MDIA 305 The Myth of Childhood in Italian Cinema
The goal of this course is to familiarize students with the important theme of childhood in Italian Cinema. In fact, this topic is very frequented by Italian film makers, as the child's point of view is present in many trends and periods of Italian cinema which often utilizes literary texts as its point of departure to develop new perspectives on childhood and Italian society in its transformations. In this course, students will be offered a unique chance of analyzing the theme of childhood in mainly two periods of Italian cinema. One, the famous period dubbed as Neo-realism, will make up the first part of the semester. We will analyze films by Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, and Roberto Rossellini. Films from postmodern cinema will constitute the second and final part of the semester. In this part of the course, we will screen films by Gianni Amelio, Oscar winner Gabriele Salvatores, and Cristina Comencini. The idea behind this division is to compare and contrast these two very different cinematic expressions which originate from different periods of Italian society and its history. The result I hope to reach is a fruitful semester after which students will be familiar and comfortable with Italian film reading and related cinematic techniques, with the desire to further pursue studies in both. Taught in English. Satisfies requirements for humanities.