Although Italian cinema first gained international notoriety with neorealist films such as Open City and Bicycle Thieves released after WWII, it reached perhaps its greatest commercial and artistic heights in the early 1960s. Join New Canaan Library in welcoming Michael Cramer, Professor of Film History at Sarah Lawrence College, who will explore the various factors and influences that produced some of Italy’s most renowned and artistic films. Professor Cramer’s talk is the second in New Canaan Library’s new cultural series, Movements in Cinema, and will take place via live webinar on Thursday, January 21 at 7 PM EST. Zoom sign in information will be provided upon registration at newcanaanlibrary.org.

An economically burgeoning Italy resulted in a vital film industry willing to produce stylistically innovative and challenging films. Professor Cramer will focus on three major films released in 1960: Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura. Despite taking radically different approaches, each of these films dissects Italy’s post-war “economic miracle” and the new culture and lifestyles that it made possible; all three directors combine inimitable personal signatures with the analysis of a newly prosperous Italy that seemed at once exhilarating and horrifying.
Michael Cramer holds the position of Professor of Film History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY. His areas of teaching and research expertise include Italian, French, and American cinema of the 1960s and 70s, as well as film and media theory. He is the author of the book Utopian Television: Rossellini, Watkins, and Godard Beyond Cinema (University of Minnesota Press, 2017) and co-editor of the forthcoming Fredric Jameson and Film Theory (Rutgers University Press, 2021).