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Italian Film Through Stardom

Module description

Many Italian film stars are also international stars, from Marcello Mastroianni to Monica Bellucci, but some of Italy’s most popular stars are little known outside Italy. On this module we will explore what makes an Italian star, for both national and international audiences, and how stars condense a series of contradictions about what it means to be Italian. Several case studies of male and female stars from the postwar period to the present day will enable us to examine key issues about Italian cinema and identity, including age, beauty, gender, sexuality, genre, performance and politics. Knowledge of Italian isn’t essential.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The module aims to familiarise you with approaches to star studies, and with some of the key moments in Italian film history. You will become familiar with at least five key stars and their broader cinematic context from the postwar period to the present day. You will learn to take into consideration questions of film form, industry and audiences. You will also learn to use resources in the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum to aid their research, and will understand the role of the audiovisual essay in contemporary film research. Furthermore, after gaining confidence in the methodology for the study of stars, students will be encouraged to research their own choice of Italian star.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an informed understanding and detailed knowledge of the issues in Italian film history studied on the module
• 2. To demonstrate an informed understanding of a number of key debates in star theory and an ability to apply these to a particular star of their choice

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. To use a range of film-critical terminology, applying it to independently researched material as well as to material introduced by the course tutor.
• 4. To understand the function of the audiovisual essay in film research.
• 5. To use archival material in film research

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. Through seminar work and presentations, to demonstrate communication skills
• 7. Through research, seminar discussion, and essay or report writing to demonstrate a capacity to question assumptions, to distinguish between fact and opinion, and to find evidence to support a rigorous argument

Syllabus plan

The module will address the history of postwar Italian cinema through a series of four to five case studies of particular stars from different decades, in the context of several of their films. The following are examples of the kinds of material and questions covered (they may not all appear on the module every year, nor is the list exhaustive):

How did stars like Anna Magnani struggle to find roles in cinema of the 1950s that privileged younger, more glamorous female figures, from Sophia Loren to Gina Lollobrigida; did their presence shift and shape the genres that emerged in this period?

What was the relationship between stardom, sex and fashion in the 1960s, and how did this feed into broader questions about Italy’s growing economic power and changing sexual mores?

How have representations of Italy’s most turbulent postwar decade, the 1970s, forged the relationship between violence and male stardom, through films about crime, the mafia, and terrorism?

How do Italian stars break into transnational cinema today? What led Monica Bellucci to become the oldest Bond girl to date, for example? How do Italian male stars, like Luca Argentero and Raoul Bova, make it into the Hollywood romcom? Why do (male) comic stars, such as Checco Zalone, dominate contemporary Italian cinema, but hardly ever make it outside the national arena?

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Example audiovisual essay: http://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/framing-incandescence-elizabeth-taylor.html
• Dyer, Richard, Stars (London: bfi, 1979)
• Dyer, Richard, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (London: Routledge, 2003)
• Geraghty, Christine, ‘Re-examining Stardom: Questions of Text, Bodies and Performance’ in C. Gledhill and L. Williams, eds, Re-inventing Film Studies (London: Hodder Arnold, 2000), pp. 183-201
• Holmes, S. and Redmond, S. , eds, Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader (London: Sage, 2007)
• Landy, Marcia, Stardom, Italian Style: Screen Performance and Personality in Italian Cinema(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008)
• Meeuf, R. and Raphael, R., eds, Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
• O’Rawe, Catherine, Stars and Masculinities in Contemporary Italian Cinema (New York: Palgrave, 2014)
• O’Rawe, Catherine and Jacqueline Reich, Divi (Rome: Donzelli, 2015)
• Reich, Jacqueline, Beyond the Latin Lover: Marcello Mastroianni, Masculinity and Italian Cinema (Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2004)
• Shingler, Martin, Star Studies: A Critical Guide (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012)
• Small, Pauline, Sophia Loren: Moulding the Star (Intellect: 2009)
• Stacey, Jackie, Stargazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (London: Routledge, 1994)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=6502

Key words search

Stars, film, Italian cinema