I do like the comedies but I’m very interested in what they’ve done with these dramas about the 1970s as well. I find the preoccupation with going back to the past very interesting. In terms of the ones that I have liked a lot, I’ve enjoyed a lot of TV series that have come from films, such as the TV series that came from Romanzo criminale and Gomorra la serie, which was shown on Sky and was a huge hit. In many ways I think a lot of the most interesting stuff is being done in quality TV rather than in cinema at the moment. I’ve also enjoyed the films that I’ve called “male melodramas” in my most recent book, which mostly deal with men left to look after their families when the woman disappears (such as Anche libero va bene, starring Kim Rossi Stuart). They do great dramas as well!
La Grande Bellezza is probably the most recent Italian film to achieve huge international success and cleaned up at all the 2014 film awards. Did you enjoy it?
No, I hated it! I was so disappointed because I love Toni Servillo and most of Paolo Sorrentino’s films but I found that La grande bellezza really played into this idea of what foreigners think Italian art cinema is. It had this homage to Fellini, the beauty of Rome, the amazing cinematography, but was very sexist and clings to this idea that masculinity and melancholia are the only things worth investigating. It’s a shame because so few Italian films achieve international success. Certain kinds of Italian heritage are seen as interesting abroad – things like Gomorra and Il Divo that are to do with the dark side of Italy tend to be quite popular – but Italian cinema tends not to be exported very much. It makes it a bit difficult to work on because nobody has any idea what you’re talking about and haven’t seen the films that you’re writing books about! Italians are very proud of their cinema and have a very strong tradition of the government sponsoring and subsidising film-making so they do finance a lot of films which are culturally “worthy” but often don’t do very well at all, even in Italy.
Do you have a favourite Italian director?
I like Sorrentino’s films, apart from La Grande Bellezza! Going back a bit, I like Pietro Germi a lot who did some of the early 1960s comedies such as Divorzio all’italiana. I tend to follow stars more than directors, though. I’ll watch anything with Kim Rossi Stewart in, for example!
Which genres do you feel the Italians do best, both in a critical, artistic way and for entertainment value?
il dipartimento
Your most recent book deals with masculinity in Italian cinema; do you feel that Italian cinema has a different ideal of masculinity to Anglophone cinema?
Yes and no. in lots of ways, some of the dominant patterns are present everywhere. An example is the buddy comedy with “bromances”, which Hollywood does now and Italy does a lot. There is more of an emphasis of masculinity in crisis in Italy, not just in comedies but in all of the genres. I think it’s partly an anxious response to lots of changes in Italian culture, especially the increase in rights and prominence for women. There’s always this stereotype in Italy of the man who lives at home with his mother and doesn’t grow up and you tend to see that played out a lot in film, even if it isn’t necessarily the reality. Eventually, reluctantly, the Italian man in film has to get married and that’s the end of all the fun, which is a bit depressing!
Which genres do you feel the Italians do best, both in a critical, artistic way and for entertainment value?
I do like the comedies but I’m very interested in what they’ve done with these dramas about the 1970s as well. I find the preoccupation with going back to the past very interesting. In terms of the ones that I have liked a lot, I’ve enjoyed a lot of TV series that have come from films, such as the TV series that came from Romanzo criminale and Gomorra: la serie, which was shown on Sky and was a huge hit. In many ways I think a lot of the most interesting stuff is being done in quality TV rather than in cinema at the moment. I’ve also enjoyed the films that I’ve called “male melodramas” in my most recent book, which mostly deal with men left to look after their families when the woman disappears (such as Anche libero va bene, starring Kim Rossi Stuart). They do great dramas as well!
La Grande Bellezza is probably the most recent Italian film to achieve huge international success and cleaned up at all the 2014 film awards. Did you enjoy it?
No, I hated it! I was so disappointed because I love Toni Servillo and most of Paolo Sorrentino’s films but I found that La grande bellezza really played into this idea of what foreigners think Italian art cinema is. It had this homage to Fellini, the beauty of Rome, the amazing cinematography, but was very sexist and clings to this idea that masculinity and melancholy are the only things worth investigating. It’s a shame because so few Italian films achieve international success. Certain kinds of Italian heritage are seen as interesting abroad – things like Gomorra and Il Divo that are to do with the dark side of Italy tend to be quite popular – but Italian cinema tends not to be exported very much. It makes it a bit difficult to work on because nobody has any idea what you’re talking about and haven’t seen the films that you’re writing books about! Italians are very proud of their cinema and have a very strong tradition of the government sponsoring and subsidising film-making so they do finance a lot of films which are culturally “worthy” but often don’t do very well at all, even in Italy.
Do you have a favourite Italian director?
I like Sorrentino’s films, apart from La Grande Bellezza! Going back a bit, I like Pietro Germi a lot who did some of the early 1960s comedies such as Divorzio all’italiana. I tend to follow stars more than directors, though. I’ll watch anything with Kim Rossi Stewart in, for example!
What about stars, do you have any particular favourites?
Obviously, Riccardo Scamarcio, he’s the one I’ve written about the most so I like to see what he’s doing. I like Toni Servillo a lot. Unfortunately, there aren’t that many actresses, partly due to the lack of good roles for them. I think Valeria Golino is great and my favourite Italian actress of all time is Anna Magnani, who was absolutely incredible. I like a lot of the actors from 1940s-50s films who aren’t necessarily famous anymore, too.
Do you find you prefer older films to newer ones?
I enjoy both. I’m writing about modern cinema a great deal but I also have this project on the post-war films and am hopefully going to write about how popular film dealt with the traumas of the Second World War. I’ve been watching a lot of terrible melodramas from the 1940s recently; lots of them are about men coming back from the war to find that their wife has married somebody else and they have to kill someone! I find them a lot of fun, though, and some of them are really good. It’s striking how a lot of these films are not written about and some aren’t even available anymore. Italy is so proud of its cinematic heritage but there’s very little money to look after it and keep things in circulation. Sometimes things pop up on YouTube which is great; you see people have come across an old VHS of a film they taped off RAI years ago and they put it online.
Yes and no. in lots of ways, some of the dominant patterns are present everywhere. An example is the buddy comedy with “bromances”, which Hollywood does now and Italy does a lot. There is more of an emphasis of masculinity in crisis in Italy, not just in comedies but in all of the genres. I think it’s partly an anxious response to lots of changes in Italian culture, especially the increase in rights and prominence for women. There’s always this stereotype in Italy of the man who lives at home with his mother and doesn’t grow up and you tend to see that played out a lot in film, even if it isn’t necessarily the reality. Eventually, reluctantly, the Italian man in film has to get married and that’s the end of all the fun, which is a bit depressing!