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Italian Cinema: Part II. "La Dolce Vita" and the Road to Recovery with Dr. Jennie Hirsh

Italian Cinema: Part II. "La Dolce Vita" and the Road to Recovery with Dr. Jennie Hirsh


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Can't make this time? A video recording will be sent to all participants after the seminar.

This lecture, Part II in a four-part series, explores how cinema connected to Italian social development as well as the country's recovery after the war and especially the economic boom between 1958 and 1963. In addition to looking at films with a lighter approach and sensibility, such as Federico Fellini's The White Sheik (1952) and La Dolce Vita (1960), we will also consider the ongoing plight of working class Italians, as seen in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Mamma Roma (1962), and also his cinematic adaptation of Boccaccio's Decameron (1971) along with his short La Ricotta (1963), which, like all of his films, reflect a deep formal debt to this history of Italian painting. Finally, we will discuss how Cinecittà, the cinema studios established in 1937 by Benito Mussolini and his son Vittorio, came back into the fold of film production in the 1950s following their role as a displaced persons' camp from 1945 to 1947.

Led by an expert on postwar film, modern and contemporary art, and museum studies, Dr. Jennie Hirsh, this lecture will ground participants in the rich period of more light-hearted Italian cinema associated with Italy's improved economic situation while, at the same time, establishing ways in which cinema made formal connections with the powerful history of art from the Renaissance onward. Designed to inform curiosity as well as future travels, participants will come away with an increased knowledge of specific directors, actors, and themes that inform this important chapter in film history.

Jennie Hirsh (Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College) is a Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Columbia Universities, as well as pre-doctoral fellowships from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and the Wolfsonian FIU. Hirsh has authored essays on artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Yinka Shonibare, and Regina Silveira, and is co-editor, with Isabelle Wallace, of Contemporary Art and Classical Myth (Ashgate 2011).

This conversation is suitable for all ages.

90 minutes, including a 30 minute Q&A.

Customer Reviews

Based on 2 reviews
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Louis Higgins (Port Orchard, US)
Another great class

This was a great follow up to the first session on Italian cinema. The teacher chose great movies, shared fascinating insights into the making of the movies, and highlighted the films in the context of the history of Italian cinema. I can’t wait for the upcoming sessions.

L
L. (Lincoln, US)
Italian Cinema Part II

Very informative and always interesting with Dr. Hirsh . Very beautiful illustrations;
I am looking forward to the next two sessions; always enjoy and learn much from Dr. Hirsh

Customer Reviews

Based on 2 reviews
100%
(2)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
0%
(0)
L
Louis Higgins (Port Orchard, US)
Another great class

This was a great follow up to the first session on Italian cinema. The teacher chose great movies, shared fascinating insights into the making of the movies, and highlighted the films in the context of the history of Italian cinema. I can’t wait for the upcoming sessions.

L
L. (Lincoln, US)
Italian Cinema Part II

Very informative and always interesting with Dr. Hirsh . Very beautiful illustrations;
I am looking forward to the next two sessions; always enjoy and learn much from Dr. Hirsh