Spring, ‘18

ITAL/CINE 3077 Class meetings: Mondays, 6:30-9:25 pm in Mass Hall 105, McKeen Study Office hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 3-4 pm and by appointment in Dudley Coe 207

DIVAS, STARDOM, AND CELEBRITY IN MODERN ITALY Professor Allison Cooper ­ [email protected] ­ 207.798.4188 ­ Dudley Coe 207

Before there was Beyoncé there was Borelli; before Clooney there was Mastroianni; before Trump there was Berlusconi. The diva derives from Italy’s nineteenth-century opera, silent film, and Catholic culture. Today, she has evolved into a secular alternative to traditional female religious icons such as the Madonna and the Magdalene. Alongside the figure of the diva is that of her historical male counterpart, the divo, initially a sort of demigod in early Italian cinema who has now come to reflect contemporary Italy’s crisis of masculinity. Beyond their origins and evolution, the diva, divo, and modern star can ultimately be defined as performers who know how to play any role while superimposing their own image onto a character. “Divas, Stardom, and Celebrity in Modern Italy” examines in detail the question of how those images have been constructed, transmitted, and received from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

A number of related questions will inform the course: How do different genres and modes of Italian film, from silent film, talkies, fascist propaganda films, and neorealism to comedy Italian style, the spaghetti western, and the horror film construct stars differently? How does stardom depend upon publicity, promotion, criticism, and gossip? How do Italy’s particular historical and social contexts inflect the ideological meanings attributed to stars, stardom, and celebrity? What does the marketing of stars to different audiences – domestic Italian consumers of popular cinema, for example, or international consumers of so-called European art cinema – reveal about the film industry and film genre? How does the construction and appeal of stars in the United States compare to what has occurred in Italy? What insights does the study of stars and stardom yield about theories of spectatorship, audience identification, and fandom? What insights does the study of celebrity and stardom provide into modern electoral politics, as exemplified by media-tycoon-turned-Prime-Minister Silvio Berlusconi (or, closer to home, Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Donald Trump)?

The course also examines the intermediality of stardom and celebrity in contemporary Italy: the ways, that is, in which stars and celebrities are produced by the convergence of digital media, print media, and other agents associated with today’s culture industry. How has the rise of television and streaming media changed the nature of stardom and celebrity? What does it reveal about the relationship of film stardom to stardom and celebrity across newer media, including television and streaming platforms?

Course Requirements and Grading Basis 25% Participation (attendance, class discussions, collaborative glossary) 15% Scene analysis (The Young Pope) (750-1,000 words / approximately 3-4 double-spaced pages) due Feb 9 15% Oral presentation (deadlines vary) due April 2, 9, and 16 5% Research paper abstract and preliminary bibliography due Mar 9 20% Biography (3,000 words / approximately 12 double-spaced pages) due Apr 20 20% Audiovisual essay (Video essay accompanied by 1,500-word supporting essay, including filmography and bibliography), due May 15.

1 Spring, ‘18

Participation Students are expected to attend class regularly and to engage thoughtfully with films and other media, readings, assignments, and class discussions. Practice active viewing and reading: some films may require more than one viewing, just as some texts may require more than one reading. Take notes on all ‘texts’ – visual or written – and bring questions or comments to class about each one on the day we will be discussing it. Contribute one definition per reading assignment to the class’s collaborative annotated dictionary online (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o3V-8DawswDB5XsTYGY8F97Sh9MJIGfnkfz- AQ12AQQ/edit?usp=sharing). Finally, please note that due to the once-a-week meeting format of the seminar you are permitted just one discretionary absence per semester. Anything beyond that will negatively impact your final grade, which will be lowered by 1/3 letter grade for each additional absence.

Presentations and Papers One presentation on a critical text related to star studies and a research paper on an Italian diva, star, or celebrity form the basis for a final project, the audiovisual essay (described below). Students will meet with Bowdoin’s research librarian for Italian and Cinema Studies, Carmen Greenlee ([email protected]), to develop strategies for using library and online resources efficiently and effectively.

