The Bi-Weekly MFLL E-Newsletter
MONDAY, September 24, 2007
The Newsletter for Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
web.utk.edu/~mfll
Italian comedy is a type of comedy quite specific to Italy. The Italian comedy revolves around issues and themes that are very dramatic, and sometimes tragic. Even if the theme is tragic, the point of view is often comical and humoristic. This is a type of comedy that grows precisely out of classic literature, Boccaccio and the Commedia dell'Arte. My lecture analyzes the “comedy Italian style and its actors” in the context of Italian postwar history, arts, and popular culture of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, touching on topics as the ‘economic miracle’, television reception, the new middle class and the blue collar class, the north and south conflict. The movies of directors as Monicelli, Risi, Scola, starring Gassman, Tognazzi, Manfredi, Sordi, Sophia Loren and Monica Vitti, present in a satiric way conflicts of gender, of class, and the clash between sexual orientation and catholic culture.