NJCU Italian Film: Spring 2023

  Based on the clip that was shown about Love and Anarchy(1978) I was intrigued into watching the whole movie as I found the plot about wanting to kill Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to be quite a story to tell. I really liked the beginning of the film where it had lots of scenes of showing what Italy was going through and thought it was a nice touch. Many things were going on here such as sneaky romance between Tunin and Salome. I found her intentions of helping Tunin surprising until revealed that her husband was wrongfully killed by Mussolini's police and saw that there was a reason for Mussolini to go. I see this film as way of showing Mussolini as the bad guy. I always noticed how many years later, many directors started to show the bad side of dictators as that could not be shown during the time of their reign. 

  My family backstory is how my mom was born in Colombia in the 60's. My father was born in Queens in the 70's and at 9 months old relocated to Colombia. My mother moved to Queens in the late 80's as she had a aunt living in Los Angeles. My father lived in Colombia until 15 when he crashed my grandfather's luxury car and his punishment was to live in the United States with his uncle in New Jersey. My grandmother and grandfather ended up coming to the U.S to live with my father in the early 90's where once again he became a bad apple and got kicked out of the house and then he went to California for a one week vacation where he met my mother and a one week vacation turned into 9 months and a marriage. My other grandparents came to the U.S in the late 90's to be around for the birth of my sister and later on myself.

  The story of  The Godfather  is really a pretty simple story when you break it down into its elements. If we watch it directly from the point of view of Micheal, it is the story of a person who lived life one way but when faced with a hardship to overcome, he must change everything about the way that he lives his life. From the perspective of Vito Corleone, it is the story of predatory sharks trying to avoid becoming prey. When you break down the story this way it does not need to be told with the image of Italian Americans but I think it does so because it works well as a story of a rising underdog. The film was released in 1972 and I would think by then much of the discrimination towards Italian immigrants that had been present in the 40's had now dwindled down immensely. The film itself takes place in that era of the past as we see an already powerful family try and survive through a changing world. A good moment in the movie that helps bring this story closer to modern Americ

 Written by: Lesly Almonte Norman The Golden Door Emanuele Crialese’s film, The Golden Door (2006) orbits around a Sicilian’s family departure from Italy to the United States with the mentality that they are heading into a land where the vegetables are massive, the rivers are filled with milk, and money rains from the skies. This film visually portrays the claims of “The American Dream” which I found incredibly interesting and quite comical especially since my parents are immigrants themselves. The father telling his two sons, “We have to arrive in America looking like princes” stood out to me because Dominicans have this same mentality when they’re going back to the Dominican Republic to visit because they have to make people believe they are doing well in the United States. This just furthers that belief that the United States is this land in which you are walking down the street and pulling money off of trees—it is a fantasy that people in other countries have conjured in their min

Life is Beautiful is one of those films that will make you laugh and make you sad at the same time. It is a good and a sad way to approach the topic of the Holocaust and what made it such a classic masterpiece in film is in the first half, a sweet-filled romance story filled with laughs and warmth about an Italian-Jewish waiter who eventually wins the girl of his dreams. But it takes a turn in the second half, a heartfelt story about a father protecting his son's innocence in spite of everything horrible going on within the setting of a concentration camp.  The Golden Door is another beautiful film to watch and while it was slow-moving, it was ultimately rewarding of a drama with scenes of fantastical realism, lively humor and stunning images. One of the characters that are remarkable is the muted younger son. The contrast here with his first role is complete. Then, he plays a supercharged kid that was as relentless as anything around him. Just his eyes tell the whole story with s

  The Conformist Marcello Clerici’s secret trauma is that he murdered his chauffeur, Lino. The trauma made him a person who wants to be “normal” because he’s wanted to find an escape from reality ever since the murder. When Marcello goes to Paris, we learn that his original thesis was supposed to be on the story of Plato’s cavern. But the professor uses it against Marcello by correlating it with how Italy is run as a fascist nation. At the end of the movie, Marcello finds out that Lino is alive and angrily, in front of a crowded square, says that Lino is a fascist, a gay, and the one who murdered the professor and his wife. Marcello also claims that his blind friend is gay and a fascist. Marcello probably doesn’t want to accept that the professor has some truth when he used Marcello’s knowledge against him. This means that his desire of being “normal” can’t be possible Death in Venice In Death In Venice, the city of Venice is so important in telling this story about repressed sexual de