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2020/2021

Italian Cinema and Literature

Code: 103394 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2501801 Catalan and Spanish OT 3 0
2501801 Catalan and Spanish OT 4 0
2501902 English and Catalan OT 3 0
2501902 English and Catalan OT 4 0
2501907 English and Classics OT 3 0
2501907 English and Classics OT 4 0
2501910 English and Spanish OT 3 0
2501910 English and Spanish OT 4 0
2501913 English and French OT 3 0
2501913 English and French OT 4 0
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Eduard Vilella Morató
Email:
Eduard.Vilella@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
No
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Prerequisites

There are not particular academic prerequisites to take this subject.

Objectives and Contextualisation

This subject aims to provide the student with a grounding in the study of Italian cinema and its relationships with literature. It aims to provide a first set of orientative tools necessary to a basic approach to the reading and/or viewing of the works selected to be analyzed. This should make him / her able to further tackle new examples in a wider context within the frame of the subject’s panoramic perspective.

Therefore , on successfully completing this subject, students will be able to:

-know the main lines of the history of Italian cinema and its relationhip with literature.

- identify works of both the literary authors dealt with, together with their place in the canon of the italian literature, and the most relevant figures of italian cinema.

- differentiate the most relevant features of the cinematographic language with regard to the films discussed during the course.

- analyze and evaluate the strategies of filmic adaptation of the literary works commented during the course.

- analyze a given example of study, compare different versions of a work, develop a reasoned commentary on a fragment of a particular adaptation

Competences

    Catalan and Spanish
  • Analyze a wide variety of written texts in Italian in order to recognize the fundamental characteristics of culture and the Italian literature.
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in Italian.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
    English and Catalan
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Explore a variety of texts in Italian in order to recognize the fundamental characteristics of the Italian culture and literature.
  • Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in Italian.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
    English and Classics
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Explore a variety of texts in Italian in order to recognize the fundamental characteristics of the Italian culture and literature.
  • Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in Italian.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
    English and Spanish
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Explore a variety of texts in Italian in order to recognize the fundamental characteristics of the Italian culture and literature.
  • Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in Italian.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.
    English and French
  • Develop critical thinking and reasoning and knowing how to communicate effectively both in your mother tongue and in other languages.
  • Explore a variety of texts in Italian in order to recognize the fundamental characteristics of the Italian culture and literature.
  • Identify the main literary, cultural and historical currents in Italian.
  • Respect the diversity and plurality of ideas, people and situations.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must develop the necessary learning skills in order to undertake further training with a high degree of autonomy.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Apply appropriate methodologies for reading and interpretation of these texts.
  2. Communicate in the studied language in oral and written form, properly using vocabulary and grammar.
  3. Communicating in the studied language in oral and written form, properly using vocabulary and grammar.
  4. Describe the historical and thematic evolution of literature, cinema, theater and Italian art.
  5. Distinguish main ideas from secondary and synthesize its contents in the texts concerning Italian literature, art and aesthetics.
  6. Effectively communicate and apply the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  7. Effectively communicating and applying the argumentative and textual processes to formal and scientific texts.
  8. Identify and understand the evolution of literary language in Italy and of artistic languages.
  9. Identify the major literary and artistic movements, authors and works of literature and Italian art.
  10. Mastering the advanced knowledge and scientific methodologies related to linguistics, literature, history and culture that prepare the student for a postgraduate specialised education in the same or a different field of study.
  11. Read and understand literary, artistic and cultural texts in Italian major eras.
  12. Students must be capable of comprehending advanced academic or professional texts in their own language or the another acquired in the degree.
  13. Students must be capable of precisely arguing ideas and opinions in their own language or another acquired in the degree.
  14. Work individually and / or in teams effectively in multicultural and interdisciplinary applying of a culture of peace and own a degree in foreign languages that form the student for intercultural communication environments democratic values.

Content

Overview of the most basic tools of film studies, focusing on both the debate on the typology of the relationship between the languages of cinema and literature, and the analysis of some Italian examples.

Overview of the story of Italian cinema from its birth to the most recent films, its most relevant authors and genres, as well as its periods and their related historical contexts. As the subject seeks to underscore expressive and methodological links between film representations and literary texts, it will necessarily deal with some of the most important authors of italian literary canon too.

The subject is based both on the viewing of fragments (or their totality) of some Italian cinematographic works, and the reading of fragments (or their totality) of some literary works. Particular attention will be given to the aesthetic, ideological and gender-related aspects they carry with.

Methodology

The subject of Italian Cinema and Literature is theoretical-practical. In general terms, learning activities are organised as follows:

-Directed activities: master class; collective discussion; reading, interpreting and commenting on texts.

- Supervised activities: individual and group exercises, both written and oral; reading, interpreting and commenting on texts.

- Autonomous activities: exercises on the course’s Moodle; preparation for the tests; readings, writing, search of documentation...

- Class exchanges (teacher-student, student-student)

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Lessons, theory and practice 25 1 7, 6, 3, 2, 9
Texts reading and commentary 25 1 1, 5, 9, 8, 11
Type: Autonomous      
Study: texts, materials, bibliography 30 1.2 9
Texts reading and commentary 15 0.6 1, 5, 9, 8, 11

Assessment

Assesment is continuous (100%) and based on the following sections:

- Follow-up and participation in class 20%.

