The four films we're watching this unit and all of the stories were written/created from 1945-1962. Some background: Italy was a fascist country ruled by Benito Mussolini before WWII until about 1943. Germany occupied much of Italy after the fall of Mussolini until the end of the war in 1945.
Italy was devastated by six years of war. In addition, many of the artists who weren't allowed to express themselves under a fascist system were suddenly free to do so. The films that we're watching next week and the week after (Rome, Open City ('45) and Bicycle Thieves ('47)) were part of a cinematic movement that came to be called Neo-Realism, or the new realism. You can't overstate the effect that this movement had on world cinema. It led to the French New Wave, the German New Wave, the Hollywood Renaissance, and, of course, the Italian New Wave. La Strada ("the road"), directed by Federico Fellini was one of the earliest of the Italian New Wave films. In fact, Italy was one of the world's strongest film producers up until the mid-60's and Fellini one its most important directors.
Italo Calvino was one of Italy's most important writers, in fact, is one of the most important world writers (many say he should have won the Nobel Prize for literature before his death in 1985 at the age of 61). During WWII, at 21, he fought in the anti-fascist underground resistance in Italy. (His parents were taken captive by the fascists as a result.)
Both Calvino's "Riviera Stories" and La Strada deal with people from different worlds thrust together. They're simple stories that have complex subtexts, so I'd like you to spend some time picking them apart. They're about gender roles in post-war Italy and about class and how people survived in an impoverished country decimated by war. What kind of connections do you see between these literary texts and the cinematic one we screen on Wed. night? What questions do you have?
Under a fascist system, people normally have a dictator or dictatorship (like Japan) and the system does not allow free communication between the people. I do not know much about the fascism but the couple here (The Enchanted Garden) seem not enjoying their date maybe because it could be watched and the relationship (romance) between men and women might have some regulation.
ReplyDeleteIn both texts, there is blatant commentary on gender roles and can easily be seen in the choice of male-female pairing of characters. In the first two stories of Difficult Loves, the main characters are a boy and a girl and both pairs are seemingly familiar in both stories. The girl in the first story and the girl in the second story are both portrayed as defenseless and in constant fits of hysterics (always crying or shrieking). The boys in the stories are depicted as "leaders" almost since they give the demands and are the ones written to have the ideas that further the story. In La Strada, the same formula is used (girl is defenseless and boy takes charge). However, there is a darker undertone to the film since we identify with the main protagonist who gets caught up in an abusive relationship. Gelsomina is who we root for and since her character opposite is abusive, we begin to see the dangers of toxic masculinity. It's interesting that Zampano joins the circus as this "superhuman" muscle man instead of a clown. Thus, we understand Zampano as this brooding man with a sensitive ego and has a massive temper (toxic masculinity). Although we do not see much of the toxic masculinity portrayed in Calvino's work, there is still the character of a dominating man being written. In juxtaposition to Zampano, Matto is the Circus Fool and is depicted as more lighthearted and friendly in nature. He is who we want our female protagonist to eventually end up with and live happily ever after with. However, in spirit of Neo-realisim, this doesn't happen since Gelsomina never leaves the abusive Zampano and only escapes from him after he abandons her. The ending of the film is what I believe to be the most powerful. There is a numb feeling almost due to that fact that we abandon our protagonist just to find out that she's died through dialogue. Moreover, the emotional intensity of the ending comes to a great crescendo when we finally see Zampano tear away the masculine facade and actually express emotion. His break down also further solidifies the notion that he indeed cared for Gelsomino. I believe this is where the two texts also differ, since Difficult Loves is comprised of short stories the endings don't pack quite as big of a punch. However, there is still an eerie and unnerving feeling left after the first two stories.
ReplyDeleteNice reading of the film, Alex.
DeleteThe first story "Adam, One Afternoon" is about a girl that follows a boy around in his world. A world that she is disgusted by. She is attracted to the boy or is at least intrigued by him so she follows him even though she doesn't really like his world. she follows him despite the fact that she might get in trouble with who she works for. At the end of the story, the animals that are part of the boy's world are in the house where she works, I believe that's Calvino's way of saying the boy's world became part of her world. In the third story "A Goatherd at Luncheon", the boy that is narrating the story is very aware of different social classes and he says his father doesn't understand the vast differences between people from different classes/worlds. He is very aware of the subtle and unspoken things that are going on between his family and the goatherd boy. He is also aware of the gender dynamics. Like it was mentioned in class, in the "Riviera" stories, most of the main characters are kids and they are very perceptive, more so than the adults. In the fourth story "The House of the Beehives", the main character lives with bees and he doesn't have any contact with anybody else. This is the story I found the most interesting. I remember questioning whether the main character was human or not. If I remember correctly, there is a part where he says that his beard is formed by bees and the way he kept saying "humans" as if he was a different being. As the story kept going, it seems that he is just a person that did something terrible and was shunned.
ReplyDeleteNice reading of the stories, Christopher. Calvino has a way of getting at the way people think which you seem to zero in on in your response to "A Goatherd at Luncheon."
Deletein the movie La Strada, a young woman is sold by her family due to them being in poverty. The guy that she is sold to, is also struggling to make ends meet. That alone, shows how widespread poverty was in post WW2 Italy. The fact that a mother was willing to sell her daughter and not even to someone that was well off.
ReplyDeleteIn the first story even though there was a possibility that the girl could get in trouble she continued to follow the boy around . it appears that she did not like the gifts that he was offering her. At the end it seems like he was dominating her world with all the a nimals that were placed in the kitchen. In the second story the boy and the girl wondered around in a place where they both know they should not be. In the movie the girl is being ordered to do things the man was the demanding force.
ReplyDeleteIn the Rivera Stories the settings seems to be memories or illusions from their childhood. Although they felt real as you read the stories at times to me I felt the children were in a daze imagining these scenes. Life in WWII was not so pleasant in Italy. The times were dark and poverty was all around and so all the stories are depicted to me in beautiful daylight events. This was a way for them to get away from the miserable time the children were living in.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie I watched last week, it was sad to find out at the end that Gelsomina died, after all that struggle I figured something positive would come out in the end. I understand that Gelsomina's mother sold her eldest daughter just to make end meet and to be able to provide for family, but in the end was the price she sold her daughter worth it? To me misery started from the moment Zampano bought Gelsomina. They were trying to make it, but to me Zampano did not treat Gelsomia with respect nor as an equal since he has taken Gelsomina for a wife. Whenever she would look at Zampino is was to me as a gaze of love. A love that was violated by being taken advantage of. In the end Zampino's ego was too much for his ownself to handle. He let his so called strenght that he perform in the circus take over his head and because of that it caused him to do foolish things at he eventually regreted in the end.