Favorites and least favorite

My favorite movie we watched in class was Get Out. This is a movie that stayed with me after I watched it for the first time. I was genuinely tense during the last act. I cannot remember the last time a movie made me feel like that. This is a movie with very smart writing and a lot to dissect. My favorite Italian movie was Bicycle Thieves even though I found the end a bit of a downer. The movie had light moments throughout though. I like the different characters that the main character came in contact with. My favorite was the psychic or whatever her job title was. She had the easiest job in post-war Italy. She somehow managed to get people to give her their hard earn money by insulting them, giving them non-answers and "predicting the future". I also like the father's interactions with his son. My favorite book was Difficult Loves. My favorite stories from the book were the first two stories in the Post-War Stories section. ''Theft in a Pastry Shop" and "Dollars and the Demimondaine". I found the characters in the first one the most amusing and I found the second one wild, chaotic and suspenseful. Besides those two stories, I enjoyed the book overall even though some of the stories in the first section left me wanting more. My least favorite text was Highway 61 Revisited. I don't know if it's because I am not familiar with Bob Dylan's music or if it's because I don't know much about musical instruments, a lot of times I did not know what the author was talking about with his analyses. If I remember correctly he wrote extensively about a guitar riff. I think he was trying to explain how unusual it was, groundbreaking and daring but I was more into the stories behind the album then his analysis of the album. However, the book was still a great example on how to analyze an album.

Stories of Love and Lonliness

These stories, more than any of the other stories in the collection, are about love and romance and sex. Most of these stories are told from the male perspective and these men seem to be quite fastidious--from Federico's routine while traveling on the train ("The Adventure of a Traveler") to Antonio's obsession with the perfect photo ("The Adventure of a Photographer") to Tomagra's torturous attempt to feel up the widow on the train ("The Adventure of a Soldier"). What do these stories seem to say about men in postwar Italy? What do they say about heterosexual love in that milieu? It seems to me that "The Adventure of a Bather" is the one story told from the female perspective. Is that the only difference between it and the other stories in this section? How are these stories different than the other stories in the collection? Why are they all titled "The Adventure of..." How do you define that word "adventure"?

Since this is our last week on the blog, I'd like you to also make some concluding remarks. What have you learned about postwar Italy by looking at a few of its pop culture texts? What have you learned about popular culture this term? Has the class made you look differently at any of the popular culture you consume in your daily life? For example? Which texts did you like the best? Which did you like least and why?

"Renzo and Luciana"

The short film "Renzo and Luciana" (from the omnibus collection Boccaccio '70 from 1962) was written by Italo Calvino (and directed by Mario Monicelli). How is this film a "Difficult Love"? How is it like (or different from) the stories we read this week?