Introduction to Neorealism: Yesterday, Today Starts Wednesday 12 October 2011 18.30 – 20.30 8 Weeks Italian Neorealism Was

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Introduction to Neorealism: Yesterday, Today Starts Wednesday 12 October 2011 18.30 – 20.30 8 Weeks Italian Neorealism Was Introduction to Neorealism: Yesterday, Today Starts Wednesday 12 October 2011 18.30 – 20.30 8 weeks Italian Neorealism was undoubtedly one of the most revolutionary cinematic styles of the twentieth century, and despite being borne out of the ruins of the aftermath of World War II, Neorealism has continued to influence contemporary film directors, both within Italy and in the international film industry. This course will look at the distinguishing features which made Neorealism such a unique phenomenon and course participants will trace these features in contemporary films in order to explore the notion of a reinvigorated neo- neorealism. Beginner’s level - no prior knowledge necessary. Course tutor: Adalgisa Serio, freelance lecturer and writer, also working for the Open University and CDLCI. Week 1 Introduction – Roma Citta` Aperta (Rome, Open City) The Annexe Wed 12 Oct 18:30 – 20:30 We start by trying to illustrate the main features which characterise and define Neorealism using the most significant films as illustrative examples – from Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di Biciclette) by Vittorio De Sica, to The Earth will Tremble (La terra Trema) by Luchino Visconti. We will then concentrate to analyse Rossellini’s masterpiece “Roma Citta` Aperta” (1945), considered by most critics as the cinematic manifesto of Neorealism. Week 2 Roma Citta` Aperta (Rome, Open City) The Annexe Wed 19 Oct 18:30 – 20:30 Continue from week 1 Week 3 Screening: Paisà (Paisan) Cinema Wed 26 Oct 18:10 Dir Roberto Rossellini / IT 1946/ 120 mins Carmela Sazio, Gar Moore, William Tubbs, Robert Van Loon Part of Rossellini’s War trilogy, the film, for the content and cinematic choices, is one of the most powerful examples of Neorealism. Divided into six independent episodes, it follows the advance of the Allied troops from July 1943 to the winter of 1944, starting from Sicily, across the peninsula and up to the north. Among the screenwriters we find the young Federico Fellini. Week 4 La Battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) The Annexe Wed 2 Nov 18:30 – 20:30 Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo in 1966, entirely shot on location in the original language (Arabic and French), and using non professional, local “actors”, the film is a striking product of directorial skills and an excellent example of post-neorealism. Based on true historical events which led to the independence of Algeria from France, and with the powerful film score of Ennio Morricone, the film captures the audience for its highly visual and emotional impact. Week 5 Lamerica The Annexe Wed 9 Nov 18:30 – 20:30 Directed in 1994 by Gianni Amelio, one of the contemporary Italian film directors more indebted to the “lesson” of Neorealism, together with the second screening of Gomorrah, this film is suitable to open a discussion on what we intend for Neorealism today and if it still possible to apply the same principles in a more contemporary scenario. Based on the aftermath of the fall of Communism in 1991 in Europe, the film, shot in Albania, is also an intriguing example of migrant cinema. Week 6 Lamerica and introduction to Gomorrah The Annexe Wed 16 Nov 18:30 – 20:30 We will continue the discussion generated from last week introducing also examples from next week screening of Gomorrah. Up to which point can we still review and rate contemporary films on a cinematic style which doomed to be confined to only three years of justified existence (1945- 1948)? Week 7 Screening: Gomorrah Cinema Wed 23 Nov 18:00 Dir Matteo Garrone / IT 2008 / 137 mins Gianfelice Imparato, Salvatore Abruzzese, Toni Servillo, Simone Sacchettino Based on the homonymous bestseller by Roberto Saviano, the film, together with Il Divo by Paolo Sorrentino, swept all the most important prizes at national and international cinema festivals. It was an exceptional case of gaining both the critics and public consensus, which in the film industry, rarely go together. Shot in a “neorealistic”, gritty style, the film concentrates on five separate but intertwined stories of people differently connected with the organized local crime of family clans and the Camorra. Week 8 L’Albero degli Zoccoli (The Tree of Wooden Clogs) The Annexe Wed 30 Nov 18:30 – 20:30 Despite this film not following the chronological order of the films analysed so far (1978), I have chosen it so as to finish the course with more appeasing images from Ermanno Olmi’s masterpiece, shot in the Bergamo countryside, using all non professional actors and leaving the dialect language spoken by the peasants of the area. A mystical film with a pantheistic view of the world, in the escalation of the drama, the spectator is taken aback by the beauty of the natural scenes, the poverty and