Bread and Chocolate/The Golden Door/Not Much Else To Say

WARNING: I HAVE THE ENTIRETY OF EITHER FILM, JUST THE PORTIONS THAT WERE SHOWN IN CLASS. I WAS AWAITING TO SEE IF THESE FILMS WOULD COME OUT IN THE LIBRARY BECAUSE I FEEL POORLY EQUIPPED TO REVIEW THEM, ALSO NEITHER OF THEM WERE AVAILABLE TO ME ON NETFLIX. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

Lol

On Bread and Chocolate:

Finally in this class we get to watch a comedy and we only see like 30 minutes of it. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it suffice it to say that I didn't laugh much but the character was wacky enough. Almost like some sort of old time comic stooge ala Chaplin's Champ in a modern day cornucopia where there is nudity and subplot about child rape are used not as comic foil per se (I think) but rather as moments of simplicity in an ever growing and changing society. Did I like it? Hard to say, but I'm going to try and watch the whole thing someday, I just really hate watching parts of a movie.


On The Golden Door:

Once again I really liked this movie, it was on my netflix queue forever but it was always on wait and it wasn't in the library. What luck! Anyways the most interesting thing to me in this film is how  portrayed the characters I was taken aback to the mood of The Night of the Shooting Stars but I couldn't help but think to myself; this is nazi treatment. How they pricked and prodded these people's personal wellness to the point where they were making them sick it's exactly stuff the nazis did for fun and it just stings a little knowing what country they're in. It just stings...I don't have a lot else to say. Like I said, if I saw the whole thing and had some better context, who know?

To Wish Upon a Night of the Shooting Star

The Night of the Shooting Stars is a dazzling film that seems to follow something more along the lines of The Ox-Bow Incident where the characters are forced to come to a realization of some sort through their experiences that are made in their time period. In this case, World War II. I like to think of this film as having a sort of feeling that is what in my terms (through a personally coined phrase which is trademarked and subject to legal ramifications if in any way shape or form is copied altered or blah blah blah). Wait for it…

“Neo-Neorealism”

Because that’s what the film is, it reminisces in the films of Fellini but instead of making the situations seem true by structure, they seem to make the situations true through raw emotional grit. And as we’re forced to watch a film that gives us way too many characters to be completely invested in (between this, Gomorrah, and Rome Open City is anyone else starting to see a trend?) I’m still emotionally invested through the use of dialogue, camera shots, and just personal stories that wisely makes me feel as though I’m another citizen of the town rather than a voyeur or not there at all, because Night of the Shooting Stars just pulls you in…and never lets you go.

The Greatest Supervillain The World Has Ever Known

Revisiting The Bicycle Thief, I really was reminded why this is one of my favorite films of all time. I watched this classic neorealist film a long time ago, way before I even knew what neorealism was and it was the images that stuck with me, which I’m going to share:

 

 

 

Please look at these photos and tell me there’s not something refreshing about the way it looks. I’m usually not a fan of when people say that the setting of the film is an extra character in the film, but in The Bicycle Thief Rome really is a character and a great, multi-layered one at that. As we follow father and son in the simple yet timeless tale of a man losing the classic symbol of a bicycle, which is needed for his job and to provide a stable income for his wife and child get stripped of that by some thief it’s astounding to watch as he perseveres through so much that Rome, the primary antagonist of the film, throws at him and his young son who tags along and provides a sort of superego to his ego (or sometimes an ego to his superego), there is just really something touching about that nature of perseverance. Rome works in mysterious ways, always trying and picking at the man before he finally hits his breaking point, throwing citizens and terrain and buildings and walls at him as challenges that could match any of the great supervillains (Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter be afraid, Rome’s coming out for you!). But somehow in the sweet melancholy of the film there’s still the feeling of dread that never seems to go away as there always is in life no matter how ready or prepared or happy you feel, something else is always coming for you just around the corner, for The Bicycle Thief, the corners of Rome.

