Giallo is a slasher genre that was prominent in the late twentieth century especially in Italy where the genre was made up of mystery and horror elements. The origin of the term is from cheap mystery novels, similar to penny dreadfuls, where they were adorned in bright yellow covers of which the genre was suitably named after as "giallo" is yellow in Italian. Though the term "giallo" is not just recognized in just Europe as internationally it is considered to have greatly influenced the sudden influx of American slasher and splatter films in the latter 1970s period. Films such as Blood and Black Lace and Black Belly of a Tarantula are classified as early giallo due to their "distinctive characteristics" that will be explored in this essay. From emerging as a genre in the 1960s Italian filmmakers adapted …show more content…
from the giallo literature novels but they were quick to avail from modern technology to beget a unusual genre that catered to mystery and horror fans. There is great debate whether giallo can be classified as a genre or as a brief trend that adapts or hybridizes to current furors. As Gary Needman notes that giallo isn't a "description or a feeling" like most genres rather it operates "as a conceptual category with highly moveable and permeable boundaries that shift around from year to year".
This can lead to filmmakers of that period to be more empirical and innovative. As in Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964) where it is considered one of the earliest of the giallo films and is regarded as a body count film where gore and murder is the biggest draw in of the film. The misogynistic approach is perhaps what makes the film most memorable, as the killing of six women throughout the film where they are killed in brutal yet filmicly stylish ways by the masked killer. The format of this is a classic example of a giallo film from the way the murders are carried out to the appearance of the killer where it is notable that there is a certain look to the giallo hunter. In Paolo Cavara's Black Belly of a Tarantula there is slight changes to consider this film as a giallo production. Considering this film was released in 1971, 7 years after Bava's Blood and Black Lace, there are notable quirks to the giallo genre or rather a "filone". There are shifts from Bava's film where there was focus on the mystery and thrill of untangling the killer amongst the set suspects to Cavara's film where
mystery is less focused upon and the spectacle of the killing of women and spotlight of the protagonist is more centralized. Though there is still the use of unravelling the mystery due to the protagonist being a detective, horror is more heavily used to depict the spectacle of death as Peter Hutchings notes in The A to Z of Horror Cinema that "giallo films usually privileges style and spectacle over its murder mystery plot". Yet there is a specific requirement to make a giallo film that has not changed and that is the focus of glamour and luxury of city life. Mikel Koven depicts that directors in the giallo period chose to have their films heavily city centered and show the hedonistic lifestyle "as an ambivalence toward modernity" (2006, p.46). Identifying a giallo film can be rooted in the plot of the film. What is the main focus of the film- is it the mystery element or the gore and guts. Bava and Cavara both illustrate that their plot heavy films are examples of giallo films. The structure of the film typically follows the introduction of the protagonist (Bava's Police Inspector Sylvester and Cavara's Inspector Tellini) who gets wrapped up into the mystery of the serial spree of murders and are drawn to find the killer and end the carnage. The narrative is focused on the journey the protagonist makes throughout the film and how they piece together who is the killer and the audience at this time can see snippets of the killer continuing their terror. The 'whodunit' trope is the biggest mystery with ups and downs and ruling out promising suspects and the ending can hold the shock factor as both Cavara and Bava use this in their films to leave their audiences astounded. The gore is a major attraction in giallo films where the victims meet untimely gruesome deaths and in both Blood and Black Lace and Black Belly of a Tarantula they play a major factor. Murders in giallo are repeatedly cruel and sanguinary and closeups of the victims faces twisted in terror and utter agony are heavily featured. How the director depicts this can range from the viewer witnessing the attack from their perspective or the first person narrative of the murderer. This voyeuristic approach gives the film an unique edge of the predator hunting his prey. Cavara uses this in his film where the killer lurks behind a door and watches his victim undress (See Fig. 1). By catching his victim in a state of undress this depicts the vulnerability of the victim and plays into the giallo theme of nudity. Sexuality in giallo films is used often and nudity is a heightened device used to portray sex appeal especially of the female actors. The killer in Cavara's film is quite sadistic and uses unusual methods to kill his victims. Giallo films normally use the Hitchcock method of killing with a blade or stylised weapon but Cavara has his killer use a needle that paralyses his victims, allowing them to be awake and feel the pain yet remain immobile, then slowly slices his victims belly wide open with a large knife. However unlike Bava, Cavara focuses on the victims pained faces during the attack often cutting the gore. Bava does not shy from his death scenes and uses a stylised approach to killing such as when the first victim Peggy meets her demise. Peggy is chased, choked, burned and when we see her body in the closet her eyes have been gorged and are bloody. The killer is the main draw in for a giallo audience and their unmasking or demise is usually the climax of films. In most cases of giallo films the victims know or know of their killer and in both Bava and Cavara's films this plot device is used. In Blood and Black Lace Bava focuses on a power play relationship where the killer is unmasked as none other than the widowed Countess Cristina, owner of the fashion house, who retaliated to being threatened by her employee by killing her. Cristina's position raises the social issue of abuse to employees by employers. As the red diary reveals that her fashion house is actually a front for a house riddled with scandal (blackmail, forced abortions and drug addictions) and the disappearance of this diary gives her and her lover Max motive to kill. The unmasking of Cristina (See Fig. 3 and 4.) is a big plot twist of the film as it was previously known that Max was the prime suspect, yet he was not the only one involved in the killings. The killer being a double act is a classic example of giallo film and how when the killer is unmasked there is still more to the story.