simplicity of the peasant community and the social exploitation which, in different levels and degrees, is a constant component of neorealist films. Other films related to Neorealism will be suggested as further viewing during the course. All the films proposed in the course are available on DVD and some of them have been occasionally broadcast on the BBC and Channel 4. References Specific references will be provided on a weekly basis. Suggested reading: 1. Bondanella, Peter: Italian Cinema, from Neorealism to the present, Continuum International Publishing Group; 3rd edition, New York, 2001 2. Liehm, Mira: Passion and Defiance: Film in Italy from 1942 to the Present, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1986 3. Marcus, Millicent Joy: Italian Film in the light of Neorealism, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1986 4. Ruberto, E. Laura & Kristi M. Wilson: Italian Neorealism and Global Cinema, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2007 5. Serio, Adalgisa: Studying Italian Cinema, Auteur Publishing, Leighton Buzzard, coming out Autumn/Winter 2011-12 Websites The most useful websites for background on Neorealism are: http://filmdirectors.co/italian-neorealism-film-techniques/ http://donalforeman.com/writing/neorealism.html http://www.filmreference.com/encyclopedia/Independent-Film-Road-Movies/Neorealism- CRITICAL-RECEPTION-AND-LEGACY.html http://www.au-cinema.com/narrative-film-technique/defining-italian-neorealism.html Associated Events Live Musical Accompaniment Drifters (CTBA) Sun 6 Nov 16:30 Dir John Grierson/GB 1929/60 mins Human beatboxer, vocal sculptor and sound artist Jason Singh, will perform a live vocal score to the 1929 silent film Drifters, by John Grierson. Using techniques of prerecorded vocal sequences, live vocal processing and sampling, Singh will create a sonic backdrop of ambient textures, experimental atmospheres and rhythms created solely by the use of the voice to accompany the epic journey of a film that explores the tensions between tradition and modernity. Matinee Classics Our popular, ongoing programme brings cinema classics to the big screen every month – with each film showing on a Sunday at 12:00 and the following Wednesday at 13:30. Our October and November films will also have an informal post-screening discussion following the Wednesday showing, so you can talk about the film with other film fans. To find out about what films are showing visit http://www.cornerhouse.org/film/film- events/matinee-classics Asia Triennial Film Programme For the second Asia Triennial Manchester Festival, we present the very first accompanying film programme. This series of features, short films and special events, includes six UK premieres, as well as a season from award-winning Filipino director Brillante Mendoza. UK Premiere Under the Hawthorn Tree (CTBA) (Shan zha shu zhi lian) Sun 3 Oct 18:20 Dir Zhang Yimou/CN 2010/114 mins/Mandarin wEng ST Zhou Dongyu, Shawn Dou, Xi Meijuan, Jiang Ruijia Based on popular novel Under the Hawthorn Tree, this ravishingly shot film is set during the Cultural Revolution and tells the story of a student who is sent to be re-educated through work in the countryside only to find true love in the form of a young geologist working nearby. However, the social and political differences between their families means that love cannot always run smoothly. The Gaze Returned: Three Short Films from China (CTBA) Tue 11 Oct 18:30 £3 Dir various/CN 2007, 2009, 2010/60 mins This special screening of three key short artists’ films from China includes the UK premiere of Gaze, a stunning one-stage performance piece by Wang Jianwei (previously part of our State Legacy exhibition, 2009). Also screening are Crust by acclaimed director Huang Wenhai, a film about a Chinese steelworker in a Yangtze River shipyard, and Cao Fei’s second life animation imirror that premiered to critical acclaim at the Venice Biennale 2007. Event We are pleased to welcome Dong Bingfeng, Deputy Director of the Iberia Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing, for an introduction and post-screening Q&A. Closing Gala Hotel Black Cat (CTBA) Sat 26 Nov 18:00 Dir Herb Hsu Li-wen/TW 2010/98 mins/Mandarin wEng ST Lu Yi-Cheng, Wen Zhen-ling, Xia Jing-ting, Li Kang-yi The debut fiction feature from Herb Hsu Li-wen, Hotel Black Cat tells the interweaving stories and lingering past traumas of the offbeat residents of the eponymous residence. Whilst a low budget production, Hotel Black Cat has the same shambolic charm as the film’s central location and marks its young director as a talent to watch. Event We are pleased to welcome actress and director Herb Hsu Li-wen for a post-screening Q&A. Brillante Mendoza Retrospective Opening Gala Lola (CTBA) (Grandmother) Sat 1 Oct 18:00 Dir Brillante Mendoza/PH 2009/110 mins/Tagalog wEng ST Anita Linda, Rustica Carpio, Tanya Gomez, Jhong Hilario The lives of two grandmothers become intertwined when their sons are involved in a street brawl and they are sucked into the labyrinth world of the Philippine legal system.
