'Beyond “Brutality”: Understanding the Italian
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Edmonstone, Robert J. (2008) Beyond “Brutality”: understanding the Italian Filone’s violent excesses. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/608/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] University of Glasgow Department of Film and Television Studies Beyond “Brutality”: Understanding the Italian Filone’s Violent Excesses by Robert J. Edmonstone Matriculation #: 9703623 Supervisors: Dr. Ian Garwood / Dr. Karen Boyle 2 Contents Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 1. Introducing the Filone: Industry, Cycles and Censorship 27 2. Investigating Violence and Spectacle in the Filone 71 3. Theorising Excess and Violence in the Filone 98 4. Narrative versus Excess in the Filone 129 5. Violence, Attractions and the Filone Viewer 188 6. “Sonic Spectacle” and Mismatching 231 Conclusion 266 Appendix A: Core Corpus of Study 277 Appendix B: Filoni Examined for Study 280 Filmography 288 Bibliography 297 3 Figures 1.4.1 Italian, French and American Peplum Posters p.48 1.4.2 Western Posters p.51 1.4.3 Giallo Posters pp.53-4 1.4.4 Poliziotteschi Posters p.56 1.4.5 Horror Filone Posters p.59 1.4.6 Mondo / Cannibal Film Posters p.61 1.4.7 Other Minor Filone Posters pp.63-4 Scene-by-Scene Overview of Uomini si nasce poliziotti si 4.3.1 pp.144-8 muore 4.3.2 Scene-by-Scene Overview of Solamente Nero pp.149-56 (Dis)equilibria in Uomini si nasce poliziotti si moure and 4.3.3 p.158 Solamente Nero 4.3.4 Song and Dance Numbers in Singin’ in the Rain p.179-80 5.2.1 Opening Sequence of Shane pp.195-200 5.2.2 Opening Sequence of Mannaja pp.205-9 Extract from Opening Sequence of 2019 - Dopo la caduta 6.4.1 pp.241-5 di New York 7.1.1 Dual Focus in the Filone p.274 4 Abstract “Brutality” has long been held up by critics to be one of the defining features of the Italian filoni; a body of popular genre film cycles (peplum mythological epics, horror films, giallo thrillers, poliziotteschi crime dramas, westerns and others) released during a frenzied period of film production between the late 1950s and mid 1980s. A disproportionate emphasis on scenes of often extreme violence and spectacle can be traced across all of the cycles, resulting in a habitual “weakening” of narrative and disruption of the filmic continuities fundamental to mainstream cinema. This emphasis and the uneasy pleasures that it provides have led to a distinct ghettoisation of the filoni within English-language film criticism, with historical accounts of Italian cinema ignoring the films completely, dismissing them as “trash” or portraying them as parasitic counterfeits of “authentic” Hollywood genre films. Furthermore, such accounts typically fail to address the question of what it is that makes these films so violent, limiting their descriptions to blanket terms such as “brutal”, “exploitative” and “sadistic”, in the process reaffirming the idea that the filoni are simply not worthy of further study. As a result, the suggestion that the films could provide pleasures which are distinctly different from those established by mainstream cinema remains largely unaddressed. This thesis seeks to reconcile the gap between my own personal engagement with the films and the lack of attention that has been devoted to them within critical Anglo- American discourses. Drawing on the “paracinematic” approach highlighted by Sconce (1995), I seek to demonstrate that it is precisely in the filoni’s often violent deviations from mainstream cinema’s established continuities where their most remarkable features lie, using Thompson’s (1986) concept of “cinematic excess” to illustrate the films’ overwhelming prioritisation of formal elements that exceed the limits of narrative motivation. Using narrative and close textual analysis of a representative body of filoni to identify patterns of violence, spectacle and excess across the films’ structures, I shall also illustrate the benefits of using film theories outwith their original context to shed light on non-mainstream films like the filoni, drawing in particular on the work of musical theorists Altman (1978) and Mellencamp (1977) to identify a “dual focus” in the films between scenes of narrative and more excessive violent “numbers”. Combining my analysis of specific filoni with an 5 examination of representative mainstream films and Anglo-American genre theory, I shall demonstrate that while the regulation of cinematic excess is vital to the narrative pleasures engendered by the latter (suspense, characterisation, drama), in the filoni such pleasures are typically debunked in favour of the more immediate pleasures and curiosities provoked by viewing (and listening to) spectacular