Italian Genre Research Articles

Intersections between Italian and Slavic cinemas

The purpose of this issue is to explore the encounter between Italy and Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe and Russia during and after the Soviet period, as well as the fervid cooperation and fruitful co-productions between the film industries in this vast geographic region. More specifically, this Special Issue covers the following topics: the reception of neorealist films in Slavic countries and the influence of neorealism in Slavic cinema, the links between Italian political cinema and Slavic media, the presence of popular Italian genres of television shows and series in these geographical areas, transnational stardom in cinema and television, co-productions and their adaptation to the needs of national film and television markets, Soviet–Italian film institutional exchanges and co-productions and Italian film festivals in Russia and Italy.

From Conan the Barbarian to Gunan il guerriero: Re-contextualizing spaghetti sword and sorcery

The release of Conan the Barbarian (1982) played a crucial role in the emergence of the sword and sorcery film, a subgenre of fantasy cinema featuring muscular heroes in violent conflict with wizards and other supernatural creatures. Italian genre filmmakers attempted to capitalize on the international popularity of sword and sorcery by quickly producing a number of low-budget films, which emulated the stylistic and narrative features of Conan. Over a period of six years, between 1982 and 1987, the Italian film industry produced almost two dozen sword and sorcery films, which achieved mixed results at the box office. Although recently an increasing number of international film scholars have focused on the critical examination of Italian genre cinema, to date, little attention has been devoted to the study of Italian sword and sorcery. By examining the aesthetic features of four Italian sword and sorcery films (Gunan il guerriero [1982], Ator l’invincibile [1982], Hercules [1983] and The Barbarians [1987]), as well as their modes of production and distribution, this article proposes the first comprehensive critical examination of this filone.

Another Kind of Spaghetti Western: Italo Zingarelli and The Production of The TRINITÀ FILMS

The purpose of this article is to engage, from an industrial perspective, with Italian cinema’s concept of filone (a near equivalent of genre) by analysing the production and distribution of two of the most popular and successful Italian films at the box office: Lo chiamavano Trinità (They Call Me Trinity, Enzo Barboni, 1970) and its sequel Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità (Trinity is Still My Name, Enzo Barboni, 1971). Produced by Italo Zingarelli’s West Film, the two films represented, on the one hand, a departure from consolidated Spaghetti Western violent tropes in order to offer a family friendly form of entertainment. On the other hand, they represented the pinnacle of the bottom-up/low budget production strategy characteristic of the heyday of the Italian genre factory. The article argues that a contextualisation of the two films within the Spaghetti Western filone, alongside an analysis of Zingarelli’s work as producer and distributor, is revealing of the ambition of Italian producers of the period and the role played by regional distribution in the development of filoni and a cinema of imitation.

Review of Partan, O. (2017). Vagabonding masks. The Italian commedia dell’arte in the Russian artistic imagination. Boston: Academic Studies Press. 294 pages

In her book, Olga Partan touches upon theatrical and literary history from the early 1600s, her detailed analysis of certain renowned works of literature and dramatizations revealing their new aspects. The interdisciplinary method of her work enables Partan to create a study which comfortably accommodates Trediakovsky with Gogol, and Dostoevsky; Sumarokov with Block, and Bely; and even Alla Pugachova with Vladimir Nabokov, side by side on its pages. The author of Vagabonding Masks examines their 300-year old adventures in Russian culture, from the times of Peter I. She believes that the Italian genre became part and parcel of Russian culture from the moment when the first Italian theatrical companies were invited to perform at the court of Empress Anna Ioannovna. The book follows a chronological order: starting from the first Russian theatres and all the way to Giorgio Strehler’s tour of the country in the early 2000s: a powerful boost to Modernist theatrical art inRussia, as opposed to the deeply rooted Stanislavsky traditions.

Strange Vices: Transgression and the Production of Difference in the Giallo

The giallo, an Italian genre of horror film that peaked in the 1970s, is infamous for peddling shock and slaughter. Under the graphic sex and violence, however, the giallo expresses popular anxiety surrounding the transgression of social and sexual norms in modern Italy. Superficially, the giallo seems to suggest that social and cultural turmoil necessarily produces death. Yet the giallo foregrounds the obvious excitement and attraction of transgression, allowing that transgression could in fact be generative of positive, invigorating difference.