Recommended publications
  • The Myth of the Good Italian in the Italian Cinema
    ISSN 2039-2117 (online) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences Vol 5 No 16 ISSN 2039-9340 (print) MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy July 2014 The Myth of the Good Italian in the Italian Cinema Sanja Bogojević Faculty of Philosophy, University of Montenegro Doi:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n16p675 Abstract In this paper we analyze the phenomenon called the “myth of the good Italian” in the Italian cinema, especially in the first three decades of after-war period. Thanks to the recent success of films such as Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds or Academy Award- winning Benigni’s film La vita è bella and Spielberg’s Schindler’s List it is commonly believed that the Holocaust is a very frequent and popular theme. Nevertheless, this statement is only partly true, especially when it comes to Italian cinema. Soon after the atrocities of the WWII Italian cinema became one of the most prominent and influential thanks to its national film movement, neorealism, characterized by stories set amongst the poor and famished postwar Italy, celebrating the fight for freedom under the banners of Resistance and representing a nation opposed to the Fascist and Nazi regime. Interestingly, these films, in spite of their very important social engagement, didn’t even mention the Holocaust or its victims and it wasn’t until the 1960’s that Italian cinema focused on representing and telling this horrific stories. Nevertheless, these films represented Italians as innocent and incapable of committing cruel acts. The responsibility is usually transferred to the Germans as typically cold and sadistic, absolving Italians of their individual and national guilt.
    [Show full text]
  • The Altering Eye Contemporary International Cinema to Access Digital Resources Including: Blog Posts Videos Online Appendices
    Robert Phillip Kolker The Altering Eye Contemporary International Cinema To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/8 Open Book Publishers is a non-profit independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. Robert Kolker is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Maryland and Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Virginia. His works include A Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Stone, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg Altman; Bernardo Bertolucci; Wim Wenders (with Peter Beicken); Film, Form and Culture; Media Studies: An Introduction; editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho: A Casebook; Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey: New Essays and The Oxford Handbook of Film and Media Studies. http://www.virginia.edu/mediastudies/people/adjunct.html Robert Phillip Kolker THE ALTERING EYE Contemporary International Cinema Revised edition with a new preface and an updated bibliography Cambridge 2009 Published by 40 Devonshire Road, Cambridge, CB1 2BL, United Kingdom http://www.openbookpublishers.com First edition published in 1983 by Oxford University Press. © 2009 Robert Phillip Kolker Some rights are reserved. This book is made available under the Cre- ative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence. This licence allows for copying any part of the work for personal and non-commercial use, providing author
    [Show full text]
  • Nonprofessional Acting in El Perro Issue 9 | Movie: a Journal of Film Criticism | 56
    Nonprofessional Acting in El Perro Issue 9 | Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism | 56 interpretable, or because the performers are, from this initial is also renamed after the non-actor, which makes it easier for contact with the filmmaking devices, modifying their behav- the performer to identify with the role. On set, scripts are iour and incorporating gestures and mannerisms. For these withheld from the non-actors, favouring instead the use of filmmakers it is the contact with the camera (the recording cues and verbal explanations. (This alleviates the performer’s device) that inevitably changes the person’s behaviour and possible difficulties memorising lines.) Non-actors are also their status as film performers. encouraged to adapt words and sentences to their natural way Robert Bresson, who made the use of non-actors a dis- of speaking. Sorin also shoots in chronological order (Sorin tinctive feature of his filmmaking style, would disagree. For in Ponce 2004), a technique facilitated by the use of a small Bresson what radically altered the non-actor’s behaviour and production crew. The shooting ratio is very high, often above their status was not performing for the camera but watching thirty to one, as scenes are not rehearsed; rather, all rehearsals their own on-screen performance. Bresson explains: are filmed. Do not use the same models in two films. […] They would These choices, popular among social realist filmmak- look at themselves in the first film as one looks at one- ers such as Ken Loach, help withhold fictional events from Nonprofessional Acting self in the mirror, would want people to see them as they the performer so that actor and character discover them wish to be seen, would impose a discipline on themselves, simultaneously.4 The emphasis is on preserving a quality of in El Perro would grow disenchanted as they correct themselves.