In his documentary Classified X, Martin Van Peebles describes three areas where African-Americans could be receive some sanctuary from the racism that pervaded almost all Hollywood films. These three places were: the Hollywood version of an all-Black film, the church, and entertainment. Black culture and music is prominent in mainstream society, but the people behind this culture don’t always receive recognition and respect for their creations. Mainstream White pop culture excitedly consumes and appropriates Black culture, but disrespects the source.
Finally, horror became ‘Slasher.’ The 1970’s became obsessed with realistic news stories and characters and films became more stylize and followed similar storyline conventions. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978) and Night Mare On Elm Street (1984) where full of psycho villains, teens in danger and the sole survivor leading to plenty of sequels. The only other horror genre or thriller genre focused on suspense, movie...
Although it may been seen partly as a historical accident forced by budgetary constraints, part of the mystique of the film is in how different it was to the horror audience of the day. Romero and the Image Ten team, working with black-and-white in a day in which most mainstream films were released in color, were able to use the black-and-white film to lend a certain documentary feel that evoked feelings of newsreels of the day, which were still shot in black-and-white (Hervey 26). This certain credibility evoked is one that is likely lost on contemporary audiences that grew up in a time in which the news and documentaries are delivered in color, but modern audiences should see parallels in the way The Blair Witch Project co-opted the use of VHS cameras to produce a low-cost horror film with a realistic feel to it.
Janey Place and Lowell Peterson article “Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir” establishes noir as a visual style and not a ...
In Classical Hollywood Cinema, the plot moves forward mostly by the conflict between order and chaos. This is the case for most of the Film Noir movies, a popular genre that started in the 1940s. In The Big Sleep (1946) and Chinatown (1976), the two main characters, private investigators, are associated with order while all of the “femme fatale” characters bring chaos to the narrative of the films.
In the mid to late 1950s, classic westerns where becoming obsolete paving the way for a revolutionary Italian director Sergio Leone. The new style of westerns known as “Spaghetti Westerns” was too many Americans ludicrous, no spaghetti westerns delves into the grotesque perspective better than the Dollar Trilogy films starring Clint Eastwood as the “Man with no Name”. Leone’s innovative cinematic style is brought to life through his unorthodox characters and their pursuit for fortune. Leone’s grotesque approach to his characters in the Dollar Trilogy films are quite uncanny because of their lack of morals (good & bad), anti-hero fights and twisted plots. Leone’s leading characters actions are reinforced through his use of extreme-close ups during moments of violence. These aspects are showcased to perfection in Leone`s final part of the Dollar Trilogy films, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 1966. (Theme of greed)
Italian Neorealism, a movement that focused on the arts began in 19th century post war Italy and “became the repository of partisan hopes for social justice in the post war italian state.” (Marcus, xiv) Even before the war, Italy had been under the dictatorship of Benito Mussolini and his corrupt form of government, Fascism, which caused oppression throughout the country. Neorealistic films allowed filmmakers to use common styles and techniques to finally reveal the world filled with anguish and misery that Mussolini had created. These films allowed the rebirth of Italy with the new ideals of freedom and social order. Some directors choose to add melodramatic elements to their neorealistic film which goes against Neorealism’s goal to project the Italy in its real form. However, although Rome Open City by Roberto Rossellini and Bitter Rice by DeSantis have classic hollywood narrative characteristics, the portrayal of women and children represent neorealist principles that help us further understand the struggles and conflicts of women and children during post-war Italy.
