Saturday Night Fever: Italian Cinema Is Dying
Saturday, 2th October 2010.
Fall is here, and it feels like I’ve got a fever. I spend the whole day holed up, and as light fades I drink a bottle of taxfree Barbera D’Alba and watch Asia Argento’s “Scarlet Diva”. The wine tastes cheap, and I guess Italian cinema is dying.
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Many film enthusiasts collect films on DVD. I do. I try to collect as many foreign films as I can. I do not see many in my local Blockbusters. Most films these days seem to be Korean. How many good Italian films do you have in your collection?
Hi Pantagruella!
I’ve been collecting movies since the early 90ies, and have close to 600 titles, including my old VHS tapes. I guess approximately 50 of them are Italian titles, but obviously not all of them are very good. Stick to the classics, I say. You know: Pasolini, Antonioni, Dario Argento, Sergio Leone and Fellini off course…. Judging by your website I guess You would love Dario Argento’s “Suspiria”.
Korean films, P? I haven’t seen too many, but I love Park Chan-wook. His “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” is a great film.
oh – love the idea of “bootocracy” and “bootopia”, btw!
Viva!
Six hundred is a good haul. VHS tapes are fine. They have the trailers, don’t they?
You needn’t be worry about a film that isn’t very good. That’s where it gets interesting. A lot of Italian films came out on the Redemption label. They were dubbed in a quirky way, par for the course then. You need to hear a film in the original language, but dubbing can be an interesting field of study.
The best dubbed film that comes to mind is Enter The Streetfighter. Almost every line is classic, but it’s far from standard English.
Love Suspiria? I don’t know if love is the right word to use with horror films. It’s a worrying film, and it’s good at worrying you. Italian films from that period are good at suggesting that ‘all bets are off’ with regard to the conclusion.
I recommend Korean films generally.
Thanks for referencing bootocracy. I like coining words to see if they get picked up.
All best wishes
haha – ayayay, P – Enter The Streetfighter – is that the US name of one of the releases in Sonny Chiba’s Streetfighter Trilogy? if it is, I’ve seen it, and heard the lousy dubbing, and that’s what makes those movies great. oh – that and Sonny Chiba! over here films aren’t dubbed for cinema release, but subtitled, and I actually prefer that. but if you buy international dvd versions (for instance from good old Redemption – are they still around, btw???) you often end up with versions dubbed to English, so we get a taste of the hilarity too …
Italian films from the 70ies swing both ways. some are worth the effort, some are not. I’ve watched a lot of “good” “bad” cinema (like Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood yesterday), and it strikes me that American trash films are generally more entertaining than the rather … pretentious Euro/Italian releases of the 60ies and the 70ies. I mean – can any Euro director, except Dario Argento, compete with Herschell Gordon Lewis or Russ Meyer for pure “all bets are off” schlock value and cheap, late night entertainment, P?
(God – I sound like a geek! 😀 )
have a nice day, P – all booted up or not!
Viva!
oh God – forgot about Tobe Hooper and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for the “all bets are off”-scores, baby!
😀
Vivas!
Eit bilde av bilder med sødme og eleganse i seg:)
haha – hey MT – det er no ikkje allverden til bilete, men så kjende eg meg nett ikkje som allverdens fotograf heller på laurdagskvelden *ler* er eg betre no då? oh no – ikkje i det heile tatt 😀
(men Sophia Loren og Marlon Brando på veggen gjer uansett kvar dag litt fjongare )
ooooooooog Hepp i hausten, MT!
Damene var flotte på den tiden iallefall. Ja *kremt* herrene også dah.
Det regner her mr K. På alle mulige måter.
*mandagssmasker*
hahaha – hey Starry – jeg har alltid vært svak for Sophia Loren. hun var .. vakker, smakfull, stilfull og …. talentfull. they don’t make ’em like that anymore. ja – og hvis jeg hadde ligget med menn så hadde jeg ligget med Marlon Brando. Og Elvis. Og selvfølgelig med Marilyn. Gud – ayayay – I’m born tooooo late *ler*
det _regner_ her også altså – men Viking vant i kveld, og da,baby, da skinner sola på en enkel mann som meg 😀
*smask*
I think the dubbing on Enter The Streetfighter is great. There’s nothing wrong with the English sentences. The grammar is fine. It’s just they are not the kind of phrases we have in English.
I am sorry but Russ Meyer films are not much fun for me. The only one that I support is Faster Pussycat Kill Kill.
I have a stack of Redemption videos from all over Europe stacked somewhere. All I can say in defence of them is that they are different from the American equivalent.
While I am here let me mention the film Demonium. I understand that the German director had brought out several German films with unappealing titles. But for Demonium he had a brilliant idea. Get some European actors and force them to speak in their uncertain English. There is something about this awful, awful film which strikes me as genius. I have got a third of the way through so far.
ay, P!- ten years back or so I did an onstage interview with Jörg Buttgereit, the German director of Nekromantik and Der Todesking, when he passed through our little town, and after the interview he signed David Kereke’s book “Sex, Murder, Art: The Films Of Jörg Butthereit” and even drew a skull under his signature before he gave it to me, and i felt … like all that. but now, when I watch his films again, P, I …. just don’t get the Germanic thing …….
Italian actors speaking English in Demonium? God – I’ve been to Italy more than once, and they really _don’t_ speak comprehensible English, P!
(oh, and sometimes I love Russ Meyer, sometimed I don’t)
😀