    [Show full text]
  • ME,YOUBY BILLE AUGUST a Film Based on the Novel “Tu, Mio” by ERRI DE LUCA SYNOPSIS
    ME,YOUBY BILLE AUGUST A Film based On The Novel “Tu, Mio” by ERRI DE LUCA SYNOPSIS Ischia, 1955. In the waters of the island in the bay of Naples, Marco (16) Caia is Jewish. Marco does not have these prejudices, on the contrary, spends his days sailing with Nicola (52), a hardened fisherman who tells this discovery pushes him to delve into the girl’s life even more. A stories about the sea and the war, that is still very fresh in his memory. beautiful complicity is established between the two in which Caia reveals Marco is different from the other boys, he prefers spending his time her painful past, with a childhood stolen by the SS and a father who in the company of the hermetic Nicola rather than going to the beach, preferred to throw his daughter out of a train in Yugoslavia, rather having courting girls or bathing in the ocean like his peers. Shy and curious, he her to experience the horrors of a concentration camp. takes advantage of his holidays on the Italian island to fill his eyes with Marco’s gestures remind Caia of her father: his protective attitudes, the images of a world that is so distant from his native London or from the way he kisses her on the forehead, the sound of his voice when he the gloomy boarding school in Scotland where his family sheltered Marco pronounces her name in Romanian, Chaiele. Next to him she feels the to protect him from the bombings. presence of her father, even though Marco is just a slender boy 4 years On vacation with his parents at his maternal uncle’s house, he will live younger than her.
    [Show full text]
  • Texto Completo (Pdf)
    ZBD # 8 La mostra di Venezia prima, durante e dopo Pontecorvo Roberto Donati Arezzo, Italia [email protected] Artículo recibido el 30/02/2016, aceptado el 10/05/2016 y publicado el 15/07/2016 Reconocimiento-No comercial-Sin obras derivadas 3.0 License 68] RIASSUNTO: Breve introduzione storica alla Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica di Venezia. Le ragioni che hanno portato alla scelta di Gillo Pontecorvo come direttore, nel 1992. Le linee programmatiche di Pontecorvo, i successi e i primi passi falsi: il caso Gli spietati. Le cinque edizioni firmate Pontecorvo nel dettaglio: titoli, registi, scoperte, rivalutazioni. Le sue iniziative da direttore per ripopolare il Lido di spettatori comuni e soprattutto di giovani, dopo anni in cui la Mostra era diventata meta quasi esclusiva di addetti ai lavori. Il ritorno di Gillo a Venezia da ex direttore, di nuovo in veste di regista, con il cortometraggio Nostalgia di protezione. Infine, il dopo-Pontecorvo: da Felice Laudadio ad Alberto Barbera, da Moritz de Hadeln a Marco Müller, fino al ritorno di Barbera. Parole chiave: Mostra del Cinema di Venezia, direttore, Gillo Pontecorvo. 81) – (pp. 67 67 (pp. ∫ 3576 - ABSTRACT: A brief historical introduction to Venice Film Festival. The reasons that led Gillo Pontecorvo to become Director in 1992. Pontecorvo’s programmatic standpoint, 2255 N: successes and first false steps: the Unforgiven case. The five Pontecorvo editions in detail: SS I titles, directors, discoveries, reassessments. His initiatives aimed to repopulate the Lido of - common moviegoers, specifically young spectators, after years when the Mostra had 2016) 2016) become an insiders’ exclusive destination.
