Explores how a particular film style (Italian neorealism) traveled across the Atlantic and became a powerful means of narrating the lives and experiences of diverse individuals and communities that are often left out of Hollywood's depictions of everyday life in the US. Focus on how neorealist technique (non-professional actors, location shooting, durational shots, “everyday” characters and speech, etc.) is used to bring to the center the vibrant contours, sounds, and textures of lives lived at the margins. Films and topics may vary from semester to semester, but will always focus on histories, experiences, and representations of and by minoritized identities.

This course explores how a film style known as Italian neorealism traveled across the Atlantic and became a powerful means of narrating the lives and experiences of diverse individuals and communities that are often left out of Hollywood’s more glamorous–though narrow–depictions of everyday life in the US. We begin with an introduction to major works of the Italian neorealist canon by De Sica, Rossellini, and Visconti. We move on to explore how neorealist style was taken up by independent filmmakers in the US to bring to the center the vibrant contours, sounds, and textures of lives lived at the margins, revealing larger structural and historical violences. Includes influential and lesser-known works by filmmakers like John Cassavetes, Shirley Clarke, Barbara Loden, Wayne Wang, Charles Burnett, Billy Woodbury, Kelly Reichardt, Ramin Bahrani, Efraín Gutiérrez, So Yong Kim, and Sean Baker. In alternating years, this is the first of an optional two-course sequence (with Italian 170/Film 145, Global Neorealism).

Repeat Rules

Course is not repeatable for credit.

Requirements class fulfills