HUI231: Quiz 2

Question 1

Where does Comedy originate?

Answer 1

• From Greek (Komoidio)

Question 2

What is the intention of Comedy?

Answer 2

Intends to be humorous, dramatic performance pitting two groups of society against each other.

Question 3

What kinds of characters do comedies feature?

Answer 3

“Less than average” (Aristotle) as opposed to the “better than average”.

Question 4

What does comedy do for the viewer?

Answer 4

• Lifts spirit
• Reassures
• Carries invisible, elements of critique of self-awareness
• Awakens “thoughtful laughter”

Question 5

What kind of feeling does comedy give the audience?

Answer 5

A feeling of superiority.

Question 6

Comedy does not aim to vilify, but to what?

Answer 6

Rebuke the stupidity involved in certain situations.

Question 7

What does comedy satirize?

Answer 7

A common occurrence promoting change.

Question 8

When was Bid Deal on Madonna Street made?

Answer 8

1958.

Question 9

What is the commonality between all the characters?

Answer 9

• Socially marginal
• Inept (Anti-Heroes)
• Out for themselves
• All focused on surviving and getting by somehow

Question 10

Why is BDoMS called a “Neo Realist Farce”?

Answer 10

It reaveled the underside of a stressed out society in the post WW2 period.

Question 11

What is the plan of the heist in BDoMS?

Answer 11

Object is in safe of pawnbroker, to access through a tunnel from adjoining apartment.

Question 12

Who teaches them to open the safe with unlikely tools (including cheese graters, etc)?

Answer 12

Toto.

Question 13

What is the irony with thieves honor?

Answer 13

Cosimo reveals to his “friend” Peppe while in jail the plan for the heist. Peppe is not convicted and in turn tries to execute the heist himself.

Question 14

What is the stereotypical hyperbole in BDoMS?

Answer 14

• Italians like to eat
• Poor people like to eat
• Last scene in the apt. when they realized they have failed, they stop to eat

Question 15

What is the purpose of Peppe flirting with the maid?

Answer 15

To get the key to the apartment.

Question 16

What do typical poor unemployed people do as opposed to the main characters of the movie in BDoMS?

Answer 16

They seek a decent job, while the characters hope to get rich quickly whilst not questioning what they are doing is immoral (and they know it can get them into jail).

Question 17

What does BDoMS satirize?

Answer 17

The emerging consumer society.

Question 18

What is the shooting reminiscent of in BDoMS?

Answer 18

• Film Nior

- Entails grey days, winter, dramatic lights the pierce the night

Question 19

What is the undertext of BDoMS?

Answer 19

Showing the still poor neighborhoods of Rome against new middle class urban growth.

Question 20

What is the typology of BDoMS?

Answer 20

• Comic Genre
• Arrangiarsi (Immigrants)
• Take advantage of good opportunities
• Implicitly a critique of “good” communitarian sentiments

Question 21

Who is Peppe?

Answer 21

• Not a professional thief

- Talks about money, but really wants love

Question 22

Who is Ferribotte?

Answer 22

Looking after his cloistered sister.

Question 23

Who is Mario?

Answer 23

• orphan
• After maternal love (visits orphanage and his 3 mothers)
• Submit to work only if there is promise of something else

Question 24

Who is Caparnelle?

Answer 24

Needs to satisfy his never ending hunger.

Question 25

Who is Tiberio?

Answer 25

Needs distraction from his fatherly duties while his wife is in prison.

Question 26

What is the setting of La Dolce Vita?

Answer 26

- Rome - Summer of 1959 - Via Veneta - Filmed in Cinemascope

Question 27

Who produced La Dolce Vita?

Answer 27

- Giuseppe Amato | - Angelo Rizzoli

Question 28

What is one theme in LDV?

Answer 28

Socio-historical setting.

Question 29

What is the plot of LDV?

Answer 29

- 15 years after War - Midst of economic boom - Upper bourgeoisie living it up in Via Veneto

Question 30

Who is Marcello?

Answer 30

Gossip Column Writer

Question 31

What are Marcello's goals?

Answer 31

- Write a novel - Become a learned man with solid values/benefits - Find an ideal woman, job and life

Question 32

What was Marcello's struggle?

Answer 32

- Existential Angst - Questioning what is the meaning of life - What is there that makes sense - Why are we so unhappy just to mask it with a life of leisure - Lust - Endless partying

Question 33

What was Marcello's literary element within the movie?

