27853 - Audiovisual Forms of the Popular Culture (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course, through the study and reflection on an exemplary object specifically selected and indicated in the program (a genre, a current, a body of works), students acquire the cultural tools necessary to frame the general problem of the dialectical relationship between elite culture and popular culture, with particular attention to the specificity with which it manifests itself in the context of audiovisual forms. Moreover, students learn to orient in the jagged framework of cultural studies that seek to account for the complex relationships that bind individual and society mediated by particular cultural products.

Course contents

This course covers the study of popular cinematic works, focusing on Italian erotic comedies of the 1960s and 1970s. Particular attention will be paid to how films belonging to this genre reflected the changes that affected Italian society at the time: the female condition and feminism, masculinity, the evolution of gender relations and sexual morality, the shared sense of modesty and many other topics. Those films will also be confronted with Italy’s current cinematic industry and production.

Readings/Bibliography

Giacomo Manzoli, Da Ercole a Fantozzi. Cinema popolare e società italiana dal boom economico alla neotelevisione (1958-1976), Carocci, Roma, 2012.

Pierre Bourdieu, La distinzione. Critica sociale del gusto, il Mulino, Bologna, 2001. (until p. 100)
The introduction and the essays of Stuart Hall and Herbert Gans in the volume: Emanuela Mora (curated by), Gli attrezzi per vivere, Vita & Pensiero, Milano, 2005.

Further publications or notes will be reported later on.

Teaching methods

Classroom lectures with visual aids and presentations, and seminar-style group discussions.

Assessment methods

Oral exam.

Teaching tools

An integral part of the program is the viewing of the following films (available at the video library of the Department of Music and Performing Arts).

- Benvenuto reverendo!, A. Fabrizi, 1950

- I dolci inganni, A. Lattuada, 1960

- Comizi d'amore, P. P. Pasolini, 1965

- Il Don Giovanni in Sicilia, A. Lattuada, 1967

- Decameron, P. P. Pasolini, 1971

- Quel Gran pezzo dell'Ubalda tutta nuda e tutta calda, M. Laurenti, 1972

- Il merlo maschio, P. F. Campanile, 1971

- Il Casanova di Federico Fellini, F. Fellini, 1976

Office hours

See the website of Giacomo Manzoli