Charles L. Leavitt IV
@clliv.bsky.social
William Payden Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Associate Director of the Center for Italian Studies, U. of Notre Dame. Author of Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History (https://utppublishing.com/doi/book/10.3138/9781487507107)
National Cinema Dictionary: V is for Vittorio De Sica. Italian filmmaker and central figure of Italian Neorealism used non-professional actors and stark humanism to capture the post-WWII working-class struggle with tragic beauty, as illustrated by Bicycle Thieves (1948).
During the brutal German occupation of Italy in WWII, Allied Gen. Alexander advises partisan resistance units to retreat to the mountains & lay low. Defying these orders, a courageous squadron led by Commander Vento & commissar Lorenzo descends upon Pontedecimo, a town on the outskirts of Genoa.
Achtung! Banditi! (Attention! Bandits!) | Full Movie | Classic War Drama / Italian Neorealism | HD
YouTube video by English Movie Hub
youtube.com
Bologna opens a new library containing more than 32,000 books from Umberto Eco's private study - arranged exactly as he left them - a decade after his death.
Umberto Eco library opens in Bologna, 10 years after his death
The University of Bologna has opened a new public library housing the personal book collection of writer Umberto Eco, a decade after his death.
wantedinmilan.com
On the @criterion.bsky.social War Trilogy boxed set: www.newyorker.com/magazine/201... and the 1949 Talk piece: www.newyorker.com/magazine/194...
The Ex-Axis
newyorker.com
With Roberto Rossellini's Paisan at @lincolncenter.bsky.social 8:30pm (+ the documentary Roberto Rossellini, Living Without a Script (apologies, already in progress), a word about the film and many more from him, from 1949 ("'This,' I say to myself, ‘is the corpse of the movie industry.'")...
UK/US: After having an affair, Ugo Tognazzi fixates on how easily his loving wife (Claudia Cardinale) could also commit infidelity in THE MAGNIFICENT CUCKOLD. Featuring a 4K restoration from Cineteca di Bologna, our release includes a new interview with Richard Dyer and writing by @phuonghhle.com
UK: Selecting gems from Italian neo-realism, WORLD NOIR VOL. 5 shows genre thrills from the edge of post-war desperation. This set includes 4K restorations, new interviews with Imogen Sara Smith, @christinalefou.bsky.social , and @manilazic.bsky.social plus a 80-page book ft. new writing.
The rugged Italian actor Gian Maria Volonté (BOTD, 1933-1994) was described by Francesco Rosi as having "stole[n] the soul of his characters." Famous for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns, he also starred in social dramas such as 'The Working Class Goes to Heaven'
I've arrived in windy and rainy Naples. It's almost lecture time.
The Yates Thompson Divine Comedy has been returned online. Commissioned by Alfonso V, King of Aragon, Naples and Sicily, this copy of Dante's work has illuminations on every single page (Yates Thompson MS 36) Consult the whole manuscript online now: searcharchives.bl.uk/catalog/040-...
Italy’s president to commemorate the 335 victims of the Fosse Ardeatine massacre on the 82nd anniversary of the atrocity.
Italy remembers the Fosse Ardeatine massacre
On 24 March 1944, the Nazis carried out one of the worst atrocities against civilians in the second world war in Italy: the Fosse Ardeatine massacre in Rome.
wantedinrome.com
Fosse Ardeatine, la cerimonia con il presidente Mattarella: diretta video https://video.corriere.it/fosse-ardeatine-la-cerimonia-con-il-presidente-mattarella-diretta-video/0be14b87-fbab-4899-9a8d-efb2ecc03xlk
NOW AVAILABLE: Elvira Notari – Pioneer of Italian Cinema (Blu-Ray All Region) diabolikdvd.com/product/elvi... #diabolikdvd #physicalmediaadvocates #elviranotari #italiancinema
‘D’Alfonso’s son is left waiting for answers, as the number of surviving ex-Red Brigades members gets steadily lower and the years of lead still weigh heavily on Italy.’ John Foot (@footymac.bsky.social) on the trial of three former Red Brigades members. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/ma...
John Foot | Years of Lead Revisited
On 5 June 1975, four carabinieri officers, in one car, drove up a winding road to an isolated farmhouse above Acqui...
lrb.co.uk
Gianfranco Rosi's Pompei: Below the Clouds exudes a style that accentuates the rich gradients, textures, and legends of Naples’ near-mythical world. Read our Critic's Pick review as the documentary opens in U.S. theaters: thefilmstage.com/nyff-review-...
If I were still a college teacher, I would do a film studies seminar called "Persistence of Neorealism," that would give a foundation in the Italian classics and then spread out to consider the dispersal and continuance of the aesthetic and themes in movies up to the presence
1/9. First time watch of the pulpy, noirish, neorealist Bitter Rice (Giuseppe De Santis, 1949). No idea why it’s taken me so long - probably the most enjoyable film I’ve watched this year. If you haven’t seen it, see 🧵 for a few reasons why you should.
New book by @selenadaly.bsky.social : Emigrant Soldiers: Mobilising Italians Abroad in the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2025) www.cambridge.org/core/books/e...
To be cited in The #Guardian alongside the pantheon of “#Gramsci scholars.” Done. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...
‘The time of monsters’: everyone is quoting Gramsci – but what did he actually say?
Line handily sums up people’s bewilderment at state of world, but it isn’t quite what the Marxist thinker wrote
theguardian.com
Giuseppe De Santis's 1949 classic “Bitter Rice” brought sex appeal and genre thrills to neorealism. Its new 4K restoration opens Friday at @filmforumnyc.bsky.social:
crookedmarquee.com
One of Italian cinema's fiercest voices, Elio Petri (BOTD, 1929-1982) fused political satire and genre filmmaking into something urgent and unsettling. Our releases include THE WORKING CLASS GOES TO HEAVEN, A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY and WE STILL KILL THE OLD WAY.
“Without Pity” (1948) is the Italian stars Carla Del Poggio as a woman who witnesses the shooting of John Kitzmiller, a U.S. serviceman. Shady people surround them as they try to escape their desperate situations. Produced by Carlo Ponti for Lux Film. #FilmNoir #neorealism #italiannoir
“Archivio Grafica Italiana is the first online archive dedicated to the entire Italian graphic design heritage.” [kottke.org]
An Archive of Italian Graphic Design
“Archivio Grafica Italiana is the first online archive dedicated to the entire Italian graphic design heritage.” (via sidebar)
kottke.org
#filmsky #moviesky #neorealism “There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.” Filmmaker, Federico Fellini #BOTD
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote that “only in Rome is it possible to understand Rome.” Students in the Italian studies course The Literature of the Journey to Italy discovered that to be true. Read about the class's fully-funded literary odyssey through Italy: https://bit.ly/4pPDysw
Italian studies students retrace travels of renowned writers in weeklong trip to Rome, Florence, and Naples
Eighteenth-century German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote that, “only in Rome is it possible to understand Rome.” A group of Un...
bit.ly