Answer 33

Allegory of a man without a center/ethical grounding.

Question 34

What Symbolism was present in LDV?

Answer 34

- The number 7 - 7 Days/nights - 7 Hills of Rome - 7 deadly sins

Question 35

What Symbolism in LDV had to do with Marcello's name?

Answer 35

- Marcellus is from Mars - God of War - Excited by change, adventure, friendly, restless

Question 36

What Symbolism in LDV had to do with religious affiliations?

Answer 36

- Christ figure: flying over city with a statue - Monster at end is fish, symbol for christ, "ugly" but real - Constant interplay between sacred and profane

Question 37

What symbolism with women occurs within LDV?

Answer 37

- Virgin Mary, perfection, purity - Sylia, idealization of actress, beauty from screen, untouchable - Magdalena, aristocratic beauty, bored with life, sex w/o emotion, no loyalty - Emma, traditional, but possessive, jealous, smothering - Streetwalk, prostitute

Question 38

What symbolism with men occurs within LDV?

Answer 38

- Steiner, only serious model for Marcello, sophisticated, learned, balanced - Marcello's Father, Charming, distant, does not stay to talk to his son - Paparazzi, no scruples, need to get their shocking trash in gossip papers - Clown, sad-faced, performer, lonely

Question 39

What is La Dolce Vita about?

Answer 39

- Search for sublime - Search entails constant presence of doubt - Detachment, amoral life of the wealthy - Do not judge - Chance (phone call can announce the end of world) - Impossibility of happiness, potential depravity

Question 40

What is the structure of LDV?

Answer 40

- Made up of different episodes (often not connected with one another/like individual short films) - Collage-like, avoids standard narrative line

Question 41

What was the turning point in Marcello's disintegration?

Answer 41

Steiner's suicide.

Question 42

What are the striking shot scenes in LDV?

Answer 42

- Statue of christ being flown over Rome - Travi fountain scene with Anita and Ekberg - Paparazzi waiting for Steiner's wife to arrive and learn of his suicide - Sadistic Party - Strange beast fished out of sea

Question 43

Facts about Francesco Rosi.

Answer 43

- Wrote screenplays in the '50s - Later films, less political but more angled towards literature - 2008, Received Honorary Golden Bear - 2012, awarded Golden Lion

Question 44

Who is the director for Hands Over the City?

Answer 44

Francesco Rosi.

Question 45

What does Rosi say about HOtC?

Answer 45

- I'm not making a study of character, but of society. | - Avoids being didactic, yet still investigative cinema "docufiction"

Question 46

What do anti-realists say about art imitating reality?

Answer 46

They deny that it imitates reality and that it must offer an interpretation of reality (creates an alternate world).

Question 47

Does Kracauer believe in realist cinema?

Answer 47

Yes, he does.

Question 48

What does Kracauer say about film?

Answer 48

- Uniquely equipped to record and reveal physical reality - obliged to respect it - Different visible worlds - Transitory worlds present - Physical reality = actuality = material reality - Reproductive art - useful for archive and keeping memory - Documenting reality

Question 49

What are Lumieres?

Answer 49

Presents "reality", caught in the act.

Question 50

What are Melies?

Answer 50

Delighted in fantasy that exploited the technical possibilities of the medium.

Question 51

What is the Realist Tendency?

Answer 51

- Movement of subject, but also, of perspective | - Intermediary Procedure - Staging: reproduction of real world

Question 52

What is the Formative Tendency?

Answer 52

- Story and Non-story | - Includes experimental film, film of fact (documentaries), newsreel, explicitly "constructed"

Question 53

What are the Internal Fields of Reference?

Answer 53

Everything contained within the world shown in the film.

Question 54

What are the External Fields of Reference?

Answer 54

- Everything surrounding the world of the film - Who, what and where film was made - The actual reality shown through the film (Buildings, Streets)

Question 55

What year was HOtC made?

Answer 55

1963.

Question 56

What does the vision of two children who saw Madonna mean?

Answer 56

- Criticism of religion | - The media will exploit anything, even religion (turns into business proposition)

Question 57

When it comes to making films, editing serves to establish a meaningful continuity of shots.

Answer 57

.

Question 58

.

Answer 58

Cinema cannot exist without its technological support.