Italian Thrilling Spectacle Between Aesthetics, Enthusiasm and Nostalgia

Abstract This study focuses on the reflection of popular genres from Italian cinema during the 1960’s to 1980’s in Czecho(Slovakian) film and non film press during the years 1990 to 2000. The subject for analysis will only be comprehensive and compact texts that deal with concrete popular genres or with the productions of filmmakers that represent various models of a thrilling spectacle. We will mention only one example from Czech and Slovak translations, because this study deals purely with original published Czech and Slovak texts. This study aims to emphasize the themes chosen by Czech and Slovak film publicists, critics, and journalists in relation to popular Italian genres and in what way they developed interpretative thinking and historical, socio-cultural and industrial context of various models of a thrilling spectacle. Part of our study examines the point of view of film journalism in Czecho(Slovak) periodical press, in the sense of a historical document about period thinking on popular genres of Italian cinema, it will also take into account the enthusiastic and nostalgic approach taken by some of the authors that became a parallel line to the aesthetic interpretation of the films. The study will also touch on social, cultural and medial transformations after the year 1989 which led in Czecho(Slovak) film journalism to a greater critical interest in Italian popular genres. The text will be divided into two parts. The first part will deal only with the Italian western that belonged to the most often reflected and analyzed categories of spectacular spectacle. The second part will point to other lines of thrilling spectacle in Italian popular cinema and to some filmmakers whose work was repeatedly reflected in film journalism.

All the colours of the dark: Film genre and the Italian giallo

Abstract Recent scholarship on the giallo film – and Italian horror more broadly – has emphasized the use of the Italian term filone (‘thread’ or ‘streamlet’) instead of ‘genre’ to describe the particular production contexts of Italian genre film in the post-war period. This article considers how and why the giallo problematizes film genre as it is traditionally conceived, and argues that the giallo film is uniquely positioned to pose fundamental questions about genre as a theoretical system, as well as to question the task of genre criticism itself. Through an examination of historical approaches to film genre via the giallo case study, the article shows how this group of films debunks theories of generic evolution and complicates the notion of generic hybridity. Whilst challenging the cultural hegemony of Hollywood, framing the giallo as a genre demands a radical conceptualization of genre systems that more readily accommodates their propensity to shift and change over time.

Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period. Edited by Jon Whitman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xi+317.

<i>Romance and History: Imagining Time from the Medieval to the Early Modern Period</i>. Edited by Jon Whitman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xi+317.

Painting words: Severn’s visual dialogue with Keats in The Fountain (1828)

Although the painter Joseph Severn left little in the way of textual commentary on Keats’s poetry in his extensive body of letters and memoirs, he did offer a rich analysis and response to the poet’s verse in his artwork, especially his portraits and his best early painting, The Fountain (1828). The picture not only provides a sophisticated reading of “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819) but also offers a coded assessment of Keats’s legacy. Further, it wrestles with the public debate over the causes of Keats’s death and, in the end, acts as a complex private memorial to the intense friendship between painter and poet. Severn’s picture takes as its textual source an influential poem by Samuel Rogers and as its visual sources a network of paintings, sculpture, and sketches that lend a multidimensional context to what appears at first to be a straightforward Italian genre scene. Together with key passages from his letters, these artworks persuade us that Severn had more on his mind than a pastoral landscape and that he was quietly revising and adapting the Greek myth of Hylas to explore the cultural debate surrounding the death of Keats and his own private grief.

&lt;b&gt;A questão histórica no gênero cinematográfico commedia all’ italiana: a Primeira Guerra Mundial na ficção&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt;DOI:10.5007/2175-7917.2011v16n2p84

The theme chosen for this article was to join "Cinema and History" to the cinematographic genre commedia all'italiana. First, there is a general introduction that discusses the italian genre. The second part deals with the historical representation in the commedia all' italiana, analyzing the Mario Monicelli’s work, the movie "La Grande Guerra".

