Located in Tuscany, Arezzo is often cited as the birthplace of the Italian renaissance, making it the perfect site to study art. Film/Video/Digital Associate Director Josh Gibson had that opportunity this summer.
Gibson spent a portion of his summer at Arezzo's Accademia Dell'Arte teaching students from Duke and Davidson College about film production and theory. Previously, the school offered programs on acting, studio arts and dance, but 2008 was film's inaugural year.
His course focused on Italian neo-realist films. Popular in Italy during the 1940s and 1950s, the style characterized some of the films of famed Italian directors Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini.
"The class itself was based on the fluidity between documentary and fiction," Gibson said. "[Italian neo-realism] is sort of the utilization of a real location, bringing the camera out of the set, into the world and using non-actors."
Students spent the first part of the course working on personal documentaries about people or places in Arezzo. At the end of the course, all the participants collaborated on a 13-minute film called La Vita dell Pozzo.
The film is the fruit of the students' study and is what Gibson calls a "morality tale" from Giovanni Boccaccio's The Decameron. It tells the story of Tofano, a drunkard who finds out his wife is cheating on him. Set on the street that fifteenth-century poet Petrarch lived on, La Vita dell Pozzo incorporates three narrative styles. A tour guide tells a formal version of the story while two Italian men relay it to one another. Filmmakers also intertwined a reenactment of Boccaccio's tale performed by students into the piece.
"We knew that our film was going to kick off the Arezzo Art Festival, so for us it was important to capitalize on the area," said senior Matt Tolson, one of the participants.
Senior Jessica Dreyfuss said that the program allowed her to work with new technology.
"Our motivation was to make a great film in less than a week," she said. "Since we knew we were going to have an English and Italian audience, we got to use a subtitle program I've never used before."
Screening the film at the Art Festival was a highlight for Gibson and the students, and an event that Gibson said "really [made] the students feel like they've done something significant."
Gibson hopes the program will become officially sponsored by Duke in the next few years. He added that he came into the program not knowing what to expect but left pleased with the whole experience.
"During the school year, it's really hard for these collaborative, interdisciplinary relationships to materialize, but at a place like that where everyone is living together-dancers, film students, theater students-they're all sort of cross-pollinating, and a lot of interesting work is emerging," he said.
Gibson added that one of the best aspects of the program was being in Italy.
"The place was so inspiring," he said. "It was a renaissance villa overlooking this medieval city of Arezzo, surrounded by vineyards and olive groves and wild poppies everywhere. Anywhere you point the camera there was something glorious to see. It was an amazing environment to teach and learn."
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