Audiovisual Essay Traditionally a five- to ten-minute online video that brings together footage from one or more films accompanied by voiceover narration, the audiovisual essay analyzes moving images in a medium that is, in many regards, better suited to conveying a media-based argument than the written word. In ITAL/CINE 3077, students will find and utilize film footage, along with photographs and images from periodical archives, to create compelling audiovisual essays that advance a well-defined argument about a particular Italian star or celebrity. Examples include:

1. Marilyn Monroe (Bryn Hewko and Aaron Taylor) http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/2016/11/22/thinking-through-acting- performative-indices-and-philosophical-assertions 2. Robin Williams (Tony Zhou) https://vimeo.com/tonyzhou/robinwilliams 3. Buster Keaton (Tony Zhou) https://vimeo.com/tonyzhou/busterkeaton

Courtesy in the Classroom Please be respectful of our time together by silencing and putting away your phone before class begins. Laptops may only be used with the permission of the instructor, and then only for the purpose of taking notes. Finally, please eat and visit the restroom before or after class, or in the break, instead of during it.

Academic Honesty As a matriculated Bowdoin student you have agreed to abide by the College’s Academic Honor Code, and acknowledge your commitment to it each time you submit academic work at the College. If you are uncertain about whether or not your work is in compliance with the Code, you are encouraged to re-read it at http://www.bowdoin.edu/studentaffairs/student-handbook/college-policies/index.shtml, or to consult with me prior to turning in your work.

2 Spring, ‘18

Television Series and Films These series / films are the primary texts of the course and, as such, you should expect to consult them beyond required class screenings as you prepare written and audiovisual assignments. Unless otherwise indicated, you can watch them by first downloading them from the course folder for ITAL 3077 on Microwave, Bowdoin’s internal file storage system, and then opening them with a media player such as QuickTime or VLC Media Player. To access the Microwave folder, follow the instructions online at https://bowdoin.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/KB/ArticleDet?ID=21635, and click on the “Materials” folder once you are inside our ITAL 3077 folder. Please note that these media files are to be used solely in the context of our course and, in accordance with copyright restrictions and best fair use practices, are not to be circulated.

1. The Young Pope (Paolo Sorrentino, 2016) 2. Diva Dolorosa (Peter Delpeut, 1999) 3. Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914) 4. Maciste clips (http://www2.museocinema.it/collezioni/maciste/main.html) 5. Everybody’s Woman [La signora di tutti] (Max Ophüls, 1934) 6. Bellissima (Luchino Visconti, 1951) 7. La dolce vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) 8. Marriage, Italian Style [Matrimonio all’italiana] (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) 9. A Fistful of Dollars [Per un pugno di dollari] (Sergio Leone, 1967) 10. Romanzo criminale (Michele Placido, 2005) 11. Videocracy (Erik Gandini, 2009) (https://bowdoin.kanopystreaming.com/video/videocracy) 12. Silvio Forever (Roberto Faenza and Filippo Macelloni, 2011) 13. Blaxploitalian (Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, 2016) 14. Reality (Matteo Garrone, 2012) 15. A Special Day [Un giorno speciale] (Francesca Comencini, 2012)

Texts Required texts include Anna Cento Bull’s Modern Italy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016) and Robert Spadoni’s A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films (U of California Press, 2014). Students with little or no previous coursework on Italy should plan on reading Modern Italy by the end of the third week of the semester, whereas students with little or no previous coursework on cinema should plan on reading A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films by the end of the third week of the semester. Weekly readings will be available on our course Blackboard site https://blackboard.bowdoin.edu./.

Archival Resources Students may find the following online archival resources helpful in their research on the films, stars, and directors, studied this semester. Italian-language sources are indicated with an asterisk (*).

* National Newspapers in Italy La Stampa Archivio Storico (http://www.lastampa.it/archivio-storico/index.jpp)

Photography and Film Archives Archivio Storico Luce (http://www.archivioluce.com/archivio/) Alinari Archives (http://www.alinariarchives.it/it/) Il Museo Nazionale del Cinema (http://www.museocinema.it/collezioni/Default.aspx?l=en)

3 Spring, ‘17

Course Bibliography Students are encouraged to consult the following works in their research on the films, stars, directors, and concepts studied this semester. Italian-language sources are indicated with an asterisk (*).

Brizio-Skov, “Spaghetti Westerns and their Audiences.” The Italian Cinema Book. Ed. Peter Bondanella. London: BFI-Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

* Brunetta, Gian Piero, ed. Storia del cinema mondiale, 1, L’Europa. Miti, luoghi, divi. Torino: Einaudi, 1999. [Especially essays by Vittorio Martinelli, Lorenzo Pellizzari, Gian Piero Brunetta, Stephen Gundle, and Stefano Massi]

Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White, eds. Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.

Dalle Vacche, Angela. Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.

Debord, Guy. The Society of Spectacle. New York: Zone Books, 1995.

Doane, Mary Ann. “The Abstraction of a Lady: La Signora di tutti.” Cinema Journal. Vol. 28, No. 1 (Autumn, 1988) 65-84.

