Italy
Italy
experienced its own minor `New Wave' in the 1960s. Following the decline of
neo-realism in the 1950s, Italian cinema had become increasingly escapist in
output, with mythological `peplum' movies starring American muscle men, horror
films and `Spaghetti Westerns' gaining popularity. The Spaghetti Westerns of
Sergio Leone, such as `A Fistful of Dollars' (1964) and `The Good, The Bad and
the Ugly' (1966) starring Clint Eastwood, breathed new life into a genre that
had all but died out in the United
States in the 1960s. Leone treated the
western conventions with absurdist exaggeration, producing mannered,
ritualised, sado-masochistic westerns that owed a great deal to Kurosawa's
samurai films, such as `Yojimbo' (1961). Notions of heroism, self- sacrifice,
or the `civilising' influences that are so important in traditional westerns
cynically derided in the genre. The Spaghetti Westerns were enormously popular
internationally and launched the film career of Clint Eastwood, as well as
reviving the genre in the United
States , albeit in a quite different
character from previous decades (see chapter Westerns).
Where the Spaghetti Westerns were met, initially at least, with critical disdain, the work of three directors, Pasolini, Fellini and Antonioni, won great admiration. Pier Paolo Pasolini's `Accatoni' (1961) is a powerful directorial debut conceived broadly within the neo-realist tradition. However, the brutal, unsentimental portrait of the urban poor and their struggle for survival, or even a plate of spaghetti, had a harder edge than the work of earlier directors working in this vein. Pasolini's films became more savage through the sixties as he moved away from realism toward a more mythical, even surrealistic style. Controversial productions included, `The Gospel According to St. Matthew' (1964), `Oedipus Rex' (1967) and `Pigsty' (1969). In the 1970s Pasolini directed bawdy and somewhat crude adaptations of literary classics including `The Canterbury Tales' (1971) before his final, most disturbing (and sensationalist) film `Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom', a graphic adaptation of de Sade's novel set during the final months of World War 11. In this film where Fascist rulers torture and sexually terrorise adolescents, sex is no longer celebrated as it had been in earlier literary adaptations, but is shown as simply one more tool of oppression.
Fellini's `La Dolce Vita' (The Sweet Life 1960) examined sexual mores with a similar combination of titillating frankness and moral disapproval. As with Cecil B. De Mille's films from an earlier generation, this combination won approval from religious organisations, such as the Legion of Decency, and massive international box office success. In `La Dolce Vita' Marcello Mastroianni plays a tabloid journalist chasing (alongside the paparazzi) aristocrats, minor movie stars, aging playboys and prostitutes who live `the sweet life' around the cafes and nightclubs of Roman society. The irony of the film's title is made clear as the weary hero is worn down by a succession of orgiastic nights with shallow, worthless company. Each empty dawns reveals this life to be spiritually exhausting, but he seems unable to change or separate himself from it. The famous opening scene, as a statue of Christ is carried above Rome , shows the pilot waving at three girls in bikinis on a rooftop. This image encapsulates the film's opposition of sensuality and spirituality. In `81/2', Fellini's other influential work from the 1960s, the director took the subject of his own creative block in developing his latest film, this one, his 81/2th production. The film abandons conventional narrative development for a kind of cinematic `stream of consciousness': the thoughts, anxieties, memories, films and fantasies of the `director' (Mastroianni again), played out before us. The blurring and confusion of the director's life with his art is the central concern of the film which ends with a party on a beach attended by all the characters from his `memories' and of this `production'. Mastroianni steps into the circle of characters and joins them in their dance, suggesting, as Mast argues, that he cannot be separated from the dancing ring of his thoughts, loves, creations and memories.
Subjectivity and perception are also a subject of inquiry in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni who, like Fellini, developed a kind of psychological cinema. Antonioni made expressionistic use of locations and settings to suggest the alienation of his characters. In `L'Avventura' (The Adventure 1960) the characters are seaching for a woman who disappears mysteriously on an island during their holiday together. As the search progresses the characters appear to become increasingly passive and disorientated, losing interest in their search and drifting into a casual affair. `L'Avventura' and Antonioni's subsequent features are characterised by narrative innovation and complex use of mise-en-scene as commentary. Bordwell (1994) notes the slow rhythm of his films, the frequent use of `dead time' between events and the lack of narrative `closure'. `L'Avventura’ initially received a hostile reception at the Cannes film festival in 1960 with members of the audience hissing and booing and shouting `Cut ! Cut !` The audience were enraged at the lack of explanation for the disappearance of the girl and the excruciatingly slow pace.
Antonioni is also noted for deliberately concealing his character's emotions and reactions. He does this in several ways by, for instance, placing them at such a distance from the camera that it is difficult to read their expression, having them facing away from camera or by obscuring their faces altogether behind objects or parts of the set. The characters themselves are usually wealthy or successful but have an inner life that is empty, or tortured by ‘ennui’. As Bayer (1973) comments:
`The world of Antonioni is the world of T.S. Eliot's `The Wasteland': Love is illusory and the meaning of life is elusive. Modern urban society is a wasted landscape through which he wanders, unsatisfied by money, sex, relationships, a strange place where all conversations are elliptical, contact with other humans is strained, matters arise that are never resolved, and life is bounded by boredom and meaninglessness.'
Many of these features can be seen in MGM's English-language release `Blow Up' (1966), Antonioni's most commercially successful film in which David Hemmings plays a David Bailey- esque young fashion photographer at work in `Swinging London'. While in a park he photographs a couple embracing, but on blowing the image up it seems that a murder is elusively visible in the background, yet only as a blurred, untrustworthy image that becomes more abstract as it is enlarged. There are many curious episodes in `Blow Up' that lack any clear narrative motivation. We see him charging around London in his sports car apparently full of intent. At one point he finds and then buys a large wooden prand rushes back to his studio with it, only to quickly lose interest in the thing. He goes to a pop concert in which a zombie-like audience are completely silent and stationary as they watch the group. When a member of the band hits a loud speaker in frustration, however, the crowd, including the photographer, become frenzied and start fighting for a piece of a guitar that has been thrown to them. The film hints at uneasiness, or even malevolence, beneath the fashionable, superficial surface of the London scene. In `Blow Up' as in other Antonioni films, such as ` Red Desert ' (1964) and `Zabriski Point' (1969), colour is used to suggest the different emotional states of the characters. It is said that for ‘Blow Up’ Antonioni repainted public buildings and even painted the grass in areas of the park a particular shade of green! Silence and naturalistic sounds are also used to concentrate on subtle shifts in mood or a character's thought processes and to emphasise their isolation. Antonioni has been described as a master of mise-en-scene, a highly influential modernist and one of the most important avant-garde directors of recent years.