<p>I posted this in the high school forum as well, but I thought that the parents might have some good suggestions.</p>
<p>I took French I & II last year, and fell in love with French music & movies. Now I’m starting Italian in addition to French, and since listening to French music & watching French movies helped me so much, I’m wondering if anyone has some suggestions for Italian music or movies.</p>
<p>Thanks in advance! :)</p>
<p>We like Ornella Vanoni. You might have heard one of her songs in the Ocean’s Twelve soundtrack.</p>
<p>Music: They have these things called “operas”, about 3/4ths of which are in Italian. Check out the ones written by a guy named “Mozart”. Not only are they popular and enjoyable, but his Italian librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, is probably one of the best lyricists ever. (Note: The Magic Flute and Abduction From The Seraglio are not very good for learning Italian, since they are in German. Try Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, or Cosi Fan Tutte.)</p>
<p>Movies: Jeepers, where to start? How about almost anything directed by Fellini (maybe starting with Amarcord and Roma), and Bernardo Bertolucci’s Il Conformista, and the movie from a few years ago called Il Postino (I forget who directed it), and another movie called La Vita E Bella (Life Is Beautiful) starring Roberto Benigni. And as counterparts to that, Luciano Visconti’s Il Giardino Dalle Finzi-Contini and Lina Wertmuller’s Sette Belleze.</p>
<p>If you want some native Italian composers rather than music composed in Italian by an Austrian, I suggest the following:</p>
<p>Tomaso Albinoni, Vincenzo Bellini, Luigi Boccherini, Ferruccio Busoni, Giacomo Carissimi, Luigi Cherubini, Arcangelo Corelli, Gaetano Donizetti, Andrea Gabrielli, Giovanni Gabrielli, Carlo Gesualdo (if you are in the mood for something unusual), Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni, Claudio Monteverdi, Niccolo Paganini, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Giacomo Puccini, Ottorino Respighi, Gioacchino Rossini, Allesandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti, Giuseppi Verdi and Antonio Vivaldi to name a few.</p>
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<p>That was the point of suggesting Mozart to someone learning Italian, the language, not the Italianness of his music. Verdi has good librettos, too.</p>
<p>I haven’t heard too much current Italian pop, and what I have heard hasn’t sounded exciting. But there are lots of 50s/60s era standards floating around that you ought to be able to find: “Blu Dipinto Di Blu” (Volare), for one.</p>
<p>Oh, the slur on Mozart!!! I’ll take him over a lot of these composers any time. I’ve already made my feelings about Bellini’s Norma known.</p>
<p>If you don’t care for whole operas, you can try arias by Luciano Pavarotti or Andrea Bocelli. Time to Say GoodBye is actually an Italian song (Con Te Partiro). Bocelli has lots more along these lines.</p>
<p>Besides the movies mentioned above, I loved Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs.</p>
<p>Earlier Benigni movies - Johnny Toothpick and The Monster? not sure of the Italian names, farces, both. My favorite Italian movie is Bread and Tulips. none of these are high art, but are funny, sweet movies.</p>
<p>Gloria is an Italian song, also far removed from high art.</p>
<p>Cinema Paradiso. Great movie!</p>
<p>No slight intended on Mozart. I love Mozart’s music. In fact, I have sung roles in each of the five Mozart operas mentioned by JHS. It just seems to me if you want Italian music, then why not go whole hog and look for works by Italian composers?</p>
<p>I’m not a big Fellini fan, but you should definitely try some of his movies. My personal favorites: The Bicycle Thief, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and Il Postino.</p>
<p>I like Mozart much, much more than Verdi. There’s a not bad version of Don Giovanni partly filmed at Palladio’s famous Villa Rotunda.</p>
<p>Bassdad:</p>
<p>As JHS pointed out, Mozart did not write the libretti of his operas, so his nationality is irrelevant. And wasn’t Italy part of the Austrian empire at the time a lot of the Italian composers you mentionned were composing? Not an opera or in Italian, but it’s always struck me that Verdi’s Requiem has a lot to do with Italian nationalism.</p>
<p>Some Italian film favorites…Caro Diario, 8 1/2, The city of Women, Il Gatopardo, Nights of Cabiria, The White Sheik, I Vitelloni, Stanno Tutti Bene,
and of course La Dolce Vita.</p>
<p>When I was trying to learn Italian, I read newspapers (mainly La Repubblica) online every day. That’s a great way to find out about music and movies, too.</p>
<p>One other idea: If you have studied French, you’ve probably come across the Asterix et Obelix or Tintin bandes desinees. They have been translated into every European language, generally with very good translators. It’s often fun, and good for picking up language, to read some of them in whatever language you’re studying.</p>
<p>Austria under the Habsburgs did at various times control sections of what is now the northern part of modern Italy, including Lombardy, Modena, Tuscany and Venetia. There is a small overlap between some of the composers that I mentioned and those times and places.</p>
<p>I do not agree that Mozart’s nationality is entirely irrelevant in this case. While he certainly incorporates elements of Italian overture style and opera buffa into his operas, the works are instantly identifiable as having been written by Mozart and owe just as much to his more northerly musical roots.</p>
<p>Bassdad:</p>
<p>The music, yes, but not the libretti.</p>
<p>JHS:</p>
<p>Good idea about Ast</p>
<p>My first thought when I heard “Italian and movies”
was [Moonstruck</a> :)]( <a href=“http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093565/]Moonstruck”>Moonstruck (1987) - IMDb)</p>
<p>[Philadelphia also has Maria Callas](<a href=“Philadelphia (1993) - IMDb”>http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107818/</a>)</p>
<p>I think we are in agreement. The words are Italian, the music of mixed (but nonetheless glorious) descent. </p>
<p>Personally, I think both words and music are important parts of the whole and the Mozart operas are not the first things that spring to my mind when looking for music that is prototypically Italian. To me, there is a difference between being Italian and being in Italian.</p>
<p>Bassdad:
Agreed. I thought the OP wanted something in Italian (as did JHS, otherwise he would not have mentioned Ast</p>
<p>Two really superb relatively recent Italnian movies are Mediterraneo and La Vita e Bela. You will laugh your sides off</p>