Having just heard dozens academics speak about modern and contemporary Italian film, I’m left with more questions than answers. While film scholars and language teachers dig around in the filmmaker’s brain for clues to ways to interpret an artistic mystery, doing so with a critical eye that looks far deeper than I would even aspire to, in the end I just want to know if they liked the film or not.
I’m not complaining. I’m glad that there are those who appreciate film on the same level as all of the arts, and know enough about it to dissect, analyze, interpret, and critique, but I am most often looking at films from a different angle. In fact, I named my blog “I Love Italian Movies” instead of “I Love Italian Films” because I wanted to make a distinction. I am not looking for the hidden meanings in a director’s choice of technique in cinematographic expression. I’m more interested in how these movies make the audience feel, and whether they are enjoyed. I want to know if it has uplifted or insulted us, if it made us laugh, and why or why not. I want to know if people will go to see it and if it can be profitable.
After all, whether or not a movie can make money is not irrelevant. If no one goes to see it, there may be a logical reason, and if no one wants to see it, why should anyone invest in it? There’s a quote from a movie called Mo’Better Blues about why people don’t support jazz musicians that I can relate to when I think about movies: .“..the people don’t come because you grandiose motherfuckers don’t play shit that they like. If you played the shit that they like, then people would come, simple as that.”
I don’t really care about modern Italian films in respect to how they relate to contemporary ones because in many ways, they don’t. Bemoaning the differences between La Dolce Vita and La Grande Bellezza is like complaining that current tv comedies aren’t like I Love Lucy. It’s one thing to feel nostalgia for and even prefer art from a different era, but expecting art to remain frozen in time is unrealistic and unfair. I believe that some who pine for the days of La Dolce Vita are pining not just for a film style that no longer exists, but more for an Italy that no longer exists.
And why should it? Foreigners that come to the United States looking for John Wayne and Holly Golightly might be a little disappointed. Why not let go of Totò and embrace Carlo Verdone and Checco Zalone, who make comedies about the realities of today’s Italy? Let Italian filmmakers tell stories that are more universal and not limited to “Italian” experiences.
Much about Italy has changed in the last 40 or 50 years (surprise! hope that doesn’t spoil your travel plans!), but that doesn’t make it worse. It’s just different, and the movies should and do reflect that. Finding ways to make the world see that even though De Sica and Rossellini are dead, Sorrentino and Garrone are alive and kicking, along with a whole army of directors who are creating exciting new art is a puzzling challenge. How does Italy get us to let go of the past and give their future a chance? The determination of today’s Italian filmmakers to create under these and many other hardships is nothing less than Herculean.
At the symposium, Emmy award-winning editor and Italian film critic Jeannine Guilyard spoke about the challenge of financing for Italian filmmakers and their resourcefulness in finding ways to get their projects made, using non-professional actors and “taking to the streets”, filming off sound stages. Jeannine sees the desire of new and independent filmmakers to make movies overcoming their challenges, and points to an increasing number of opportunities, outside of Italy, to showcase their films.
CHECK OUT JEANNINE GUILYARD’S WORK
Distribution is another huge problem, and a 4-24-14 article by Cristina Piccino entitled Il Cinema Italiano? Esiste, è Bello, Ma Non Si Vede (Italian Cinema? It exists, it’s great, but nobody sees it) discusses what happens to a film like Piccola Patria, a truly wonderful gem that I saw premier at the Venice Film Festival, the trouble getting it into the theaters and when it finally arrives, having only one daily screening at 4:00 PM. How many Italians can go to the movies at 4:00 PM?
READ MY REVIEW OF PICCOLA PATRIA
Add the reluctance of even Italian audiences to give their own films a chance (preferring, at times, American big budget action films), and Americans’ aversion to subtitles in general, I find it truly amazing when an Italian film makes it big. The success of La Grande Bellezza, for example, is a far bigger deal than just a director making a good film and it doing well, considering all the obstacles in an Italian director’s path.
Box office numbers go up and down, clear trends may be hard to define, but I’m positive that the Italian Film Industry is on an upswing that will last. Someday, I’ll be telling a lot of people, “I told you so.”
I Love Italian Everything 