ITAS 225 - Italian Popular Film Genres

This course explores post-war Italian cinema beyond the neorealist and European auteur canons, focusing instead on popular film genres between the late 1950s and the late 1970s: peplum, gothic horror, spaghetti western, mondo documentary and giallo. In the context of the profound cultural changes brought forth by the economic “boom” and by the global cultural flows on Italian film production, distribution and exhibition, the course will adopt a bifocal perspective. On the one hand, we will see how Italian popular genres reflect increasing anxiety about modernization, political unrest, globalization and shifting gender roles. On the other hand, we will discuss the transnational dimension of Italian popular cinema as the result of a complex process of negotiation between national cultures and appropriation of foreign meanings.

Credits 1

Notes
Course taught in English.

Area
Humanities

Division
Arts and Humanities

Compass Attributes
Global Honors, Humanities