I.       (13:20) Announcements from Dr. Reimer

A.    We’ll be discussing Respiro first.

B.     Afterwards we’ll watch a short European animated film which is a Parody of the 1^st Fantasia (Europeans do silly things, too).

C.    Will Davis, a photography major @ UNCC and a filmmaker, will lead the discussion on Respiro, which is one of his favorite movies.

II.     (13:22) Will Davis Introduced himself and entered into the discussion of Respiro.

A.    On question #1: How Machismo plays a part in the film:

1.      Class gave input:

a)     Youngest son, Fillipo telling the women what to do

b)     Both sons being overprotective of their sister

c)     Being belligerent to the cop

d)     Women doing the cleaning up in their daily lives, secondhand to the men who went and caught the fish.

2.      Will mentioned things like:

a)     The music playing by Patty Bravo while Grazia is wrapped up in a fishing net: “…you treat me like a dog, spin me around, then throw me to the ground…” – he mentioned that people were broadening their horizons at about the time this film was made, there, and that Grazia didn’t fit the old mold.

b)     Fish seemed to be an inferior form of living; inferior to the birds for example, which the boys wanted drawn on their chests. Grazia also seemed to be compared to a fish from all the scenes with her feeling at peace while swimming in the water, accomplishing the metaphor of femininity being rather negative since society was structured around the machismo way of life, the man being more important.

c)     “Cephalo” was the name of the rival boy, which means “fish” in Italian

d)     Life seemed to be centered around men and their wants: the man with the dog building always just wanted wine, cigarettes and sex.

e)     Grazia seemed to be raising her two sons to be masculine, but at the same time draw them into a different, new lifestyle such as when Fillipo is singing with her together, and when Pasquale paints her toenails.

f)       Marienella liked the cop from the north because he was less domineering, and she had a measure of control with him. He was a mix of her father and mother, being sensitive to her but still holding a position of authority as a cop.

g)     It was interesting that when Marianella first met the cop, they were moving forward on the moped, which seemed characteristic of the entire movie – moving forward.

h)     Noted that even other men were telling Grazia what to do (“don’t put make-up on my son!”), and not just her own husband.

B.     Music

1.      Fishnet scene

a)     The music was significant (mentioned above in 2. a) as far as the text as she was spinning around in the fishnet and looking/feeling caught.

2.       

a)     Grazia and Fillipo were singing together in the yard in the beginning about being together no matter what, which also had to do with a theme in the movie.

3.       

a)     Class suggested the underwater scenes with the recurrent soundtrack might indicate separation from the real world and everything she didn’t feel a part of. Will confirmed this in that the scene at the end with the music also could have represented a prenatal stage, since the legs were not gender-specified, indicating a kind of separation where culture hasn’t affected anyone yet.

b)     Water’s importance to the community was signified by the emotional music while in the water.

c)     Will noted that this recurrent soundtrack came when Pietro found her dress, when he puts the statue in the water, during Cembertano’s Feast, and when everyone was together in the water with Grazia at the end. These were all moments when Pietro was the most vulnerable, yet where Grazia felt the most stable.

C.    The question of Grazia’s sanity

1.      Not crazy

a)     The majority of the discussion seemed to focus on the idea that she was probably not crazy, rather a free spirit who was fighting repression.

b)     Her setting the dogs free indicated herself wanting to be free as well

c)     The dogs also signified a removed part of society that the people didn’t want to deal wit, and rather keep under control somehow.

d)     We weren’t given an answer in the movie as to whether these dogs were known to be dangerous, although the hints led toward them simply being repressed.

e)     Society has a hard time living together with others who don’t operate in the same ways, and Grazia obviously didn’t. We concluded that she probably wasn’t crazy, and only thought differently (she always mentioned Paris, where there was a more progressed way of life).

D.    Final scene

1.      Based on a legend

a)     The legend was that she came back and lived a normal life

b)     She was seen rather as a saint, because on Cembertano’s Feast was the day they found her

c)     Mirrored the Spanish type of realism: the fantastic presented in a normal way

2.      Someone questioned whether it was supposed to be taken as real or imagination

a)     Will implied it is probably supposed to be real, since much of the story was written so poetically and lyrical on purpose. It didn’t matter that it seemed like they were under water for such a long time.

3.      Shot

a)     Will stressed that the neutralized genders of the scene under the water of all their legs was significant in portraying a pre-natal stage were everyone is equal.

b)     Grazia’s head was brought to the surface first, almost like birth.

c)     It was also looking upwards, indicating a focus on upward movement as the town would begin to accept her now and move towards new ideas.

d)     The legs dangling also seemed to indicate a new way of walking, since walking in water is different, naturally.

E.     The Title

1.      Class thought it meant something similar to struggling to survive and keep breathing.

2.      Will mentioned that it is a northern word not even used in the area the film was about. This indicated another level of significance in the theme that they were far behind, socially, not even understanding the new way of living (breathing) that Grazia represented.

III.  Clip (13:56)

A.    Will showed us the clip of the sailboat

1.      Grazia didn’t see the violent aspect of anything.

2.      The fishnet was pictured above and behind her, almost like an entrapment already, as if she was caught.

IV. Reimer (14:15)

A.    Final exam will have some of these questions on it

B.     People had more questions for Will, since it was made so intriguing by his own interest in the movie.

C.    Next clip (14:22)

1.      Allegro Nontropo – 1979

a)     Reimer said this was a parody of Fantasia from 1940

b)     Director puts a lot of attention into the action coming up right when the orchestra plays, as if the action follows the music instead of vice versa.

c)     Watched the short film

(1)    B&W, silent except for the orchestra music

(2)    Orchestra musicians eating on stage

(3)    They get ready to start and the director throws away his bottle

(4)    Bottle becomes animated and from then on we see the creation of the world: Frog – fish – dragon – plants – moneys – man – buildings, etc…..

(5)    At the end the man and everything crumbles and only the silly monkey is left

2.      Explanation (14:33)

a)     Reimer explained the satire involved and how it represented negative views about America, capitalism, etc.

b)     We were supposed to watch a clip of Breathless but instead we talked about our presentations because Reimer brought the wrong tape.

D.    Presentations

1.      If you use clips, tell why they are appropriate and only use them in accordance with your talk.

2.      WHY is it remade? What did the director do differently and for what purpose?

V.   We distributed the minute-takers for the rest of the semester