Duckett, Victoria. “The European Actress, the Liberty Style, and the Diva on the Silent Screen.” In Not So Silent: Women in Cinema before Sound, edited by Sofia Bull and Astrid Söderbergh Widding, 125-36. Stockholm: Acta Universitatis Stockolmiensis, 2010

Dyer, Richard. White. 1997. New York, Routledge, 2017.

---. Stars. 2nd ed. London: BFI Publishing, 1998.

Evans, Jessica and Stuart Hall. Visual Culture: the Reader. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 1999.

Fryer, Paul. Fryer, Paul. The Opera Singer and the Silent Film. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2005.

Gundle, Stephen. Mussolini’s Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy. New York: Berghahn Press, 2013.

---. Glamour: a History. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.

---. “Film Stars and Society in Fascist Italy.” Re-viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-1943. Eds. Jacqueline Reich and Piero Garofalo. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2002. 315-339.

---. “Fame, Fashion and Style: The Italian Star System.” Italian Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Eds. David Forgacs and Robert Lumley. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. 309-326.

Henson, Karen, ed. Technology and the Diva: Sopranos, Opera, and Media from Romanticism to the Digital Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.

4 Spring, ‘17

---. “Photographic diva: Massenet, Sibyl Sanderson, and the soprano as spectacle.” In Opera Acts: Singers and Performance in the Late Nineteenth Century, 88-121. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. South End Press, 1992.

* Jandelli, Cristina. I protagonist: la recitazione nel film contemporaneo. Venezia: Marsilio Editore, 2013.

* ---. Breve storia del divismo cinematografico. Venezia: Marsilio Editore, 2007.

Landy, Marcia. Stardom Italian Style: Screen Performance and Personality in Italian Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2008.

---. “Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Tracking Italian Stardom.” Stellar Encounters: Stardom in Popular European Cinema. Ed. T. Solia. New Barnet: John Libbey, 2009. 230-244.

Marshall, P. David, ed. The Celebrity Culture Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006,

McClain, William. “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in American Film Criticism. Journal of Film and Video. Vol. 62 (1-2), 2010. 52-66.

O’Rawe, Catherine. Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian Cinema. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Qiong Yu, Sabrina and Guy Austin, eds. Revisiting Star Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP Ltd, 2017

Redmond, Sean and Su Holmes, eds. Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2007.

Redmond, Sean. Celebrity and the Media. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

* Reich, Jacqueline and Catherine O’Rawe. Divi: la mascolinità nel cinema italiano. Roma: Donizelli, 2015.

Reich, Jacqueline. The Maciste Films of Silent Italian Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2015.

---. Beyond the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, Masculinity, and Italian Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2004.

Rojek, Chris. Celebrity. London: Reaktion Books, 2001.

Shingler, Martin. Star Studies: A Critical Guide. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Small, Pauline. Sophia Loren: Moulding the Star. Chicago: Intellect Books, The U of Chicago Press, 2009.

Smith, Murray. “Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances.” Passionate Views: Film Cognition and Emotion. 1999. 217-238

5 Spring, ‘17

Tuner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2014.

Wood, Mary. “Woman of Rome: Anna Magnani.” Heroines without Heroes: Reconstructing Female and National Identities in European Cinema, 1954-51. Ed. Ulrike Sieglohr. London: Cassell, 2000. 149-159.

Week-by-Week Syllabus on Following Page

6 Spring, ‘17

Program Subject to modification. Assignments listed for each date are due on that date unless otherwise noted.

Jan 22 INTRODUCTION

Welcome; overview of course; #MeToo, #BalanceTonPorc, and #QuellaVoltaChe

Jan 29 CELEBRITY AS SECULAR RELIGION

Watch The Young Pope (Paolo Sorrentino, 2016), all episodes Read “The Sociology of Charismatic Authority” and “The Nature of Charismatic Authority and its Routinization” (Max Weber, 1946; excerpted in Marshall, 55-71); begin reading Modern Italy: A Very Short Introduction and/or A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films as appropriate.

Feb 5 THE SILENT ERA, I

Watch Diva Dolorosa (Peter Delpeut, 1999) Read “Introduction: Mater Dolorosa” (Dalle Vacche, 2008: 1-21); continue reading Modern Italy: A Very Short Introduction and/or A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films as appropriate.

