Luca Colliva
Italian cinema: not an area of cinema many of us English-speakers are familiar with. With the power to influence some of the most important and famous directors in Hollywood, Italian cinema is an underrated genre that deserves more recognition on the global stage. Luca Colliva reflects on his personal experience with Italian cinema.
Friday nights in my family were fairly straightforward; eat dinner, clear the table, spend an annoying amount of time picking a movie and then watch said movie. I’m sure it’s a format a lot of people are familiar with, after all, what’s better than a good movie at the end of a long, hard week. Perhaps, the only distinguishing thing about my Friday nights is that I grew up in Italy, in an Italian family, which meant that every week, without fail, my parents would ask to watch an Italian film. And every week, without fail, I would answer: “absolutely not”.
My reasoning was simple: why would I want to watch an Italian film, when everyone knows that the only good films are the ones made in America? I held this belief for a long time. I dismissed my parents when they told me about films like La Vita è Bella by Roberto Benigni, or Nuovo Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore. After all, my experience with contemporary Italian films had been mostly negative, with the odd comedy here and there as the only exception. Of course, they were far from being “good”, but at least they were funny.
I turned to my left and saw my mother wipe a tear off her face after having watched one of the most beautifully tragic endings I have ever seen
It was only recently that I decided I’d give the Italian films made before I was born a try. I figured, if nothing else, at least I’d be able to say that I’d seen them. The first I watched was Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, my sister’s favourite, and I was amazed. I had just seen an Italian film with great characters, an even better music score, an interesting plot and a profound message. Nonetheless, I still figured this was an exception, rather than the rule.
That being said, my curiosity had been spiked, so I decided to indulge my mother and watch La Vita è Bella with her, a film that she had been asking me to watch for the better part of my life. We booted up Netflix and I settled into my seat on the couch, having kept my expectations pretty low. Two hours and one movie later, I turned to my left and saw my mother wipe a tear off her face after having watched one of the most beautifully tragic endings I have ever seen, in what I now proudly believe to be the best piece of cinema to have ever been created.
More confused than ever, I started doing some research on Italian Cinema and what I found was a rich and interesting history, starting all the way back in the early 1900 and reaching its peak around 1950-1970.
Following this dive into the Italian cinema of the past, I felt proud and patriotic for the grand total of 30 seconds, at which point I started thinking, “what happened?”
Throughout the second half of the 20th century is when Spaghetti Westerns became popular not just in Italy, but around the world as well. In that period, directors such as Sergio Leone made a name for themselves in the movie industry by creating such classics as The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, starring Clint Eastwood. These films later served as inspiration to some of Hollywood’s greatest directors ever, such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino himself stated that without Spaghetti Westerns, Hollywood would not be what it is today.
Following this dive into the Italian cinema of the past, I felt proud and patriotic for the grand total of 30 seconds, at which point I started thinking, “what happened?” We went from creating pieces of art capable of making grown men cry, to producing cheap films, with boring plots and banal endings. What used to be home to some of the most influential directors of the 20th century, is now home to uninspired writers who consistently and exclusively write in order to pander to the lowest denominator.
In the words of Quentin Tarantino, who discussed the decline of Italian Cinema back in 2007: “I loved Italian cinema from the 60s and 70s and some films from the 80s so much, and now I feel that it is all over. It’s a real tragedy.”
Luca Colliva
Featured image courtesy of David Köhler via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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