Learning objectives
The course enables students to acquire basic knowledge of 20th century Italian literature and cinema, and of the not always smooth relations between these two arts.
Knowledge and comprehension skills: students will develop knowledge and comprehension skills in the fields of the analysis of a literary text, of the processes that preside over the cinematographic transposition of a novel or a short story, and more generally of the history of 20th century Italian literature and cinema.
Applied knowledge and comprehension skills: students will be able to apply the knowledge and comprehension skills acquired in the study of other examples of cinematographic reduction of a literary text. They will also be able to develop their own vision, as organic as possible, of the history of cultural and artistic phenomena in the contemporary age. Finally, students will strengthen their understanding of (literary and cinematographic) texts and will improve their ability to dissect and solve problems concerning the reading, analysis and commentary of new (cinematographic and literary) texts.
Autonomy of judgement: students will develop interpretative skills that will enable them to independently formulate aesthetic judgements, but also to confidently place literary and cinematographic texts in their own historical and cultural context.
Communication skills: thanks to the textual analyses proposed in class, students will be able to acquire a technical language that will enable them to express themselves accurately in the analysis of a literary and more specifically narrative text. They will also be able to formulate reasoned opinions on the vexata quaestio of the adaptation of literary works to the screen.
Ability to learn: thanks to the general structure of the course, students will develop skills in textual analysis and historical contextualisation necessary to continue autonomously in the study and interpretation of literary and cinematographic texts of the Italian 20th century.
Course unit content
Literature and cinema in 20th century Italy: from mistrust to symbiosis. – The course is dedicated to the relations between literature and cinema in twentieth-century Italy. Firstly, the initial phase of these relations will be investigated, the one immediately following the irruption of the new technology in Italian culture: a phase marked by reactions of strong mistrust and ‘processes of demonisation’ (Remo Ceserani), during which some important writers of the first half of the century – the Pirandello of the Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio operator (originally with the title Si gira, 1915, 1916), Bontempelli, Savinio and others –, from time to time with surprising short-sightedness and extraordinary clairvoyance (often both at the same time), take a position on cinema and on the impact it could have or is already having on the system of the arts, the notion of beauty and the audience of literature. In a second moment, the next phase will be studied, the one in which mistrust seems largely overcome and the season of fruitful collaboration and symbiotic relationships opens. The focus of the investigation will then be shifted from writers to directors, analysing some well-known examples of adaptation of novel plots for the screen (corpus: films by Visconti, De Sica, Monicelli, Antonioni, Rosi, Pasolini, Fellini, etc.).
Bibliography
The syllabus and bibliographical references will be indicated at the beginning of the lectures. All materials used in lectures (narrative texts, non-fiction, miscellaneous) will be uploaded to the University's digital platform. The detailed and final programme will be posted on the Elly 2024-2025 portal at the end of the lectures.
Indicative bibliography:
IRENE BIGNARDI, Letteratura e cinema, in Enciclopedia Italiana – VI Appendice, Rome, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani, 2000, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/letteratura-e-cinema_(Enciclopedia-Italiana)/.
GIULIA CARLUCCIO, ANNA MASECCHIA, STEFANIA RIMINI (eds.), Cinema, letteratura, intermedialità, Rome, Carocci, 2023.
REMO CESERANI, Treni di carta. L’immaginario in ferrovia: l’irruzione del treno nella letteratura moderna, Genoa, Marietti, 1993, second edition Turin, Bollati Boringhieri, 2002.
ALESSANDRO CINQUEGRANI, Letteratura e cinema, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2020.
SARA CORTELLAZZO, DARIO TOMASI, Letteratura e cinema, Bari-Rome, Laterza, 1998.
GIULIO IACOLI, Anatomia di un insuccesso: sul Dorigo cinematografico di Vernuccio, in IDEM, Mascolinità in gioco. Politiche della rappresentazione in Buzzati, Pisa-Rome, Fabrizio Serra, 2023, chap. 4, pp. 103-136.
ANGELO M. MANGINI, Murnau or Never. Note sui «Sei personaggi» cinematografici del 1928, Studi e Problemi di Critica Testuale, 82, April 2011, pp. 271-284.
GIACOMO MANZOLI, Cinema e letteratura, Rome, Carocci, 2003.
EDOARDO RIPARI, Storia cinematografica della letteratura italiana, Rome, Carocci, 2015.
Teaching methods
Lectures. Classroom attendance is recommended.
Assessment methods and criteria
The examination will focus on an in-depth study of a) the literary and film texts commented on during the lectures, b) the bibliography in the syllabus, c) the materials uploaded onto the platform.
An insufficient mark is determined by serious problems in the interpretation of the text(s) proposed for the examination and the failure to assimilate the minimum course content.
A sufficient grade (18-23/30) is determined by an acceptable level of understanding and exposition.
Intermediate marks (24/30-26/30) predict a fair level of assimilation.
Higher marks (27/30 to 30/30 cum laude) are awarded on the basis of demonstration of a good to excellent level of understanding, exposition, personal re-elaboration of material.
