Italy Through Italian Film
Giuseppe (Pino) Losacco, Ph.D
Duquesne University, Rome Campus
Email address: losacco@spbo.unibo.it
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Required book:
Italian Cinema from Neorealism to the Present,
Peter Bondanella. 1999. New York: The Continuum
Publishing Company.
Suggested Reading:
Italian National Cinema,
Pierre Sorlin. 1996. New York: Routledge.
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paper: 400 words
Final evaluation:
Movie quiz = 20%
Papers = 10%
Photographic project = 10%
Midterm exam = 30%
Final exam = 30%
Mid Term and Final :
open-ended questions
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TAUTOLOGY – ANALOGY – METAPHOR - SYMBOL
Tautology:
X = X (obvious meaning)
Analogy :
Y mean X (suggested meaning)
Metaphor :
Z = Y = X (suggested meaning)
Symbol :
X =Y (well-known meaning)
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MARSHALL MCLUHAN
(1911-1980)
MEDIUM IS MESSAGE
MEDIUM IS MASSAGE
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How to write a sociology paper on a film: instructions, hints and suggestions
Sociology is the study of
individuals in group
circumstances.
You might chose to describe how individual in the
film represent social groups, such as: social
class, family, friendship units, gangs, voluntary
organizations, inmates of total institutions.
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How to write a sociology paper on a film: instructions, hints and suggestions
Sociology is the study of social rituals,
which are usually thought in terms of
how they integrate social groups.
What ritual are portrayed in the film? How are they
portrayed? What seems to be their social functions? How
are they different than similar rituals you have
experienced?
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How to write a sociology paper on a film: instructions, hints and suggestions
Sociology is the study of social conflict.
What are the social rather than individual bases of
conflicts? In other words, how di the conflict
represent struggles between groups rather than
individuals? How are these conflicts resolved? What
new social configurations are created through the
resolution of these conflicts?
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How to write a sociology paper on a film: instructions, hints and suggestions
Sociology is the study of roles and
statuses and how they are played out in
the field of personality.
Many Italian films explore how social roles are in conflict
with the inner qualities we call personalities. Social roles
are social creations. We know how to act because our
social roles provide scripts. These scripts cause us
anxiety as well as security. In times of crisis they might
cause us a great deal of discomfort. Resolving the
tensions between these two dimensions of human
existence makes good film.
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How to write a sociology paper on a film: instructions, hints and suggestions
Sociology is the study of the social
construction of reality
This perspective explores such themes as the social
basis of perception and categorization; the social
construction of such taken for granted elements of life as
time, gender, and age; the social nature of categorization
generally; and the quality of life in a post-modern age.
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How to write a sociology paper on a film: instructions, hints and suggestions
Sociology explores how communication
is constructed and accomplished.
I encourage you to write about the film communicates:
dissect scene; analyse camera work; discuss the impact
of the soundtrack; look for the way in which the latent
message is expressed.
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