ITALIAN AND CINEMA
Monicelli and Scola: a changing Italy
"Monicelli and Scola: a changing Italy" is the title of Lis Film Week 2025. The films we will analyse are Mario Monicelli's La ragazza con la pistola (1968) and Ettore Scola's C'eravamo tanto amati (1974), both amusing and at the same time merciless frescoes of a mutating Italy.
The plot of C'eravamo tanto amati, a biographical tale of four friends, individual and choral at the same time, set in a Rome with a strong identity, covers a time span from the end of the Second World War to the mid-1970s; in this sense, it is as if it contained the single adventure of the protagonist of La ragazza con la pistola, a young woman, a typical girl from the backward Sicily of the time, who at the end of the 1960s leaves her homeland to pursue a very particular private revenge in a country as modern and open as the United Kingdom.
These two personal stories, so well embedded in a common history, that of our society, are told by the two famous directors with very different tools and languages. Scola's perspective is poetic and poignant, sweet and bitter, very lucid yet full of enchantment, while Monicelli's is disenchanted and cynical, sharp and sarcastic, mocking and therefore strongly ironic.
Two masters of Italian cinema, therefore, but also actors and actresses who have made the history of our cinema such as Vittorio Gassman, Nino Manfredi, Aldo Fabrizi and many others. In particular, these two films will be an opportunity to get to know the two great leading actresses: Stefania Sandrelli and Monica Vitti, multi-award-winning artists with amazing careers.
Let's end with a question: can we consider C'eravamo tanto amati and La ragazza con la pistola two examples of Italian-style comedy? Among other considerations, we will try also to answer this question in our course - after all it was Monicelli himself who gave the definition of this film genre: ‘to handle with a comic, amusing, ironic, humorous tone topics that are deeply dramatic. This is what distinguishes the Italian comedy from all other comedies'.
Duration: one week.
Planned dates in 2025: 26 May, 20 October.
Linguistic level: Minimum level of knowledge of the Italian language required to participate in this course: B2 (advanced level).
Minimum number of participants: 2
The week program: From Monday to Friday, in the morning: group lessons (maximum 10 participants) reserved for those enrolled in this course (20 hours of lessons in total). In addition to the morning lessons, participants will also be occupied on three afternoons and for a dinner together.
Course price: 570€ (includes language tuition and all the afternoon activities).
For information and enrolment write to luccaitalianschool@gmail.com
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