    [Show full text]
  • Semester at Sea Course Syllabus
    SEMESTER AT SEA COURSE SYLLABUS Voyage: Summer 2013 Discipline: Media Studies MDST 2502: Mediterranean Cinemas after 1945 Division: Lower division Faculty Name: Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz, Ph.D. COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course presents students with a history and overview of the major European film movements, the most influential films and directors, and the relationship between European cinemas, history, and culture from 1945 to the 2000s. Focusing largely –though not exclusively- on the principal film industries of France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Northern Africa, the course draws direct comparisons and relationships between the practices of cinema, and developments in history and society. COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students will explore the styles and significance of such influential movements as Italian Neorealism (1944-1952), the French the New Wave (1958-1964), the “Golden Age” of Greek cinema (1950s-1960s) and Spanish cinema before and after democratization. The course will consider specific relationships of national cinemas in general, and exemplary films in particular, to representations of landscape, the city, and key historical junctures. Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, Italy 1945). REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: Elizabeth Ezra (ed.) European Cinema. Oxford U. Press, 2004. Other reading materials will be available electronically. Our most important texts, of course, are the movies assigned for each class meeting. Course Schedule C1- June 19: Introductions and rules of the game. Opening lecture/discussion: “Understanding cultures through film.” Reading: Ezra, Introduction: “A brief history of cinema in Europe.” C2- June 20: The Hollywood Standard. Casablanca and Classical Cinema. Film: Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, US 1942). C3- June 21: War as a starting point. Film: Rome, Open City (Roberto Rossellini, Italy 1945).
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of Asian Studies Contemporary Chinese Cinema Special Edition
    the iafor journal of asian studies Contemporary Chinese Cinema Special Edition Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 Editor: Seiko Yasumoto ISSN: 2187-6037 The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue – I IAFOR Publications Executive Editor: Joseph Haldane The International Academic Forum The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Editor: Seiko Yasumoto, University of Sydney, Australia Associate Editor: Jason Bainbridge, Swinburne University, Australia Published by The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan Executive Editor: Joseph Haldane Editorial Assistance: Rachel Dyer IAFOR Publications. Sakae 1-16-26-201, Naka-ward, Aichi, Japan 460-0008 Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 IAFOR Publications © Copyright 2016 ISSN: 2187-6037 Online: joas.iafor.org Cover image: Flickr Creative Commons/Guy Gorek The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue I – Spring 2016 Edited by Seiko Yasumoto Table of Contents Notes on contributors 1 Welcome and Introduction 4 From Recording to Ritual: Weimar Villa and 24 City 10 Dr. Jinhee Choi Contested identities: exploring the cultural, historical and 25 political complexities of the ‘three Chinas’ Dr. Qiao Li & Prof. Ros Jennings Sounds, Swords and Forests: An Exploration into the Representations 41 of Music and Martial Arts in Contemporary Kung Fu Films Brent Keogh Sentimentalism in Under the Hawthorn Tree 53 Jing Meng Changes Manifest: Time, Memory, and a Changing Hong Kong 65 Emma Tipson The Taste of Ice Kacang: Xiaoqingxin Film as the Possible 74 Prospect of Taiwan Popular Cinema Panpan Yang Subtitling Chinese Humour: the English Version of A Woman, a 85 Gun and a Noodle Shop (2009) Yilei Yuan The IAFOR Journal of Asian Studies Volume 2 – Issue 1 – Spring 2016 Notes on Contributers Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • History Newsletter Published Biannually Fall 2020 California State University, Bakersfield Vol
    History Newsletter Published Biannually Fall 2020 California State University, Bakersfield Vol. 30, No. 1 Editor: Miriam Raub Vivian; Asst. Editor: Chris Tang; Production Editor: Jean Stenehjem. For current information, visit our website at www.csub.edu/history/; for history program forms, schedules, and information, see the rack outside the History Department Office, HOB 131, or visit www.csub.edu/history, and CSUBakersfieldHistory on Facebook. FROM THE CHAIR CAPITAL FELLOWS PROGRAMS As the fall semester concludes, I hope our history community is The nationally recognized Capital Fellows Programs consists of the safe and able to isolate as much as possible. Although we now following four fellowships: Jesse M. Unruh Assembly Fellowship know that the CSU plans a return to campus in fall 2021 Program, Executive Fellowship Program, Judicial Fellowship (YAY!), we still have another semester dealing with the Program, California Senate Fellows Program. challenges that remote learning poses, and I wish all my colleagues and our students the very best in navigating another Note that they are currently accepting applications for their 2021-22 term. From what I can tell, everyone is doing their utmost to class. Additional information can be found at: Capital Fellows make this year a success. As with so much else this semester, Programs [csus.edu] we’ve had to make many adjustments, including creating a Applicants may apply to one or more of the programs that meet their faculty department welcome video to stand in for the in-person interests and qualifications. Recent graduates, graduate, welcome with pizza we’ve enjoyed these past two years. If postgraduate, and mid-career applicants are welcome to you’ve not seen the video, you may access it apply.
