McGuire Movie”. Directed by Jim Fall in 2003, the movie follows a young girl on her class trip to Rome. While in Rome the main character not only falls in love with a boy but receives the opportunity to conquer her fears and live her dream of becoming famous. In my mind Italy was a country where anything was possible.
Finally during high school did I start to realize that Italy was a “real” country, Italians were not people that were able to do whatever their heart desired, they too had to deal with reality. A pen=pal from Milan helped me form this realization. My correspondent, even though she lived in Italy, still faced many of the hardships that I faced. Although I still liked to picture Italy as a form of an utopia, I knew that the image I had of Italy was not real.
After reading the chapter by Foot, my image of Italy changed even more. I began to realize that like any other country, Italy has had many political struggles. I never realized how violent Italy’s past has been. It seems as if Italy had spent much of last half of the 20th centaury of the brink of a Civil War. Never before was I aware of the great divide between the North and the South. Not only over cultural differences, but economic differences as well.
What I found most interesting in the reading was the feelings of Italians towards the Catholic Church. With the Vatican being located in Rome I had always assumed that all Italians were Catholic. The thought that there could have been rifts between the Church and the State had never crossed my mind. For example, I was not aware of the fact that the Pope was exiled from the Vatican for over fifty years. I would like to learn more about how the Church has affected politics in Italy and the relationship between the Church and the state.