SCENE ANALYSIS (THE YOUNG POPE) DUE BY 5 PM ON FRIDAY, FEB 9

Feb 12 THE SILENT ERA, II

Watch Cabiria (Giovanni Pastrone, 1914) and clips from Maciste (1915) [http://www2.museocinema.it/collezioni/maciste/main.html] Read “The Birth of the Strongman: Italian Silent Cinema, Stardom, and Genre” and “From Slave to Master: Cabiria (1914) and Maciste (1915) (Reich, 2015: 23-80); finish reading Modern Italy: A Very Short Introduction and/or A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films as appropriate.

Feb 19 THE TALKIES

Watch Everybody’s Woman (Max Ophüls, 1934) Read “Film Stars and Society in Fascist Italy” (Gundle, 2002: 315-339) and “The Powerless ‘Elite’: Theory and Sociological Research on the Phenomenon of the Stars” (Alberoni, 1962; excerpted in Marshall, 108-123)

Feb 26 NEOREALISM

Watch Bellissima (Luchino Visconti, 1951) Read “Woman of Rome: Anna Magnani” (Wood, 2000: 149-159) and “Separation Perfected” (Guy Debord, 1967: 11-24)

7 Spring, ‘17

Mar 5 AUTEUR CINEMA

Watch La dolce vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) Read “From Hero to Celebrity: the Human Pseudo-Event” (Daniel J. Boorstin, 1962: excerpted in Marshall, 72-90) and “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way: Celebrity and Journalism” (Marshall; excerpted in Marshall, 315-323).

RESEARCH PAPER ABSTRACT AND PRELIMINARY BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE BY 5 PM ON FRIDAY, MAR 9

Mar 26 COMEDY ITALIAN STYLE

Watch Marriage, Italian Style (Vittorio De Sica, 1964) Read “The Inetto versus the Unruly Woman” (Reich, 2004: 105-139)

Apr 2 SPAGHETTI WESTERNS

Watch A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964) Read “Western, Go Home! Sergio Leone and the ‘Death of the Western’ in American Film Criticism” (McClain, 2010: 52-66) and “Spaghetti Westerns and Their Audience” (Brizio- Skov, 2014: 181-187).

MANDATORY AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY TUTORIAL SESSION 3-5 PM ON SUNDAY, APR 8, IN ELECTRONIC CLASSROOM IN THE MEDIA COMMONS, IN H-L

Apr 9 SYMPATHETIC PERPETRATORS

Watch Romanzo criminale (Michele Placido, 2005) Read “Gangsters, Cannibals, Aesthetes, or Apparently Perverse Allegiances” (Smith, 1999: 217-238)

Apr 16 POLITICAL DIVAS

Watch Videocracy (Erik Gandini, 2009) [https://bowdoin.kanopystreaming.com/video/videocracy] Read “The Corrupt Reign of Emperor Silvio“ (Alexander Stille, 2010; The New York Review of Books) and The Celebrity Politician: Political Style and Popular Culture” (John Street, 2004; excerpted in Marshall, 359-370)

BIOGRAPHY DUE BY 5 PM ON FRIDAY, APR 20

Apr 23 VISITING FILMMAKER

Watch Blaxploitalian (Fred Kudjo Kuwornu, 2016) Fred Kudjo Kuwornu is an Italian-Ghanaian filmmaker and activist whose film Blaxploitalian: 100 Years of Blackness in Italian Cinema (2016) focuses on the history of people of African descent in Italian cinema. Please plan

8 Spring, ‘17

on attending the screening of Blaxploitalian at 7:30 pm in Smith Auditorium (Sills Hall) and on participating in the Q&A with Kuwornu directly following the film screening. Read “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” (hooks, 21-39) and “White” (Dyer, 1988; excerpted in Corrigan and White, eds., 2011: 822-839).

Apr 30 DEMOCRATAINMENT, I

Watch A Special Day [Un giorno speciale] (Francesca Comencini, 2012) Review/Read “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance” (hooks, 21-39) and “White” (Dyer, 1988; excerpted in Corrigan and White, eds., 2011: 822-839).

May 7 DEMOCRATAINMENT, II

Watch Reality (Matteo Garrone, 2012) Read “’John, a 20-Year-Old Boston Native with a Great Sense of Humor’: On the Spectacularization of the ‘Self’ and the Incorporation of Identity in the Age of Reality Television” (Hearn, 2006; excerpted in Marshall, 618-633)

AUDIOVISUAL ESSAY (ACCOMPANIED BY SUPPORTING ESSAY AND INCLUDING FILMOGRAPHY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY), DUE FOR CLASS SCREENING ON TUESDAY, MAY 15 AT 9 AM.

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