Film scholars around the world agree that all genres of film are part of the “genre cycle”. This cycle contains four different stages that a specific genre goes through. These stages are: primitive, classic, revisionist, and parody. Each stage that the genre goes through brings something different to that genre’s meaning and what the audience expects. I believe that looking at the horror genre will be the most beneficial since it has clearly gone through each stage.
Italian cinema is conventionally associated with neorealist films and their contribution to the international art film movement. However, while these films tend to draw on the ideas and artistic creativity of individual directors such as Fellini, Antonioni, and De Sica; there is also a strong tradition of genre cinema evident in more popularized examples of Italian film. Emerging in the post-war era, these filone, or formula films, were inspired by established American models such as the "sword and sandal" hero epic, the western, and the gangster film. Consequently, the international success of the peplum films of the 1950's, the spaghetti westerns of the next decade, and later, the Italian-American gangster film, are a collective testament to the post-war financial success of Italian Cinema as an exportable product.
The science fiction film Looper is innovative and unique, drawing upon genre conventions in a compelling way. Although the use of time travel in science fiction films is anything but original, the ionic detachment and visceral loathing gives this film an advanced, innovative plot.
In the early 1970's, The Blaxploitation Horror Film captivated viewers nationwide. These films, charged with the social and political issues of their time, were created primarily to appeal to black moviegoers yet drew widely diverse audiences. The premise of these films seems simple enough: retell a classic horror movie monster story, but infuse it with black characters in a modern setting. African-American filmmaker William Crain's Blacula, released in 1972, is arguably one of the most successful Blaxploitation Horror Films of the decade, even spawning a sequel the following year. William Levi's Blackenstein was released shortly after Blacula in 1973, in an attempt to capitalize on the new found lucrative film movement of Blaxploitation Horror. Unfortunately, Blackenstein is largely regarded as a failure, both commercially and artistically.1 In my own viewings of both films, I found that, because Blacula was a better
In the period between 1943 and 1950 Italian cinema was dominated by Neorealism which became the most significant film style of post-war Europe. Formation began back in 1936 when propagandists opened modern Cincitta studios and the film school name ‘Centro Sperimentaledi Cinematografia’. Along with the opening of schools such as this was a movement that placed a group of cinematographers under full-year contracts, among them was Carlo Montuori who used his classic techniques in creating ‘Bicycle Thieves’ (1948) one of the most well known films produced during the Neo-Realism movement. Perhaps also one of the most influential directors was Roberto Rossellini who directed Rome Open City at the end of WWII. Many directors and influential films such as this began to change and shape the way Italian films were made and what their relation to society was like.
The link between expressionism and horror quickly became a dominant feature in many films and continues to be prominent in contemporary films mainly due to the German expressionist masterpiece Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari. Wiene’s 1920 Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari utilized a distinctive creepiness and the uncanny throughout the film that became one the most distinctive features of externalising inner mental and emotional states of protagonists through various expressionist methods. Its revolutionary and innovative new art was heavily influenced by the German state and its populace in conjunction with their experience of war; Caligari took a clear cue from what was happening in Germany at the time. It was this film that set cinematic conventions that still apply today, heavily influencing the later Hollywood film noir genre as well as the psychological thrillers that has lead several film audiences to engage with a film, its character, its plot and anticipate its outcome, only to question whether the entire movie was a dream, a story of a crazy man, or an elaborate role play. This concept of the familiar and the strange, the reality, the illusion and the dream developed in Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari, is once again present in Scorsese’s 2010 film Shutter Island. It is laced with influences from different films of the film noir and horror genre, and many themes that are directly linked to Das Kabinett des Doctor Caligari shot 90 years prior.
I chose to analyze Despicable Me, an animated film geared towards a younger audience, because I was interested in examining underlying theories and messages that this film would be relaying to its viewers. Often times, when watching animated films, children are not aware of these messages, as they are absorbed by the characters, special effects, and humor. But as we have learned throughout this semester, our brains are subconsciously primed by the various surroundings we are exposed to. Since we also studied the impacts of entertainment, such as television and video games, on children, I wanted to see how a popular children’s film might also affect them.
Horror is one of the major genres for silent movie produced under Hollywood studio system during 1920s. American filmmakers had gone on exploring the classical Hollywood style, linking technique to clear storytelling because many foreign audiences had been cut off from the Hollywood product during the war (Thompson 58). The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) exemplifies the classical Hollywood style and represents the class differences characterized by a beautiful woman and an ugly “phantom” in the movie. In this paper, I will particularly analyze one of the famous scenes from the phantom of The Phantom of the Opera (Julian, 1925) – the “unmasking” scene.