The Body of Love: Romance, Love and Sex in Italian Cinema

What is Love? This course will look at the many ways in which cinema has represented and thematized the seemingly universal concept of love. We will begin by watching Casablanca (M. Curtiz, 1942) and Pretty Woman (G. Marshall, 1990), two Hollywood classics in matters of romance. Their analysis will help us set the stage for a few critical and theoretical considerations right at the outset of our course. It will also give us the opportunity to discuss the "love" genres of classical Hollywood, which have laid the foundations for much "love cinema" to come.