FILM THEORY 3

Italian Vernacular Cinema

1970s

"Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates." - Werner Herzog

Fellini is taken seriously as an auteur 

- Comments on the superficiality of middle class existence

- Films are associated withs style and sophistication, seen as worthy of critical appraisal

La Dolce Vita (1960) Fellini

8 1/2 (1963) Fellini

A lot more to Italian cinema...

- Audiences

- Historical and social context

- Economics

“A forkful of westerns: industry, audiences and the Italian western,” Christopher Wagstaff

- Primar visione and seconda visione - cinema that attracted a middle class sophisticated audience usually in major cities, audience selected a film to watch

- Terza visione - less populated areas, cheaper tickets, audience went to cinema based on habit rather than selecting a film. Films were more formulaic 

Italian working classes 1970s

- Go to cinema every night - Italian film industry needs a lot of films

- Conventions of watching film are different

- People may talk, drink and eat during the film

- People enter the cinema at beginning, half way through, near the end

- Cinema is a very social space

- Wagstaff notes that the terza visione audience was more like a television audience, going to the cinema after dinner, without any particular film in mind, arriving without respect to start time, and often using the outing as a social event, to talk during the screening, meet with friends, etc

- In some churches mass was conducted in a similar way

Filone/genre

- Filone is similar to the term genre but not quite

- Based on the idea of geology - layers of veins within a larger layer

Examples of filone

- Giallo - based on detective novels

- Spaghetti Westerns

- Mondo/Cannibal film

- Poliziottesco - police procedural

Mario Bava, Dario Argento, and Lucio Fulci 

(Giallo Directors)

- These films may be stylish and expressionistic, but at their worst they challenge our sense and the standards of 'good taste'

- Exploitation movies

- Gross out movies

- Similar to American Grindhouse/Drive-in movies

- Wonderful titles used to sell the concept

e.g.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970)

The Black Belly of the Tarantula (Paolo Cavara , 1971)

Don't Torture a Duckling (Lucio Fulci, 1972)

The House with Laughing Windows (Pupi Avati , 1976)

A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (Lucio Fulci,1971)

Five Dolls for an August Moon (Mario Bava,1970)

The Bloodstained Butterfly (Duccio Tessari, 1971)

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Dario Argento, 1971)

Death Walks on High Heels (Luciano Ercoli, 1971)

The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972)

The Girl Who Knew Too Much (Mario Bava 1963)

First Giallo with many of it's defining characteristics

Amateur detective as tourist


- The protagonists are usually American or British, visiting Italy
- They usually work in the creative industries (artist, writer, musician, fashion, photography)
- They seem to evoke a cosmopolitan 'jet set' life style

Giallo killers


- Black gloves
- Black hat
- Black overcoat
- Disguises gender
- Priests often used as part of gender confusion

Dario Argento


- The Italian Hitchcock
- Places himself in the film - as the killer's black gloved hands
- Visually stunning set pieces
- Shot without sound so films could be dubbed
- Worked with Sergio Leone on Once Upon a Time in the West
- Son of Salvator Argento (film producer)
- Brother of Claudio Argento (producer)
- Father to Asia Argento (actress)
- Long term partner and collaborator Dario Nicolodi


The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970)

Typical beginning on aeroplane

Protagonist is an American writer

Changing POV

Beginning of the 'set piece'

Connection to art

Fast cutting using eye-line shots

End of set piece

Subjective POV

- Killer-cam

- Eye line shot - killer/victim/amateur detective

- Set pieces

- Art and cultural references

- Semiotics

- Ambivalence towards modernity, religion and superstition

- The fall

Dubbing and heightened sound

- Like Leone, Argento shot his films without sound then added dialogue and sound effects later

- This allows the film to be dubbed using many languages

- Often sold to America and Britain as 'B' movies - drive in movies

Freudian psychology 

- Many Giallo demanded to be read from psychoanalytical points of vie

- Based on false memory

- Childhood trauma

- Fetish (eyes, gloves, cut throat razor)

- Solution of mystery lies in art

Works of art in gialli are often subverted and associated with the madness of the psychopath and regularly provide a conduit into the past and into the mind of the antagonist

Are exploitation films worthy of examination?

- Innovation and authorship

- Necessity is the mother of invention

- Technical mastery

- Visual critique based on spectacle rather than literary critique based on narrative

- Tells us about different kinds of audiences and modes of viewing

- Tells us about the context in which these films were made

- Challenge to Hollywood's continuity cinema

Is vernacular film dead?

- Multiplexes aimed at people with cars

- Going to cinema is a special event

- Cinema tickets are expensive

- DVD and digital formats mean audiences watch in own home or on the move

- Social aspects of film-watching done on line rather than at the cinema