Bibliography:
1. Slides and pdf available in Moodle e-learning
2. Alberto Pezzotta, Il western italiano, Castoro, Milano 2012
3. G. Frasca, C’era una volta il western. Immagini di una nazione, Utet, Torino 2009 (useful for preliminary exam)
3. Filmography:
The excellent knowledge of the following movies is indispensable prerequisite for exam preparation:
- Choose between Fiume rosso (Red River, Howard Hawks, USA 1949), Sfida infernale (My Darling Clementine, John Ford, USA, 1946) o Un dollaro d'onore (Rio Bravo, Howard Hawks, USA, 1959), or Sentieri selvaggi (The Searchers, John Ford, USA, 1956,)
- L’uomo che uccise Liberty Valance (The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, J. Ford, USA 1962)
- Per un pugno di dollari (Bob Robertson/Sergio Leone, Italia/Spagna/Rft 1964)
- Una pistola per Ringo (Duccio Tessari, Italia, 1964)
- Il grande silenzio (Sergio Corbucci, Italia/Francia 1968)
- Django (Sergio Corbucci, Italia, 1966)
- Choose between Quien sabe? (Damiano Damiani, Italia, 1966), Requiescant (Carlo Lizzani, Italia/Rft, 1966) or La resa dei conti (Sergio Sollima, Italia/Spagna 1966)
- Choose between Il buono, il brutto e il cattivo (Sergio Leone, Italia, 1966) or C’era una volta il West (Sergio Leone, Italia, 1968)
- Lo chiamavano Trinità... (E.B Clucher/Enzo Barboni, Italia, 1970)
Suggested reading: L. Beatrice, Al cuore, Ramon, al cuore - La leggenda del Western all' italiana, Edizioni TARAB 1996 (consultabile presso il docente)
Learning Objectives
The course provides a historical knowledge and specialized training in genres, movements and aspects in cinema and in interactions between movies and media landscape and cultural environment. The student will develop advanced tools and analytical skills for the comprension of audiovisual language and the cultural study of the relationship between media. In this regard it is given great attention to popular culture and its audiovisual events.
KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING:
Advanced knowledge and understanding of specific aspects of the history of cinema, both national and international, and of the relationship with the surrounding media and cultural landscape.
APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING:
Acquisition of advanced skills of analyzing movie texts and surveys on film practices, considering the intermedial and cultural connections and the distinctive features of a specific historical and geographical context.
MAKING JUDGEMENTS:
Know how to analyze and evaluate research practices and advanced analysis models on film texts and cinema practices.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
Knowledge and use of specific and appropriate terminology.
LEARNING SKILLS:
Ability to build autonomous paths of in-depth knowledge on specific themes addressed during the lessons and to develop further advanced research paths both on thematic and methodological front.
Prerequisites
The course requires the registration to the Moodle e-learning platform: the key will be communicated at the beginning of the course. The study materials published in it and in particular the links to the movies are an integral part of the program.
Teaching Methods
Lectures, screenings and listening to audio and video documents, depth study materials on Moodle e-learning Platform.
Type of Assessment
The course provides the frequency. At the end of the course, there will be a mid-term exam, consisting of a brief report, accompanied by a presentation in Powerpoint, of a work conducted for small groups of up to three people or individually. The subject of the test will be the application of the analysis tools and the iconographic and figurative motifs studied during the course and their exemplification on a film selected in a corpus indicated by the teacher; if successful, the student will not have to discuss text in point 3 of the bibliography given during the final exam.
Students who do not take part in the mid-term exam are strongly encouraged to prepare a personal paper which presents a deepening of a movie or of a theoretical aspect of the course other than what has been examined in class; the document will be delivered to the teacher maximum 10 days before the exam date.
The final exam - which will take into account the intermediate test - consists of an oral interview in which the student must be able to re-elaborate the bibliography and critically address the filmography indicated in the program. It is suggested to prepare a written personal report that introduces the study of a film or a theoretical aspect of the course other than what has been discussed in lesson; the paper will be delivered to the teacher maximum 10 days before the exam date. The student who has supported the intermediate test may, at his discretion, resume and deepen the subject already discussed through a Written Report (mandatory if intermediate test was insufficient) to increase his or her assessment; otherwise the student will be free to just discuss during final exam the residual bibliography and filmography.
Students not registered on the platform will not be admitted to the exam. No non-attending students will be admitted to the exam if they could not exibit special and individual program for the exam agreed with the professor after dimostrating real impediments to the frequency.
