IB Tauris, 2011. 328 pages. ISBN: 978-1848856073 (hardback), price: £45. ISBN: 978-1848856080 (paperback), price: £14.99.
About the author: Dr Russ Hunter is a lecturer in Film and Television at Northumbria University and author of An Introduction to European Horror Cinema (forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press) and editor, with Alexia Kannas, of The Cinema of Dario Argento (Wallflower press, forthcoming).
The past two decades has seen a welcome, if gradual, move to recognise the contribution that Italian genre cinema has made to its country’s film history and European film culture more generally. Following Christopher Frayling’s long engagement with the work of Sergio Leone, Christopher Wagstaff’s seminal 1992 work on the spaghetti western, A Forkful of Westerns, marked an important turn in the study of Italian cinema, representing a slow shift towards recognition of a wider spectrum of Italian cinema that went beyond the previous focus on neo-realism and 'commedia all-italiana' allowed for. Up until that point histories of Italian cinema had been typified by Peter Bondanella’s excellent but canon-focused Italian Cinema: From Neo-Realism to Present, a book that is representative of the way overviews of Italian cinema have tended to focus upon core of critically–lauded Italian films and tended to either briefly reference examples of genre cinema and its stars or ignore them altogether. Bondanella’s more recent A History of Italian Cinema was thus a valuable to corrective to this tendency, examining not just the spaghetti western but also encompassing the giallo, Italian horror film and polizieschi (Italian police films of the 1970s) in its more inclusive overview of Italian film history. A further broadening of approaches to the study of Italian cinema that further helps develop our understanding of the sheer variety of Italian cinema is therefore to be welcomed.
There will still be some that see Italian genre cinema as being too populist, too abundant, too lowbrow or even too non-Italian ...
There will still be some that see Italian genre cinema as being too populist, too abundant, too lowbrow or even too non-Italian (given the amount of co-productions it includes) to merit detailed analysis, viewing it as nothing more than an easy-to-dismiss example of exploitation cinema. But the idea that authors such as Hughes do more traditionally explored (and lauded) forms of Italian cinema a disservice by setting them cheek-by-jowl with more populist examples of its cinematic output appears increasingly out-of-date. Indeed, there will be those that see value in exploring what has been termed the ‘underside’ of Italian cinema, as part of a broader drive towards a more all embracing overview of Italian film culture. The existence of books like Hughes’s neither represent a threat to the status of Italian art cinema nor do they suggest it should be forgotten. Rather Cinema Italiano goes some way to redressing an imbalance in the way Italian cinema has traditionally been conceived, offering a broader, more inclusive picture of an industry that was both more prolific and dynamic in the post-war period than historical accounts have heretofore allowed for.
The very fact that Hughes provides a broad overview of an academically underexplored part of Italian film history is therefore important in itself.
The very fact that Hughes provides a broad overview of an academically under explored part of Italian film history is therefore important in itself. His chapter ‘A Funny Thing Happened: Italian Comedy’ is typical of the way Hughes’s work differs from how not only Italian comedy but Italian cinemas ‘canon’ has been understood before. In detailing the work of popular Sicilian comic duo Franco and Ciccio and highlighting the work of the likes of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, for instance, Cinema Italiano brings to the fore both those who have little fame outside of Italy (yet remain hugely popular within it) and those who did have a large following outside of Italy but whose popular, knock-about fare has seen them largely written-out of accounts of Italian cinema to date. Indeed, with chapters on Gothic horror, science fiction, art house cinema, political cinema, polizieschi and gialli to name but a few of the varied cross-section of Italian cinema that is explored here, the book explores several areas that have either been only partially examined before or – as is the case with his chapter on Italian WW2 movies – are highly original in their focus.
The structure of the book, however, does tend towards being too neatly sub-divided in a way that will not be helpful for those attempting to coherently trace a history of Italian cinema (no matter how problematic such an exercise might be). Setting both the high and the low brow side-by-side is relatively novel in this context but does mean that it is often unclear of the broader context within which they were produced (both in production and socio-historical terms). Individual chapters follow a clear format: a very brief introduction to the (sub)genre or generic strand under discussion followed by an outline of some of its key films and a variety of production details. Although the plot descriptions might be useful to some, the real value here for researchers are the specifics Hughes provides of shooting locations and other useful factoids. The book acts an excellent filmographic reference point for those wishing to either research or view any of the sub-sections of Italian cinema that Hughes outlines.
The book is not without issues, however. Ultimately its biggest problem is that it falls slightly between two stools. It contains enough evidence of solid research - Hughes has clearly engaged with a wide variety of films and their production individual histories - to suggest it might have an academic contribution to make but doesn't develop what it presents analytically enough in order to be more than background reading for university syllabi. The introduction exemplifies this problem in that it outlines some of the key features and issues that Italian genre cinema exhibits but – tantalisingly - does not develop or reflect upon them in any depth. Although the book tends more towards overview than analysis, the author introduces some interesting concepts (such as the idea of the ‘peplum horror’ in Chapter One) but never really unpacks either their significance or their conceptual value. This is a shame as Hughes moves in potentially interesting directions in exploring Italian genre cinema both in detail and – significantly – as a whole in a book like this.
The book is eminently readable and to those seeking a rapid overview of some of the key films of Italian genre production from the late 1950s until the early 1980s this book will be an invaluable resource
In an area that has until now been characterised by isolated chapters or book length studies of individual sub-sections of Italian genre cinema, there is a real need for a monograph that addresses the more popular side of Italian cinema in both its socio-historical and cinematic context. Hughes’s book is one small step in that direction. A book that sees Italian cinema in its variegated and dynamic totally is, however, yet to be written.
But to focus overtly on such issues is to do Hughes a disservice. The book is eminently readable and to those seeking a rapid overview of some of the key films of Italian genre production from the late 1950s until the early 1980s this book will be an invaluable resource. The chapters are snappily written and engaging, offering solid, well-researched entries on a broad range of generic strands. Regardless of these minor issues then, the book is a useful resource for both academics and students alike, filling a gap in presenting an overview of some of the key moments in Italian film history that have, until now, been largely ignored by those presenting overviews of the country’s filmic output.
Dr Russ Hunter is a lecturer in Film and Television at Northumbria University and author of An Introduction to European Horror Cinema (forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press). russ.hunter@northumbria.ac.uk