Chasing Voices, Hunting Love: The Meaning of the Italian Caccia

Chasing Voices, Hunting Love:The Meaning of the Italian Caccia Lucia Marchi The fourteenth-century Italian genre of the caccia has received attention largely for its peculiar musical construction and idiosyncratic texts. A typical caccia (pl. cacce) is a three-voice piece in which a lower voice (tenor) supports two upper parts written in canonic counterpoint. In this musical technique, the voices sing the same melody at a given distance in time, musically "hunting" each other. The poetic texts describe hunting scenes, including technical terms, call and response patterns, and onomatopoeia. It is quite clear, though, that the hunt represents a metaphor for the quest for love. The production of cacce spans about a century, from the first generation of fourteenth-century composers (Magister Piero, Jacopo da Bologna) to the beginning of the Quattrocento. Although their number is not as large as other genres such as madrigali and ballate, they are consistently transmitted in all the major musical anthologies of the Trecento. This article re-examines the caccia repertory, focusing on what I believe to be some significant issues: (1) the meaning of their texts in the broader context of medieval literature; (2) the metaphorical significance of the genre and its effect on the understanding of individual pieces; (3) the Trecento theory of musical genres and the contemporary perception of the caccia as an autonomous form. Lastly, I address individual cases the analysis of which implies methodological approaches of more general interest for future research. 1. The hunt in medieval literature The concept of intertextuality, as elaborated by the French post-structuralists in the 1960s (Kristeva, Barthes), employed the allusions of a given text to other pre-existing ones as a fundamental exegetical tool. The concept can be applied in musicology as well, but in the case of secular vocal music two elements have to [End Page 13] be included: a poetic text and its musical setting. First of all, we need to decide if it is possible to apply this approach not only to the artistic product as a whole, but also to the two elements separately. More generally, the question implies an evaluation of the concept of poesia per musica and its independence—or interdependence—from the musical setting. Most of the texts of cacce, as well as of madrigali and ballate, were written to be set to music, as shown by many rubrics in literary manuscripts: e.g., madriale tonato or caccia da cantare. Nevertheless, the existence of independent transmission in literary sources supports the perception of their poetic text as an autonomous artistic product. In some cases, such as Niccolò Soldanieri's A poste messe, the musical manuscripts preserve only one of the two stanzas, whereas the more complete version has only a literary transmission.1 In the broader context of medieval literature, caccia texts reveal meanings not evident otherwise. The hunt is an extremely widespread topic, as demonstrated by two important studies: Marcelle Thiébaux's The Stag of Love: The Chase in Medieval Literature (1974) and the more recent one by Giovanni Barberi Squarotti, Selvaggia dilettanza. La caccia nella letteratura italiana dalle origini a Marino (2000). From ancient literature onwards, the hunt had different meanings, ranging from the religious quest to the spiritual journey towards virtue.2 The act of hunting can represent the bravery of the hero, but the metaphor may be also be reversed to mean humankind as "hunted" by vice, temptation, and death. By far the most common allegory is the erotic one, present since Greek and Latin literature, as in, for example, Horace's Ode I.23 (lines 1-4): Vitas inuelo me similis, Chloe,quaerenti pavidam montibus aviismatrem non sine vanoaurarum et silvae metu. [You are running away, Chloe, just like a fawn / seeking on the remote mountains her terrified / mother not without needless / fear of forest and fitful breeze.]3 Dido's passion for Aeneas is represented by Virgil in Book IV of the Aeneid as an arrow stuck in her side: Uritur infelix Dido totaque vagatururbe furens, qualis coniecta cerva sagitta,quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixitpastor agens telis liquitque volatile ferrumnescius: illa fuga silvas saltusque peragratDictaeos; haeret lateri letalis...

“What Do We Mean by Opera, Anyway?”: Lloyd Webber'sPhantom of the Operaand “High-Pop” Theatre

“What Do We Mean by Opera, Anyway?”: Lloyd Webber's<i>Phantom of the Opera</i>and “High-Pop” Theatre

Foods and the Body in Italian Genre Paintings, about 1580: Campi, Passarotti, Carracci

Foods and the Body in Italian Genre Paintings, about 1580: Campi, Passarotti, Carracci

Foods and the Body in Italian Genre Paintings, about 1580: Campi, Passarotti, Carracci

Genre paintings of butchers, bean eaters, and market vendors appear quite suddenly in northern Italy about the year 1580. This essay interprets their specific combinations of foodstuffs and bodies in light of a contemporary polemic about the nature of low-born bodies and the appropriate foods to give to particular social types. The reception of these works is clarified by looking at the role of early genre paintings in wonder collections and at the relation of proverbs to their imagery.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze's Italian Sojourn 1755–57

