L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2013 www.italoamericano.com 23 California State University, Long Beach celebrates the art of Michelangelo Antonioni LUCA dELL'AqUILA The George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies offers outstanding programs in Italian language, literature and culture. On September 28, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, the Center celebrated Michelangelo Antonioni's 101 anniversary with a one-day conference at the Karl Anatol Center of the California State University, Long Beach. The event was co-sponsored by the Romance, German, Russian Languages and Literatures Department and the Film and Electronic Arts Department, with the contribution of the student Yet Antonioni's true and everlasting contribution to international cinema is represented by the earlier trilogy L'Avventura (1959), La Notte (1961), and L'Eclisse (1962), which explores the director's tormented idea that people had become emotionally detached from one another. In the recently restored version of La Notte that was screened during the conference, this vision is clearly expressed by actress Monica Vitti when she says: "Each time I have tried to communicate with someone, love has disappeared." The conference was attended by professors, film critics, and students who explored Michelan The Federated and the Sons of Italy celebrate "Columbus Day 2013" Enrico Vettore, associate professor of Italian Studies and organizer of the event. ''Antonioni was a humanist with a great interest in both humanity and science'' LUIGI SMALdINO organization Club Italia. Michelangelo Antonioni was one of the most celebrated masters of modern cinema and a multitalented Italian artist, who redefined the idea of narrative cinema, defied traditional approaches to storytelling, and approached movies from a metaphysical and philosophical perspective. Although he worked as a filmmaker throughout the 1940s and the 1950s - mainly on short documentaries like N.U., about street cleaners in Rome, and fictional films about the Italian middle class like Story of a Love Affair and Le amiche -, it was in the 1960s that he became world-renowned. Thanks to a stunning photography, ambiguous narrative, and topical focus on modern alienation, Antonioni's films of this period - all of them starring Monica Vitti, his partner at the time - have stood the test of time. The most famous among them is certainly Blowup (1966), a drama movie set in the Swinging London where a fashion photographer is persuaded that in the background of one of his pictures he has captured the evidence of a murder. gelo Antonioni's multifaceted work. UCLA Professor and Chair of the Department of Italian Thomas Harrison set the tone with a lecture entitled Framing the Story: The Beginnings and Endings of Antonioni's Films, followed by Mary Ann Carolan from Fairfield University who presented the paper An Italian in Peking: Antonioni's Chung kuo/Cina (1972); Fulvio Orsitto from CSU Chico who investigated Antonioni's films of the 1970s; and Canadian film scholar Murray Pomerance from Ryerson University who discussed the filmmaker's reportorial approach. Finally, Film and Electronic Arts' professor Fletcher Beasley illustrated Antonioni's use of music in his paper entitled Soundscapes and Musical Drama in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni. The conference provided a great opportunity to those who already know Antonioni's films as well as to those who are not familiar with his art yet. The new insights into his work offered by scholars from all over the world make us feel like watching these great movies again. Five hundred twenty-one years have elapsed since the year of our Lord 1492, when Christopher Columbus, a navigator born in Genoa, Italy, and at the time at the service of Spain's King and Queen, strove to reach the Indies, then rich with coveted spices. Instead he discovered the American continent. It was 1492. The desolate island, Columbus and his fellow sailors had reached, was thereafter called El Salvador. Besides the forlorn island, Columbus had discovered the presence of a New World, a land that eventually would become an irresistible beacon for millions of people of all races and color populating the world of that era. Among them, millions and millions of our countrymen searching for work, for a better life, notwithstanding the supreme sacrifice to leave, for many forever, their ancestral homes, their immediate families and those near their hearts. With the inexorable passing of the years and the five plus centuries since the Columbus dis- covery, his name is not only an integral part of the history of the world as we know it today, but is particularly feted by his countrymen who live in those parts of the world by him discovered. The 521st anniversary of the Great Discovery will be celebrated on Sunday, October 13, exactly 521 years from the Day! As in past occurrences, the Federated Italo-Americans of Southern California and the United Lodges of the Sons of Italy in America will celebrate the event in reverent remembrance of an astonishing enterprise. It will begin at 11.00 a.m. with a Mass concelebrated by the Revv. Louis Piran and Luigi Gandolfi, and will continue thereafter with a civic ceremony beginning at 12:30 p.m. at Casa Italiana. Between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m., the public present will partake of a light lunch, offered free of charge, followed by many activities. You are all invited.

• Cover