To start Italian 152 off, I read Wagstaff’s introduction for Italian cinema. I knew a little bit about this specific cinematic world, but was able to truly understand what I was getting myself into after this reading. It was incredibly revealing to me how much the events at the time influenced films. The first movie we watched in this class was Cinema Paradiso. Professor Rigoletto talked about how many people talked to him about this film, but I hadn’t ever heard of it. Watching it was very easy. It was fast paced with a lot of narrative. There were characters I really enjoyed, scenes I wanted to watch again and story routes I liked following. I won’t say it was the best movie I have ever seen, but I really did enjoy it all the way through and thought it was a perfect way to start this course. What I also really enjoyed seeing was the behavior of the audience in the theater. People were yelling, eating, engaging in sexual activity, screaming and more. I found this so interesting because in America today, a movie theater is very impersonal. Maybe you would bring children or a date to the theater, but you would never act like the people in this movie did. Is that a bad or good thing? The people in the Cinema Paradiso looked like they were having a great time. It seemed to create a community. Now we just keep to ourselves in the theater, with very little audience interaction besides laughing or gasping out loud. Maybe now people can focus on the films better, though. It made me think about how different the social world is in America today than it was in Italy back then. There are many differences between American and Italian culture, but I never thought about how that would be translated in typical movie theater behavior and etiquette.
I was very intrigued by the character of Toto. My favorite age that the film depicted him was as an adult. Obviously he was more mature and wise. However, what I liked the most about adult Toto was his ultimate appreciation for this town and the theater. He truly reminisced on his old life. I found a lot of beauty and sadness in that at the same time. Something about the idea of returning to your old city and seeing how drastically things have changed really resonates with me. Not that this is the same thing, but whenever I return back home to Portland, a part of me feels gutted at how quickly my city changes. What used to be my childhood ice cream shop has now been turned into a vegan whiskey lounge. I felt that I could understand Toto when he returned back to his original city. Without using his words, I could feel what he was feeling.
The first two weeks of Italian 152 were very fun for me and easy to follow. I appreciated Professor Rigoletto and Professor Pisacane’s instructions and comments a lot.
