TWO ON THE AISLE-Joe Kirkish
Fascinating information on Italian movies:
Like so many other European film industries, those in Italy followed two things: technological improvements and social/political contemporary scenes. Figures, doesn't it?
We did the same in Hollywood.
Movies came to Italy very much in the same manner as in America, with the invention of a silent film camera in 1895 (about the same time as Edison's kinetoscope in
New Jersey). Newsreels & brief slices of everyday life documentaries soon gave way to
costume dramas (like the massive production of the 1913 “Quo Vadis”) and film stories from Shakespeare, Dante, Tasso, etc., becoming the rage even through the WWI
years.
In fact, the war encouraged three things: escapist movies (called “white telephone”
films for their emphasis on the luxuries of the rich), Fascist political propaganda, and
– the beginnings of what was to blossom into Italy's greatest contribution –
“verisimo” films that were ultra-realistic, focusing on everyday social problems.
It was in 1942 that a neo-realist movement brought world attention to street films,
made on severe budgets in the homes & streets, with non-actors, available lighting,
and stories that shocked the world with their raw attention to the plight of the masses
- made by a whole new batch of young, sincerely dedicated enthusiasts, like Visconti
(“Obsession”), DeSica (“Bicycle Thieves”) & Rossellini (“Rome, Open City”).
Such gritty films were followed, gradually, by lighter material for oversized epics
and, especially, exotica with gorgeous women drawing great attention - women like
Gina Lollobrigida & Sophia Loren – packing theaters in Italy and world wide as well.
Still, the effects of neo-realism could be found to this day, not only in future Italian
films by Antonioni & Fellini, but everywhere else, including among independent filmmakers right here in America – and that despite the final export in the mid-60s with
an avalanche of “spaghetti Westerns” from Sergio Leone with stars like (dubbed)
Clint Eastwood as the big draw.
The pathos of an old man & his dog in “Umberto D,” the angry cry over a woman
who must sell herself for food in “Bitter Rice,” the amusing show of Italian sexual
know-how in “Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow,” and the political corruption in
“Rome, Open City” - must be sampled at least once to appreciate what our paisanos
from overseas have contributed to our entertainments. Value of the Italian film industry on the world lies in the ever-lasting, ageless quality of the best of its films,
which have become, like good literature, worth experiencing over & over again with
increased pleasure.