Marcello Mastroianni: the ‘accidental’ star of Italian cinema. A Symposium to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth
Friday 13th December, 1 -5pm at ICI London
Italian Cultural Institute, London
Organisers: Dr Ambra Moroncini (University of Sussex) and Dr Despoina Mantziani (University of Sussex)
“I never confronted my work — cinema and theatre — like a real craftsman. I usually throw myself into a new film like into an adventure: because I like the director, because I want to take a trip to the place where the film is being made, abroad or at least away from Rome, because I feel optimistic, and because, after all, it’s all a game. […] I have never played a hero in the traditional sense”. With these words Marcello Mastroianni, playing ‘the game of truth’ with Gideon Bachmann while taking a break from filming Tchin Tchin in Paris, reflected on his 40 years of acting. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Marcello Mastroianni’s birth, the Italian Cultural Institute in London will host a one-day Symposium on Friday 13th December 2024. By reflecting on the cultural and social relevance of Marcello Mastroianni’s “big” and “small” films, as he called them, this study-day aims to critically investigate the “slightly confused intellectual” roles, comedic parts, and literary characters Mastroianni played throughout his career.
The language of the Symposium will be English and no registration fee will be requested to attend
Book your place HERE
Programme
13.00 Welcome
13.05-13.25 Imagining Marcello, Louis Bayman (University of Southampton)
13.30- 13.50 Marcello Mastroianni’s artistic relationship with Federico Fellini (La Dolce Vita and Otto ½), Michele Nazianzeno and Giulio Nusco (University of Naples Federico II)
13.55-14.15 Mastroianni’s roles as Latin-loser, Marco Bellardi (University College Dublin)
14.20-14.40 ‘In divisa devo sempre presentarmi’: Exploring Marcello Mastroianni’s stardom beyond cinema, Rachel Haworth (University of Leeds)
14.40-15.00 Break
15.00-15.20 Performing madness: Mastroianni’s exploration of identity in Bellocchio’s Enrico IV, Elettra Solignani (Brown University)
15.25-15.45 La Notte (1961) and Sostiene Pereira (1995): Marcello Mastroianni’s artistic image of the writer, Ambra Moroncini (University of Sussex)
15.50-16.40 Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Marcello Mastroianni and the Italian dreamscape, Keynote Speaker: Stephen Gundle (University of Warwick)
Conclusive remarks, Despoina Mantziari (University of Sussex)
Bios
Dr Ambra Moroncini is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex. Her fields of research are on early modern culture, and on Italian literature and cinema. Among her publications, Michelangelo’s Poetry and Iconography in the Heart of the Reformation (Routledge, 2017); Early Modern Voices in Contemporary Literature and on Screen (Quod Manet, 2024), co-edited with Aaron M. Kahn; Nudity and Folly in Italian Literature from Dante to Leopardi (Cesati, 2022), co-edited with Simon Gilson; Resistance in Italian Culture from Dante to the 21st Century (Cesati, 2019), co-edited with Darrow Schecter and Fabio Vighi; Satire, Paradox, and the Plurality of Discourses in Cinquecento Italy (Renaissance and Reformation. Special Issue, 2017), co-edited with Stefano Jossa. She has also contributed as invited guest scholar to the BBC Radio 4 Programme ‘Talking of Michelangelo-The Poet’.
Dr Despoina Mantziari is Lecturer in Film Studies in the Faculty of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex. She specialises in the wider area of feminism and film and is currently writing a monograph on Women Directors and Transnational Feminism in Global Art Cinema. She has previously published work on representations of gendered violence in contemporary media cultures. Her latest publications focus on women filmmakers’ interventions within postfeminist Western cinema.
Dr Stephen Gundle is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. He is the author of several books dealing with Italian cultural and political history including Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the idea of Italy (Yale, 2007), Mussolini’s Dream Factory: Film Stardom in Fascist Italy (Berghahn, 2013) and Fame amid the ruins: Italian Film Stardom in the Age of Neorealism (Berghahn, 2020). His latest book, Mussolini’s Ghost: The Afterlife of a Dictator, will be published by OUP in 2025. He is currently leading a large AHRC research project on women in the Italian film industry between the 1940s and the 1980s.