Jean-Baptiste Greuze's Italian Sojourn 1755-57 HEATHER McPHERSON After his triumph at the Salon of 1755, Jean-Baptiste Greuze set off for Rome in the company of the abbe Gougenot and remained in Italy until April 1757. A trip to Italy was still practically de rigueur for a young artist who wished to succeed, and Greuze did not lack ambi­ tion. However, most scholars from Mariette to Brookner have dis­ counted the importance of Greuze's Italian sojourn. In the words of the noted connoisseur Mariette, "Il a fait le voyage d'Italie en 1756, voyage qui lui etait assez inutile, et ou la vanite dut avoir la principale part."1 Brookner's denial of the utility of Greuze's Italian trip is even more categorical. It is generally recognized that the journey to Italy, which took place in 1755-57, did nothing for Greuze's art. It might almost be true to say that it wasted two years which he might otherwise have em­ ployed in following up the Dutch models which he had set himself and to which he returned in the late 1750s.2 Only Sauerlander, in his 1965 article entitled "Pathosfiguren im Oeuvre des Jean-Baptiste Greuze," recognized an early and lasting Italian in­ fluence on Greuze's art.3 Edgar Munhall, in his 1976 exhibition cata­ logue, Jean-Baptiste Greuze 1725-1805, emphasized the importance of the four paintings in Italian costume which Greuze exhibited at the 1757 Salon.4 In this author's view, Greuze's Italian sojourn was more significant 93 94 / MCPHERSON in the development of his unique moralizing genre than has generally been realized. The impact of the Italian trip was both immediate and lasting. Italian influence surfaced in the paintings shown in 1757 and continued to affect Greuze's art during the rest of his career. This paper will focus on the four Italian paintings which figured at the 1757 Salon: La Paresseuse italienne, Un Oiseleur, Les Oeufs casses, and Le Geste napolitain.5 In addition, Greuze exhibited the following works: Le Matelot napolitain, Un Ecolier qui etudie sa legon, two portraits, two heads, and a sketch representing Des Italiens qui jouent a la More.6 The four Italian paintings draw upon different aspects of the Italian heritage from antique statuary to contemporary genre painting. Greuze's early and continuing appreciation of Italian art sheds light upon his subsequent artistic development, his history painting am­ bitions, and his precocious neoclassical tendencies. In addition, the Italian link contributes to our understanding of the evolution of genre painting in France. The ascendancy of Netherlandish painting has long been recognized, but Italian influence has received little atten­ tion from scholars. However, it was in Italy that many young French artists came of age and began experimenting with genre subjects. French artists, like Greuze, who travelled to eighteenth-century Rome encountered a sort of "moveable feast" where antiquity coex­ isted with Renaissance and baroque art and the picturesqueness of Roman street life. The genre tradition was alive and well in Italy, es­ pecially outside Rome. Eighteenth-century Italian genre artists such as Crespi, Ceruti, and Longhi enjoyed considerable reknown at mid­ century. Two parallel genre painting currents existed: the costume study and the anecdotal realistic scene or bambochade. Greuze's Italian works drew upon both these currents, but were also indebted to Ren­ aissance and Baroque history painting and classical antiquity. This is hardly surprising for an ambitious artist like Greuze who aspired to the title of history painter. On the way to Rome, Greuze visited the major Italian cities and copied diverse works ranging from the Dying Gladiator to the paint­ ings of Michelangelo and Titian. In 1755, he designed a series of cos­ tume studies for Gougenot's Album de voyage en Italie which were en­ graved by the Moitte family in 1768. These illustrations fall within the tradition of picturesque costume studies which were in vogue in eighteenth-century France. Relatively little is known about Greuze's Italian sojourn.7 We do know the itinerary Greuze and Gougenot followed but frustratingly little about Greuze's social and artistic contacts, especially in Rome. Greuze and Gougenot passed through Turin, Genoa...

Bowed Continuo Instruments in French Baroque Chamber Music

French Baroque composers, like their counterparts all over Europe, regarded the bass viol, the cello, the bassoon and, in some circumstances, the double bass as suitable sustaining continuo instruments. The choice of one or another, or a combination, depended no less upon circumstances than it did on the desire for a specific stylistic nuance or timbre. In this paper I propose to examine the evidence – in memoirs and other accounts, and in manuscript and printed scores – that documents the rise and decline of the bass viol and the emergence of the cello as a chamber music instrument. The nature of the musical evidence is often contradictory in itself, but ultimately it is indicative of a larger process, of which the use of the viol and the cello were a significant part: the assimilation of Italian genres into the French musical idiom.