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.