An overview of cinematic responses to the idea of Rome, ancient and modern, city and empire, place and idea, from the silent era to the present day. The emphasis will be on how successive visions of Rome reflect evolving political and social conditions on both sides of the Atlantic and the relative positions of the American and Italian film industries within the world market. Specific topics to be explored include the mutually-defining relationship between Italian and American society as reflected in the cinematic art, the dialectic between conceptions of antiquity and modernity, and the place of reception studies in approaches to both classical and contemporary material. Screenings of works by Federico Fellini, Cecil B. DeMille, William Wyler, Roberto Rossellini and other major directors.