For generations, Italian films have been in the avant-garde of the industry. They made an early appearance when Hollywood was depicting glamorous lives in ballrooms and swimming pools, happily married couples with well behaved and impeccably dressed children, and romantic scenes that faded into an idyllic horizon when things started to get out of hand. Italians also visited some mundane themes that appealed to the masses, like the spaghetti western. However, these are not representative of Italian cinema and have hardly left a mark in the awareness of serious moviegoers. Italians were fortunate to have a generation of masterful directors whose names are legendary. De Sica, Antonioni, Risi, Visconti, Fellini, Bertolucci, and the Tavani Brothers are the Raphael, Caravaggio, Da Vinci, and Michaelangelo of Italian films. These gifted directors were not afraid to show the often brutal reality around them. They did not hide behind walls, not even veils, to show the paradoxical nature of human experience. The films reveal a very Italian twist on the approach to reality, but the themes are universal — beauty and horror, love and hate, compassion and vengeance, ambition and generosity, sacrifice and selfishness, joy and sadness, wisdom and thoughtlessness. This seminar will present a panoramic picture of Italian art and life, as it’s impossible to separate the two.