Rome: Opener Is Not Necessarily Better

I think Rome, Open City loves the thought of itself being a neorealist film a little too much. This isn’t to say that I disliked Rome, Open City at all, quite the contrary, I think it’s a brilliant work by Fellini and Rossellini and in my second time viewing it I felt as if I picked up some pieces that I missed the first time that I watched it. What I mean about Open City loving the thought of itself being a neorealist film is that it really found it’s stride in the second half in the torture scene and the raw human emotion that was exhibited was the turning point of the film and it’s greatest moments. But the first half of the film, before the vents that lead up to his scene seemed a little forced to be grounded in reality to the point where we’re just following people. In another great neorealist film and one of my personal favorites that we’re watching next week, The Bicycle Thieves, I was amazed by just how much truth and beauty we can see through the eye-glass that shows life itself by following a simple story, but still just following one man.

One of the great burdens that Open City had to carry was that it was simply followed too many characters to feel like we were living their real life and carry the realist feel and turned it into some sort of boring voyeurism. And even though that problem is to be expected to be found considering the title I think if the film were to take that approach then maybe it should have the characters lived be impacted or intertwined more than just standing out like they do. I’m not entirely sure what they must due to fix it (and considering the fact that the film is 60+ years old I’m aware it’s probably too late) but I just wished that the first half tried to follow a similar structure to the second somehow.

Ciao Professore, Ciao Professore

Ciao Professore is a film with plot structures that I’ve seen time and time again. The inspirational teacher story is not difficult to find in America, with films such as Freedom Writers, Lean on Me, Stand and Deliver, The Ron Clark Story, and many others coming to mind the typical inspirational teacher story seems to follow this simple formula:

1)     The teacher is an idealistic man/woman with either an experience with good children or just recently got their license and are ready to nourish young minds.

2)     The teacher somehow gets placed in a school or classroom with a bad reputation.

3)     The students take an almost immediate disliking to the teacher and in many cases try to egg him/her on so that they’ll leave.

4)     The teacher very much considers leaving but then takes an alternate route of educating their students.

5)     The students slowly get into the teacher’s new methods and slowly become converts.

6)     There’s one student who is still unimpressed with the teacher until a situation where the teacher personally steps into their lives in some way, shape, or form and they share an experience that makes the student a convert too.

&

7)     They finally become a class.

Ciao Professore follows that formula almost to the point of ad nauseum. But what makes the film different is that while mostly these inspirational teacher stories take places in high schools and on the rare occasion middle schools, the students in the movie are 3^rd graders. 3^rd graders! When I was in 3^rd grade I couldn’t even tie my own shoes yet alone hold down a job like these kids do. I definitely didn’t know what half the things the students talk to their teacher about (I mean, what student, no matter what age, has the audacity to call their teacher a “faggot”) and in some strange way that really brings out the nature of the kids charm. Through the mouths of babes we’re able to see the choices that kids have to make in order to provide an income and to grow up and it just seems…refreshing.

What do you think, were these kids a breath of fresh air or were they just sickening? Somewhere in between?

Life and Art, Art and Life, Combine the Two and You Get Lart

I think if there was ever a film that proved in some way that life imitated art it would be Gomorrah. The film doesn’t follow any simple plot structure which can be nice, but also hard to follow and without even knowing the background events of the Commora you seem to realize that somehow you’re dealing with the simplicity of a gangster movie, this is the real deal.

            We follow the gangsters, the Gomorra, we follow the women and children in the neighborhood, and that’s all the film does, it follows. It doesn’t try to impose some theme of violence because although the violence is shown, repeatedly, it’s just there as simple as the air we breathe. In fact, it seems to be more like the fact that the films influence the gangsters than the gangsters influence the film. When shooting men shout something along the lines of “I’m Tony Montana!” (from Scarface) and I did hear someone in the film mention the classic woman with a gun film, La Femme Nikkita.

So as they always say people seem to identify themselves by what they see in films does Gomorrah and it’s characters seem to likely to model themselves or find themselves in these classic mobster or gangster stories? I’m saying this more as a question because I’m honestly not sure. Try finding an American gangster film that would show more around the men of the mob who instead of focusing and idealizing one new hero (see Goodfellas, The Godfather, White Heat, etc.) focuses on a wide scope of people in this world from their day to day lives. In The Godfather it’s one strong plot-driven business but in Gomorrah I had a hard time following what exactly they’re entire plot was or if it was just the fact that they had their fingers in a lot of pies. I don’t know. Do you?