    [Show full text]
  • Gian Maria Volonte:Programme Notes.Qxd
    Operation Ogre / Ogro Spain / France / Italy | 1979 | 115 minutes Credits In Brief Director Gillo Pontecorvo As 1973 winds down, Franco is still governing Spain with an iron hand. Screenplay Giorgio Arlorio, Ugo Pirro, Gillo Opposition parties are forbidden; labor movements are repressed; and Pontecorvo (novel byJulen Aguirre) Basque nationalists are mercilessly hunted down. The caudillo is aging, though, and the continuity of the régime is in question. One man has the Music Ennio Morricone trust of Franco, enough authority and experience to assume the leadership, Photography Marcello Gatti and an impeccable track record as to dealing with enemies of the State: admiral Carrero Blanco. For the embattled clandestine Basque organization Cast ETA, Carrero Blanco must be brought down. Daring plans are made, requiring Izarra Gian Maria Volonté a meticulous execution... Amaiur Ángela Molina Eduardo Casais, IMDB Luque Saverio Marconi Iker José Sacristán Ogro (1979) is the third Gillo Pontecorvo film I've seen, after the brilliant Battle of Algiers and the disappointing Burn! Pontecorvo again deals with the politics and harsh realities of terrorism and revolution, but in a more subdued manner than above-named films. Unfortunately, Ogro is also a bit too obvious and slow compared to his previous works, and suffers as a result. In 1973, Spain is still under the thumb of Generalissmo Francisco Franco, the Fascist dictator who has ruled the country since 1939. Still, most knowledgable Spaniards know he hasn't long to live, and his equally repressive right-hand man Carrero Blanco (Agapito Romo) is in line to take over. A cell of the ETA, a Basque terrorist organization, has decided to kidnap Blanco and hold him for ransom.
    [Show full text]
  • The Political Import and Impact of the Battle of Algiers
    Cine Qua Non: The Political Import and Impact of The Battle of... http://lisa.revues.org/5006 Revue LISA/LISA e-journal Littératures, Histoire des Idées, Images, Sociétés du Monde Anglophone – Literature, History of Ideas, Images and Societies of the English-speaking World Vol. X – n° 1 | 2012 : Regards croisés sur des guerres contemporaines H/histoire(s) et résonances de guerre(s) : témoignages littéraires et représentations cinématographiques Cine Qua Non: The Political Import and Impact of The Battle of Algiers Cine Qua Non : L’impact de La bataille d’Alger STEPHEN J. WHITFIELD p. 249-270 Résumé Co-production italo-algérienne (en français et en arabe), La Battaglia di Algeri (1965), mérite le titre de meilleur film jamais réalisé. Gillo Pontecorvo, réalisateur et co-scénariste, montre avec brio et perspicacité les luttes de groupes d’insurgés se livrant à une guérilla urbaine dans l’Alger des années 1954-1957. Dans son portrait des exactions terroristes, ce film anticipe une vision du monde actuel, empli d’une violence effroyable, insoutenable. Ce 1 of 18 3/30/16, 1:50 PM Cine Qua Non: The Political Import and Impact of The Battle of... http://lisa.revues.org/5006 film prémonitoire a un impact indéniable sur le temps présent. Que l’on soit de gauche ou de droite, de 1965 à nos jours, ce film ne cesse de fasciner. Ainsi dans le cadre de cette étude, je tenterai de mettre en relief la réalité historique à travers l’art cinématographique. Censuré en France en 1965, et peu projeté en salle dans la décennie qui suivit, ce film garde de sa force impressionnante grâce à son style étonnant mais aussi au thème choisi, criant par son éternelle actualité.
