30141 - Cinema and Cultural Studies (LM)

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students will acquire a knowledge of the close connection between the product and the culture producing it. Not only from an historicist point of view contextualizing the film (or novel or something else) in a precise time, but also considering what it allows to find, in the most neglected details of the work, significant traces of a culture that was not intended to be evoked, but nevertheless it is part of it.

Course contents

The culture of cosmopolitism in American and European Cinema – This course will deal, among others, with the following thematic blocks: national and transnational identity in the movies - cinema and americanism - International style - cinema and modernism - runaway productions - art house cinema - dubbing and subtitles - cinema and globalization

Readings/Bibliography

Lecture notes with a selection of essays will be available at Harpo's, via Barberia, starting from the beginning of the course.

N.B. Non-attending students are required to take an interview and study one of the following texts:

Vanessa Schwartz, It's So French! Hollywood, Paris, and the Making of Cosmopolitan Film Culture, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2007

Anna Cooper, Russel Meeuf (ed by), Projecting the World. Representing the "Foreign" in Classical Hollywood, Detroit 2017

Mark Betz, Beyond the Subtitle. Remapping European Art Cinema, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis 2009.

Peter Lev, The Euro-American Cinema, University of Texas Press, Austin 1993.

Gian Piero Brunetta, Il ruggito del Leone. Hollywood alla conquista dell'impero dei sogni nell'Italia di Mussolini, Marsilio, Venezia 2013.

G. Nowell-Smith, S. Ricci (ed by), Hollywood and Europe. Economics, Culture, National Identity: 1945-95, Bfi, London 1998.

Tino Balio, The Foreign FIlm Renaissance on American Screens. 1946-1973, The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 2010.

P. Sorlin, Cinema e identità europea, La Nuova Italia, Firenze, 2001

Shyon Baumann, Hollywood Highbrow. from Entertainment to Art, Princeton, Princeton UP 2007

Richard Dyer, Only Entertainment, Routledge, London 2002

F. La Polla, L'età dell'occhio. Il cinema e la cultura americana, Lindau, Torino, 1999.

F. La Polla, Ombre americane. Regia, interpretazione, narrazione a Hollywood tra storia e cultura nazionale, Bonomia Up, Bologna 2008

- F. La Polla, Stili americani, Bononia UP, Bononia UP, Bologna, 2003.

Lary May, Screening Out the Past. The Birth of Mass Culture and the Motion Picture Industry, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1980

Lary May, The Big Tomorrow. Hollywood and the Politics of the American Way, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2000

- S. Bernardi, Il paesaggio nel cinema italiano, Marsilio, Venezia, 2003.

D. Forgacs, S. Gundle, Cultura di massa e società italiana. 1936-1954, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2007

Teaching methods

Lectures with supporting materials

Of course, this methodological approach (as the subject itself) requires not only specific knowledge in the strictly cinematic context, but also a substantial knowledge of the culture/s in which the film has been produced.

Students are recommended to attend the course, this being a great advantage, since there are no teaching manuals related to this subject, so its basics will be dealt with and exemplified during the course. N.B. Students are expected to know English so well to be able to read academic essays in such language.

Assessment methods

Students are required to submit a final essay of about 20 sheet (2000 characters each, spaces included) on a topic at their choice and concerning the monograph part contents (to be agreed with the teacher at his Office hours). The essay shall be submitted for correction within 14 days of the date in which students wish to sit the examination. N.B. Non-attending students shall also take an oral examination (see bibliography).

It will be assessed as excellent the performance of those students achieving an organic vision of the course contents, the use of a proper specific language, the originality of the reflection as well as the familiarity with the historiographic tolls for analysing the subject.

It will be assessed as discrete the performance of those students showing mostly mechanical or mnemonic knowledge of the subject, not articulated synthesis and analysis capabilities, a correct but not always appropriate language, as well as a scholastic study of the discipline. It will be assessed as barely sufficient the performance of those students showing learning gaps, inappropriate language, lack of knowledge of the discipline. It will be assessed as insufficient the performance of those students showing learning gaps, inappropriate language, no orientation within the recommended bibliography and inability to analyse the subject.

Teaching tools

The study of the cases will be supported by audio-visual material.

Office hours

See the website of Michele Fadda