Spots Deconstructed: The Leopard Part 2

I ended the last blog post with the simple hope that somehow I would be able to make sense of the three hour epic that is The Leopard. If you haven’t been able to guess by now I haven’t and I feel bad for that because I tried, I really did. But it’s just so…hard. I guess sometime throughout the film the Burt Lancaster character becomes the uncle of the prince and then something happens that…I don’t even know. Maybe it’s the fact that the film featured some characters speaking in English out of sync or maybe it was the fact that watching it in the native Italian tongue would’ve made the film more engrossing and although for the most part I’ve liked the films that we have watched in class, The Leopard seems like one that is just unbearable for me to watch. Maybe I’ll get it when I’m older…

Deconstructing Spots: The Leopard Part 1

Deconstructing Spots: The Leopard Part 1

I want to start off this post by saying that I like epic films. Films that take place over a large span of time with great impact on it’s characters can make some of the greatest characters of all time (just ask The Godfather or Gone with the Wind), but The Leopard has, from the first half I’ve seen, not been one of those films. Instead the movie is…boring. I found it difficult to follow the plot, but knew it had to took place sometime during the Italian revolution and from there to be perfectly honest...I’m not sure. It’s amazing how you can sit and focus on a film and have absolutely no clue what it’s about or feel as if you have ADD and simply just can’t watch the movie. I’m going to end this blog post short of the usual length and see if I can try to make a little more understanding in my next as I’ve still got an hour and a half to go.

Bread and Tulips

1. Read the "Rascaroli passage" inside this folder which gives a definition of European road movies.  To what extent, and why, does the film Bread and Tulips fall within this genre? Are you able to discern in this film "the European reality of a mosaic of nations, cultures, languages and roads which are separated by geographical, political, and economic boundaries and customs"?

To the extent Bread and Tulips finds falls with the European road movie is that the character is finding herself taken from a shifting cultural shift, in Rosalba's case from being a woman who is in a relationship, a partnership, to being a woman who is liberated by the constraints of her husband and is capable of doing anything she likes. As far as the quote goes I do not believe there is not as much a cultural or political mosaic so much as a journey into Rosalba's own self, her wants, fears, and desires so that she can be liberated, which is a strong American theme that can be seen in such films as Easy Rider or Badlands.

2.Compare how the film/camera portrays the city of Venice (destination) and the city of Pescara (from which the main character has left and returns)?  What are the differences and similarities?



The differences between the two cities seem to be a matter of mood. The city of Pescara is almost like a dirty mid-country town where there are not so much areas built for beauty as there as areas built for function, if you know what I mean. Venice, on the other hand seems like a city where there are infinite possibilities as well as it feels a little more open and free then a suburb through the use of tall buildings and bright lights as well as there being a sense of the city being both extremely large such as the scene when Constantino first comes into the city and there is a line a mile long waiting for hotel rooms as well as the city seeming very intimate such as the scene where Rosalba first meets Constantino and they are alone. A similarity is how much brighter Pescara seems to be, like Venice when Rosalba comes back. That's just what it seemed like to me.


3.What discoveries does Rosalba make in the film, about her own identity and about her culture?


I think the main discovery that Rosalba makes in the film is that she can be alone, which is a hugely liberating concept for her. She wanted to test the boundaries and explore a life outside of the one that she has been making with her husband for so many years and try to feel something fresh, new, and exciting so that if and when (and I always thought that Rosalba secretly wanted to go back, she left too easily) Rosalba decides to come back she could at least have thought that she lived another life, for however brief of time. Naturally events and people, such as Fernando, that she experienced complicated the matters but that's another subject entirely.

Caterina in the Big City: She's Got Growing Up To Do

I would like to start this blog entry by saying I very much enjoyed Caterina in the Big City and thought it was a very lovely coming-of-age story.
The film seems to move like a very tight gear. It moves very slowly at first and seems to be stuck but once the gears seem to come out unstuck the gears start moving at a rapid pace. What at first becomes a very interesting, yet slow character study where we are introduced to the character of Caterina, as well as her mother and father starts to quickly turn into a very plot driven film where Caterina's world continues to changed at a rapid pace from her father leaving her to he not choosing to pursue to go to technical school to her mother finding a new lover, everything in the film shows of a sort of adolescence that is actually not that uncommon amongst any films about teenagers yet alone Italian ones.