    [Show full text]
  • FILM STUDIES by Clodagh Brook, University of Birmingham, and Cosetta Veronese, University of Birmingham
    FILM STUDIES By Clodagh Brook, University of Birmingham, and Cosetta Veronese, University of Birmingham General readers of Italian film history. Rémi Fournier Lanzoni, Comedy Italian Style: The Golden Age of Italian Film Comedies, New York–London, Continuum, 276 pp., provides a panorama of commedia all’italiana within the broader context of comedy in Italy. Bert Cardullo, After Neorealism: Italian Filmmakers and Their Films; Essays and Interviews, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars, 198 pp., provides interviews with directors and analyses of their work, including Visconti, Fellini, Monicelli, Pasolini, Antonioni, Olmi, Amelio, and Moretti. Fabio Vighi, Sexual Difference in European Cinema: The Curse of Enjoyment, NY, Palgrave Macmillan, 258 pp., offers a radical Lacanian- Žižekian re-reading of European auteur cinema, including analysis of Rossellini, Fellini, Pasolini, and Antonioni. Adaptations and cross-media studies. V. Galbiati, ‘Tra lettera tura e cinema: Landolfi, Cavazzoni e Fellini’, Italianistica, 38.3:159–66, studies the echoes of Landolfi’s work and Cavazzoni’s novel Il poema dei lunatici in Fellini’s film La voce della luna. ParL, 60.81–83 contains an extensive section on cinema, including a reflection upon Bertolucci’s activity as a cinema critic (F. Zabagli, ‘Attilio Bertolucci “cronista di cinema”’, 80–85), and an analysis of the significance that the advent of cinema had on literary activity of the early 20th century (I. Gambacorti, ‘Lo schermo di carta. Letteratura sul cinema negli anni Dieci’, 86–98). E. Ciccotti, ‘Mario Verdone, Eugène Ionesco, Siena e il rinoceronte. Tra teatro, circo e cinema’, NA, 144.2252:187–202, analyses Verdone’s 1963 theatrical piece La gloria del Rinoceronte.
    [Show full text]
  • Images of Germans in Post-War Italian Cinema
    Damiano Garofalo Images of Germans in Post-war Italian Cinema Abstract This essay aims at tracing the models of representation of the Germans in Italian post-war cinema. Taking into consideration dozens of films produced in Italy between ’40s and ’50s dealing with the memory of Fascism, Second World War, Holocaust and the Resis- tance, the essay questions the so-called “bad German” memorial paradigm, attempting to underline the persistences or removals of this mythology in Italian films of the period. The aim is to understand what kind of function the Germans and the Nazis assume in these works, if they have a symbolic, memorial and historiographical value, or they are just functional to the cinematic narration. Moreover, the essay discusses whether these characteristics appear differentiated, or they recall the nationalist stereotypes of those years. Analyzing four cases more deeply (“Roma città aperta”, “Anni difficili”, “Ach- tung! Banditi!”, and “Kapò”), this essay argues how the German characters reveal their characteristic of persecutors in their relationship with the Italian “victims”. As a final accomplishment, this essay inserts these representations into a wider medial and cultural system, trying to understand how these definitions and typologies affect both the local and national public memory. 1 Introduction The history of Second World War and the relations between Germany and Italy have been central in Italian post-war film culture. This paper aims at understanding how post-war Italian cinema assisted in the construction of a national and stereotypical public image of Germans in Italy. I argue that the film industry strengthened a col- lective consciousness by presenting Fascism and Italian-German relations in different ways.
    [Show full text]