Course program
Prof. Paola Valentini
Theory and analisys of Tv and cinema language (LM Scienze dello spettacolo)
36 hours (6 cfu) - A.a. 2019-2020
From America to Italy and back: the West, icon of popular culture
Course program:
- Not just authors: Italian cinema of the Sixties and popular genres. The art of saving: cinema between industry and craftsmanship
- Birth of the Western imaginary and iconography: the myth of the West, the thesis of the frontier and the iconography in American culture and arts. Prehistory of the cinematographic genre, from the marvelous to the historical realism: Edwin Porter, Broncho Bill, Thomas Ince, Tom Mix.
- Studios and the "classic" western genre: John Ford and Howard Hawks.
- The myth of the West in European and Italian culture: Buffalo Bill and the Wild West Show. Novellization of the West: the television series in Italy, from Rin, tin tin (1954) to Cheyenne (BBS 1955) and Bonanza (NBC 1959).
- Epos and West, from the American myth of the frontier to the national epic: the peplum according to Sergio Leone and Duccio Tessari and the interaction with the western: Il colosso di Rodi (S. Leone, 1960) and Arrivano i titani (D. Tessari , 1962).
- "Euro-western" and Italian western: a parody of westerns, Italian westerns, comic westerns, political westerns. The West from nation to land of no one. Thematic, narrative and visual reformulation and birth of a genre: For a Fistful of Dollars by Sergio Leone (1964).
- Icon of popular culture. The impact of comics and Italian comics on the myth of the West, from Lone ranger and the American pulps to the Pechos Bill (Mondadori, 1937), Il giustiziere del West (L. Bonelli, 1947), Tex (L. Bonelli, 1948) and Zagor (Nollita / S. Bonelli, 1961).
- The great silence (Sergio Corbucci, 1968). Plurality of forms: westerns, anti-westerns and political westerns. The character of the western as a modern character. From mask to character: the Mexican.
- A gun for Ringo (Duccio Tessari, 1964). Novelty of tones: irony, desecration, grotesque, comic
- Lo chiamavano Trinità ... (E.B Clucher / Enzo Barboni, Italy, 1970)
- Once upon a time the West (Sergio Leone, Italy, 1968): the landscape in the Italian western: from "The Land" to the deserts of Almeria, from the garden to the desert, from the city to the ghost town. Modern construction of space and critical sense: the widescreen. Italian Western and soundscape: Ennio Morricone.
Bibliography:
1. Slides and pdf available in Moodle e-learning
2. Alberto Pezzotta, Il western italiano, Castoro, Milano 2012
3. G. Frasca, C’era una volta il western. Immagini di una nazione, Utet, Torino 2009 (useful for preliminary exam)
3. Filmography:
The excellent knowledge of the following movies is indispensable prerequisite for exam preparation:
- Choose between Fiume rosso (Red River, Howard Hawks, USA 1949), Sfida infernale (My Darling Clementine, John Ford, USA, 1946) o Un dollaro d'onore (Rio Bravo, Howard Hawks, USA, 1959), or Sentieri selvaggi (The Searchers, John Ford, USA, 1956,)
- L’uomo che uccise Liberty Valance (The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, J. Ford, USA 1962)
- Per un pugno di dollari (Bob Robertson/Sergio Leone, Italia/Spagna/Rft 1964)
- Una pistola per Ringo (Duccio Tessari, Italia, 1964)
- Il grande silenzio (Sergio Corbucci, Italia/Francia 1968)
- Django (Sergio Corbucci, Italia, 1966)
- Choose between Quien sabe? (Damiano Damiani, Italia, 1966), Requiescant (Carlo Lizzani, Italia/Rft, 1966) or La resa dei conti (Sergio Sollima, Italia/Spagna 1966)
- Choose between Il buono, il brutto e il cattivo (Sergio Leone, Italia, 1966) or C’era una volta il West (Sergio Leone, Italia, 1968)
- Lo chiamavano Trinità... (E.B Clucher/Enzo Barboni, Italia, 1970)
Suggested reading: L. Beatrice, Al cuore, Ramon, al cuore - La leggenda del Western all' italiana, Edizioni TARAB 1996 (consultabile presso il docente)
Prerequisites:
The course requires the registration to the Moodle e-learning platform: the key will be communicated at the beginning of the course. The study materials published in it and in particular the links to the movies are an integral part of the program.
Type of assessment:
The exam consists of an oral interview in which the student must be able to autonomously rework the bibliography and critically address the filmography. At the end of the course there will be a mid-term exam consisting in the presentation and
collegiate discussion of film analysis essays not included in the examination filmography (more information will be provided during the course).
Students who do not take part in the mid-term exam are strongly encouraged to prepare a personal paper which presents a deepening of a movie or of a theoretical aspect of the course other than what has been examined in class; the document will be delivered to the teacher maximum 10 days before the exam date.
Part time students
If part-time students do not attend, they must agree on a special program.
In any case, non-attending students, part time or not, who have not personally agreed with the teacher a substitution program and are not registered on the Moodle platform will not be accepted.via Gino Capponi 9 – Room 8.