- Reviews / Essais on some films / books 40 %

- Synthesis test 40%.

 

- Students may retake assessment activities they have failed provided that those they have actually performed account for a minimum of 2/3 of the subject’s final mark and that they have a weighted average mark of at least 3.5.

- It is required to pass each one of the course parts subjected to reassesment in order to get the final average mark.

- The student will receive a grade of Non-assessable if he/she has not submitted more than 30% of the assessment activities.

- The tasks most directly related to the teaching activity in class are excluded from the reevaluation.

- Re-assesment will consist of a synthesis test on the given evaluable item.

-When publishing final marks prior to recording them on students’ transcripts, the lecturer will provide written notification of a date and time for reviewing assessment activities.

-The responsibility for monitoring training and assessment activities lies exclusively with the student

- In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.

- In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access thesevirtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Participation during the course: attendance, team and individual activities etc. 20 20 0.8 1, 13, 12, 10, 4, 5, 7, 6, 3, 2, 9, 8, 14
Reviews, written works and oral presentations relating to the works object of analysis. 40 25 1 1, 10, 4, 7, 6, 3, 2, 9, 8, 11, 14
Synthesis test 40 10 0.4 1, 7, 6, 3, 2, 9, 8, 11, 14

Bibliography

Resource works:

David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Film Art. An introduction, Mc Graw Hill, New York 1997.

David Thomson, Instrucciones para ver una película, Pasado & presente, Barcelona 2015.

James Wood, How Fiction Works, Vintage Random House, London 2009.

Carlos Losilla, La invención de la modernidad o cómo acabar de una vez por todas con la historia del cine, Cátedra, Madrid 2012

José María Caparrós Lera, Guía del espectador de cine, Alianza, Madrid 2007.

 

History of the Italian cinema

Gian Piero Brunetta, Cent’anni di cinema italiano (2 voll.), Laterza, Bari 2000

Gian Piero Brunetta, Buio in sala”, Marsilio Editori, Venezia, 1989

Italian cinema and literature

Carlo Tagliabue, Cinema e letteratura italiana, Guerra, Perugia 1990;

Vito Attolini, “Dal romanzo al set. Cinema italiano dalle origini ad oggi”,Edizioni Dedalo, Bari, 1988

Ernesto Guidorizzi, “La narrativa italiana e il cinema”, Sansoni, Firenze, 1973

Giampiero Brunetta, “Gli intellettuali italiani e il cinema”, Bruno Mondadori, Milano, 2004

Stephanie Heimgartner and Monika Schmitz-Emans (ed.) Komparatistische Perspektiven auf Dantes 'Divina Commedia' Lektüren, Transformationen und Visualisierungen, Berlin, De Gruyter, 2017

Antonella Braida, Luisa Calè (ed.), Dante on view. The reception of Dante in the visual and performing arts,  Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007, pp. 177-192

Cinema and literature:

Giacomo Manzoli, “Cinema e Letteratura”, “Le bussole” Carocci, Roma, 2003

Carmen Peña Ardid, Literatura y cine, Catedra, Madrid 1992;

Gian Piero Brunetta, “Letteratura e cinema”, Zanichelli, Bologna, 1976

Francisco Gutiérrez Carbajo, Literatura y cine. Madrid, UNED (Educación Permanente), 1993.

Antonio Costa, Immagine di un'immagine. Cinema eletteratura, UTET, Milano 1993;

Film adaptation:

A. Fumagalli, Ivestiti nuovi del narratore. L’adattamento da letteratura a cinema, Il Castoro, Mi, 2004

José Luis Sánchez Noriega, De la literatura al cine. Teoría y análisi de la adaptación, Paidós, Barcelona, 2000;.

Juan M. Company, El trazo de la letra en la imagen. Texto literario y texto fílmico, Cátedra.Signo e Imagen,Madrid 1987;

Umberto Eco, I Limiti dell'interpretazione, Bompiani, Milano 1980;

Theories:

Seymour Chatman, Historia y discurso. La estructura narrativa en la novela y el cine [1978],Taurus, Madrid, 1990

Enric Sullà, Teoría de la novela. Antología de textos del soglo XX, Crítica, Barcelona,1996

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Empirismo eretico[1972], Garzanti, Milano

Film analysis

Francis Vanoye, Anne Goliot-Leté, Principios de análisis cinematográfico, Abada, Madrid 2008

Ramón Carmona, Cómo se comenta un texto fílmico, Cátedra,Madrid 1993;

Francesco Casetti – Federico Di Chio, “Como analizar un film”, Traducción de Carlos Losilla, Ed. Paidos Iberica, Barcelona, 1994 (F. Casetti – F. Di Chio, “Analisi del film”, Bompiani, Milano,2003)

M. Martín, El lenguaje del cine, Barcelona, Gedisa, 2008.

Roberto C. Provenzano, Il linguaggio del cinema. Significazione e retorica, Lupetti, Milano, 1999

Alexis Racionero, El llenguatge cinematogràfic, Barcelona, UOC, 2008