and violent acts that threaten the continuities surrounding them. As my analysis chapters will indicate, the filoni are far more productively analysed using theories derived from early cinema: by drawing on Gunning’s (1986) concept of cinematic “attractions” – non-narrative spectacles which exhibit a similar emphasis on the primacy of the image and the pleasures that it provides – I shall illustrate how a central viewing pleasure prioritised by the filoni arises from the frequent revelation of the filmic apparatus during scenes of spectacle and violence, where spatio-temporal continuities are frequently abandoned. By going beyond the blanket generalisations of “brutality” that have resulted in the filoni’s habitual marginalisation within film studies, this thesis shall exemplify a long- overdue “closer” approach to the films that seeks to highlight their distinctive features, study their structures and investigate the specific (dis)continuities and (dis)pleasures that they provide, at the same time exploring the possibilities of exactly what is meant by “violence” in cinema. 6 Acknowledgements Like the average filone, this thesis could not have been produced without the help of a number of people from different countries, professions and walks of life, and I would like to thank the following people for their help and support over the last six years. Firstly, the staff and postgraduate students who I have had the pleasure of working beside in Glasgow University’s Film and Television department: Emily Munro, Elke Weissman, Ryan Shand, Lisa Williamson, Katharina Lindner, Miriam Ross, Caitriona Noonan and Davie Archibald. Thanks are also due to Dimitris Eleftheriotis for inspiring the thesis in the first place, but most important are my two long-suffering supervisors, Karen Boyle and Ian Garwood, who I’m indebted to for their criticism, their encouragement and their highly effective “good cop bad cop” routine over the years. Special thanks are also due to Alexia Smit, who gave up two days of her valuable time to proof-read the thesis and to check all of my references. Credit is also due to a number of people from outside Glasgow University who have each helped in their own special way. Evie Pryde, for providing me with caffeine, free tablet and the luxury of having a coffee house for a second office; Peter McNaught, for giving me the job that allowed me to pay my fees and complete the thesis; Tom Shaw, for allowing me to skive off from work when deadlines were looming and never complaining; Caroline McCulloch, for teaching me some invaluable relaxation techniques; all of my close friends (you know who you are), who have always shown an interest in my work and who would never complain when I disappeared for weeks at a time during the writing up process and, last of all, George McKendrick, for giving me the means to fund my study and for constantly amusing me with his inane banter. Finally, and most importantly, I’d like to dedicate this thesis to the four most important people in my life: my sister, Liz, my mother and father, Betty and Iain, and my grandmother, Mamie Gray, without whom every one of my achievements would be meaningless. 7 Introduction 0.1 Preamble I can still remember with some vividness my introduction to the popular Italian film, experienced not as much as a slap to the face but as a splinter in the eye on an evening in 1996. The eye in question belonged to the character of Paola Menard (played by Olga Karlatos), who at that point was embroiled in a struggle with one of the eponymous monsters from horror film Zombi 2 / Zombie Flesh Eaters (Italy, Lucio Fulci, 1979). Having repelled her undead assailant by slamming a door against its putrefying hand, it seemed that all was well: the groaning of the zombie had ceased, the room was quiet and Menard had slumped against the door to recover from her ordeal. In an instant, however, this tranquillity was destroyed forever as the same decaying hand burst with a loud crash through the doorframe, grabbing her by the hair. Suddenly the film’s soundtrack was full of dissonance as Menard’s amplified screams were matched by the otherworldly (and disturbingly indifferent) rumble of a synth score: with slow, drawn-out gusto the zombie began to pull her face towards one of the jagged wooden splinters exposed by the broken door. As the film crosscut between side-on shots of Menard’s eyeball approaching the splinter and shots of the splinter approaching the screen itself, I distinctly recall revelling in the spectacle that this scene offered, safe in the knowledge that – as in the Hollywood horror films I had grown up watching – the sheer repugnance of this ocular mutilation would be assuaged by the inevitable cutaway or dissolve.