Cinecittà Mostra - Cinecittà Shows Off

Walk around Rome for long enough and you'll start wincing at the architecture of the fascist era.   Strictly symmetrical, with a focus on utility of design, these buildings present a no-holds-barred functionality with little decorative value.

Under Mussolini's unified Italy, this modernist style was adopted in the architecture of the 1920's and 1930's, with Rome's Cinema City ("Cinecittà") built to this style in 1937.  Originally constructed for propaganda-film purposes, the complex was bombed during the second world war, and following the war Cinecittà became a misplaced-persons camp.

By the 1950's Cinecittà was once again making movies.  Legendary classics such as the Fellini films La Dolce Vita and Casanova, the american blockbuster Ben Hur and Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet were created here.  And in more recent years Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, and the HBO series Rome were filmed here, too.

Friday at noon we finished our last grammar session for the week and took the Metro line A out to the furthest point on the Anagnina line to visit Cinecittà.  Cinecittà lies about 10km south-east of Rome.

We arrived at the studio in time to take a guided tour in italian, with a handful of us standing in the sunlight listening to our guide recount the early years of the complex, the famous movies that were produced by equally-famous directors and how the intricate crafting of movie sets involves construction of massive wooden mounts, covered in tons of polystyrene, gesso and paint.  And also, how the internal sets are created, used, dissembled and stored in the giant warehouses that stand on the boundaries of the Cinecittà.

We had a great time walking over the huge Gangs of New York set (now looking even more dilapidated) and the impressive sets of the Forum and Subura of the Rome series.  Buildings of imperial Rome are painted in the pompeiian colours of red and ochre, with the "ancient" stones of the forum leading into the jumble of the subura, where the upper-storeys of the houses almost touch each other across narrow alleyways.

Afterwards, we walked though the mostra (exhibition) of sight and sound - a long tunnel-like space is covered in moving images on the floor, ceiling and walls from Cinecittà's epic films - ducking into various smaller rooms to see post-production, costuming and internal movie sets. 

We all agreed it was a fantastic experience.  Although we found the commentary difficult to follow in rapid, non-school italian, it was another facet of learning the language and great to see another side of the city.

After catching the metro to the San Giovanni stop, we ended our day drinking Sauvignon Blanc from the Fruili region at an enoteca in Monti, before walking back down past the Colosseum and Vittorio Emanuele monument in the early evening. 


At the Largo Agentina we said our goodbyes to Karina, who leaves today to fly back to Belgium before Juliana and I resume school again on Monday.  Its been great having Karina around and I'm going to miss her.  The great thing about being here in Rome, aside from learning the language and enjoying the city, is the fantastic friendships I've made over the past few weeks.  We all plan to meet back in Rome in the not-too-distant future.

Exams over, normal blogging resumes

Yesterday I celebrated, along with my fellow students, passing exams and moving on to the next level of italian.  We've all had a pretty hectic week of revision, experienced some jitters, and had lots of practice conversation and review of those pesky past tenses, passato prossimo and imperfetto.

By now, our group is able to converse in jerky sentences about most day-to-day things in italian.  Often we mess up the tenses or use the wrong pronouns, but we're all progressing in the language.  And after a couple of glasses of wine after school, we all seem to  understand each other :-)

Last night, by way of celebration, we started off with drinks at the Cul-de-Sac, a tiny wine bar with a great selection of bottles.  Cul-de-Sac is in the Piazza Pasquino, the square abutting the Piazza Navona and the piazza is home to Pasquino, one of Rome's talking statues.

Pasquino dates back to the 3rd century BC, and was unearthed in the Parione district of Rome in the 1500's.  He's been the mouthpiece for Roman residents for over 500 years, mostly being covered with anti-government (and at one time, anti-papacy) satirical poems.  Walk past on most days and the statue will be pasted with anti-establishment slogans and messages.  From the outside tables at Cul-de-Sac, you can face Pasquino and raise a glass to him.

 

After dinner in the truly lovely Via della Pace, more wine, and a mixture of italian, english, french and flemish conversation we headed off home in different directions.  My walk took me through the Campo de' Fiori, over the Ponte Sisto and on to the Via delle Cinque.  It's been warmer and drier this week, and crowds of people were out enjoying the clear night.  At 11.30, some groups of revellers were only just sitting down to dinner, and my local bar, the Ombre Rosse, was hotting up.

 

I had all good intentions of heading over to the Monti district today.  It is a characterful, up-and-coming part of Rome and I've heard so many people praise its restaurants, tiny winding streets and artisan workshops. Monti is located slightly uphill away from the Colosseum and is described as a much less touristed, more "local" part of the city.

 

I took a detour through the Pigneto district and on to the Trevi Fountain, specifically looking for the Ace of Cups, incorporated into the Trevi fountain during construction.  A local curiosity, I learned about it through one of my italian tutors back at home.  At the time I made a mental note to look for the enormous stone cup, created by the fountain's architect Nicola Salvi.  The story goes that as work on the fountain progressed, a local barber who had a shop in the piazza was very loud in his criticism.  Salvi put the big travertine cup in front of Barbershop to block the barber's view (and his criticism, presumably). 

 

Up behind the Trevi, and approaching the Quirinal Hill, I headed back down past the recently re-opened excavations of Trajan's Market.

 

Around 2pm I was getting hungry and the rain started to fall.  Having come out without an umbrella I was getting drenched, and eventually ducked into a doorway near Trajan's column.  That doorway opened into the Enoteca Provincia Romana. 

 

So, the upshot is, I still haven't visited Monti.  But I spent a fantastic couple of hours looking over the excavations of Trajan's Market from my table inside the enoteca while the rain fell.  The Provincia Romana showcases products from the Lazio district (of which Rome is part) - from Affile to Zaporolo, my menu informed me - and a very good lunch, with wine, is 15 euros.

 

Tonerelli filled with spinach and ricotta, sauced with slow braised pork and sage is the best pasta I've ever eaten.  With a glass of light red wine, and espresso and biscotti to follow, I'm in food heaven.