Caterina almost seems like a teenager who's life is taking place at an earlier decade instead of the new millenium. The people around her write and talk about political problems that seem to be almost a transparent view of American problems in the 1960's and 70's. Her liking to finding new things she's not comfortable with and going around graveyards listening to punk music and her father's leaving and her mother quickly finding a new male figure in the household seems almost like something that would have happened more than half a century ago in America. Although it is discussed that she lived in a hillybilly country did she not have a phone or some way to communicate with the Australian boy to whom she offers to be his girlfriend? So, Caterina is obviously a coming of age film, but of which age is Caterina coming along in?

Beauty in the Breakdown: Fellini's La Dolce Vita

Beauty in the Breakdown

At the moment there's a lot I can say about Fellini's La Dolce Vita. I could talk about the characters, specifically Marcello's womanizing (a theme I also saw in Fellini's 8 1/2) or I could talk about the the plot and how/why Fellini would choose to break the plot of the film over the course of the hero's week, but instead I'm going to go intro a little depth over the visual imagery of the film and what that says about Rome. Unlike other films about Rome I have seen such as The Bicycle Thieves or Rome, Open City, La Dolce Vita chooses to be a film not meshed at all in neorealism or even with characters that are in somewhat possible circumstances, but rather takes us into Marcello, the newspaperman's mind of the world rather than what the world actually is. Scenes such as the one in the church or in the fountain are in perfect juxtaposition with one another because they break down two essential parts of the human experience: what is and what isn't. On one hand, you're dealing with themes that could easily be apart of anyone's lifestyle such as the mass or living in a decaying city, but on the other there's all this life, all these beautiful women that are throwing themselves into your world that when you take it into account you can't help but notice that even though there's a decaying city and you're obviously going through some sort of haze in your life there is the beautiful woman!


And another!


And another!

And in the mind of the male fantasy that is the beauty. That is why men build cities like Rome and create art and news to impress the women and even when you literally follow Christ there are the bikini-clad women. What does Marcello offer his father, his male role model? Is it a story or a picture or something made of construct creative or otherwise?

That is the art. The surrealist part is that that is not life. It's glitz and glamour and in contrast to Open City or Thieves the visual imagery stems not in the architecture, there is architecture that follows the previously mentioned films it's about the extra beauty of the blonde woman bathing in the glow of the city. Chaos surrounding her, she is still a beautiful women and with those around who needs news or cities?

Do you agree with me? Am I completely daft? Did I miss some other point of La Dolce Vita? Let the comments commence!

Benjamin Lewis Italy Through Film Blog Entry #1

Hey Everyone,

My name is Benjamin (Ben) Lewis and here is my first blog entry for my Italy Through Film Class at Fitchburg State University.

1. The source of my interest in Italy is the fact that I love world cinema. Countries that to me are very interesting in terms of the cinema they produce are Japan, Spain, Mexico, France, and of course Italy. Italian films have always seemed to be such a great reflection of the country and when I saw that there was a course dedicated to Italian cinema I jumped to take it (literally, I jumped and reserved it).

2. Unfortunately my knowledge regarding Italy is very small in nature. From what I am aware of it is a country with rich culture that we fought in World War II but has since become a friend to the United States. Everything else I know about the Italy are a few world like "ciao" (hello, goodbye), "bellissima" (woman), and "Quanto per l'elefante mancini?" (How much for the left handed elephant?).

3. Most of my knowledge about Italy comes from a world history class I took in eighth grade and the few Italian films that I have seen.

4. What I would like to learn most about Italy is the inspiration that Italian directors such as Fellini and Antiolini get and develop in their cinema. What are the themes that drive these men to make these films?

5. The few Italian films I have seen are Rome Open City, The Bicycle Thieves, 8 1/2, and Cinema Paradiso.

6. One example of one Italian film I have seen and what impressed me about it was The Bicycle Thieves. The Bicycle Thieves is one of my all time favorite films and what I love about it is the simplicity of the story. I love how through the course of less than a couple of hours we become witness to the desperation the main character, Antonio embraces with his son in order to find the bicycle, which has become the symbol of their very livelihood and how in a final act of desperation Antonio has to resort to becoming a bicycle thief himself.

So that was my first blog entry (of many). Stay tuned as you and I explore Italian cinema together, ciao!