Film Theory 3

Lecture 6 7/12/2011

Film Theory 3

Italian Vernacular cinema

Fellini is taken seriously as an auteur

Comments on the superficiality of middle class existence

Films are associated with style and sophistication

Seen as worthy of critical appraisal

La Dolce Vita – di trevi

Fellini 1960

Sunglasses become massive from this film, style = glamorous

8 ½ = fellini 1963

More to Italian cinema…

Audiences, historical & social context, economics – budget

Prima visione & seconda vision – conemas that attracted a middle calss sophicated audience usually in major cities, audience selected a film to watch

Terza vision – less populated areas, cheaper tickets, audiences went to cinema based on habit, popular films.

Italian working classes 1970’s – audience

Every night – needs a lot of films

Conventions of watching film are different

Social place

Wagstaff notes that terza vision audiences was more like a television audience

Social event

Arriving without respect of time

Filone/genre

Filone is similar to genre

Based in the idea of geology – layers of veins within a larger layer

In the tradition of… examples:

Giallo – based on detective novels

Spaghetti westerns

Mondo/cannibal film

Poliziotesco – police procedural

The good, bad and the ugly 1966 directed by Sergio Leone

Use of sound/music

Lack of dialogue

Use of key lines & cutting

Differences in scale – paramarna

Use of camera to tell a story

Fragmentation of body

Catholic references

Focus on Giallo

Italian for yellow stems from the series of cheap paperback crime & mystery novels

Directors – Mario Bava, Datio Argento & Lucio Falci

Stylish, gross out movies, sex, sililar to American grindhouse, wonderful titles, examples…

The bird with the crystal plumage 1970

Don’t torture a duckling 1972

The girl who knew too much – Mario Bava 1963, first Giallo film, many of it’s defining characteristics

Amature detective as tourist

Cityscape – Rome, Milan (sophisticated)

Black and white – use of lighting, artistic eye references to religion, visuals, unique and unusual

The baroque – height & emotional

Repeats – Giallo killers – black clothing, disguises gender priests often used for gender confusion

Dario Argento

Italian Hitchcock – places himself in the film – as the killers black gloves, visually stunning – set pieces

Shot without sounds so films can be dubbed

The bird with the crystal plumage 1970 – set piece

Typical beginning on an aeroplane

Changing POV – hints of yellow

Urban environment

Connection to art – set in art gallery

Use of eye line shots

Use of colour to construct narrative

Story told visually

Typical killer

Solution of the mystery within a piece of art

Subjective POV – killer – cam, eye line shot, set pieces, art & cultural references

Dubbing

Product placement – evolving sophisticated look – alcohol – J&B whisky

Freudian phycology

Innovation – challenge Hollywood

Influences: black swan, Halloween, black Christmas, dressed to kill, death proof.