Lecture Six - Italian Vernacular Cinema.

Lecture Six - Italian Vernacular Cinema.Italian Cinema

Audiences.

Prima visione and seconda visione -  These are cinemas that have attracted a middle class audience that are seen as  sophisticated people usually in major cities, the audience selected a film to watch.
Tera visone - less populated areas, cheaper tickets, the audience went to cinema based on habit rather than selecting a film. Films were more formulaic and popular films - like a television audience.
Historical and social context.
The working class would go to the cinema every night - this meant that there was a need for many films.
Conventions of film watching are different. People may talk, drink and eat during the film. People enter the cinema at beginning, half way through, near the end.
Cinema was a very social area
Economics.

Fellini

Was taken very seriously as an auteur.
Comments on the superficiality of middle class.
Films where associated with sophistication
Seen as worthy of critical appraisal.

Filone

Similar to the term genre but not quite.
This was based on the idea of geology ---- layers of veins within a larger layer.
Examples of filone:
Giallo - based on detective novels. Italian for 'yellow' and stems from the series of cheap paperback crime and mystery novels with trademark yellow covers.
Spaghetti Westerns.
Mondo/Canibal film.
Poliziottesco - police proceduaral.