Vendetta and the Ritualized Revenge Motif in Popular Italian Film

Vendetta and the Ritualized Revenge Motif in Popular Italian Film

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.

In addition however, while they tend to trade on different genres, these films also tend to share many similar motifs. Hercules (Pietro Francisci, 1958), Once Upon A Time in The West (Sergio Leone, 1968), The Godfather (Francis Coppola, 1972), and Once Upon A Time in America (Leone, 1984) all draw on the generic qualities of their America counterparts through common plot devices and a reliance on American stars. However, while American films are highly individualistic in tone, these popular Italian epics trade on the common motif of the vendetta: a variation of the hero quest narrative, which focuses on the community, or family, revenge plot. In this way, although these films span almost thirty years of popular Italian filmmaking, the pattern of community based violence and revenge serves as a common cinematic motif which, in turn evolves over ...

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...enies the safety of concrete manifestations of "Good" and "Evil"; and disturbingly, there is no emotional or rational basis for either the formation or for the arbitrary destruction of the family.

In conclusion, while these filone films are often dismissed as "popularized Americanized cinema", in fact, the increasing postmodernizing of the vendetta motif reveals a complex system of uniquely Italian signification. As such, the institutionalization of violence and corruption in Italian society is a common motif in all of these films. Furthermore, in offering a more collective, family-centred approach to the vendetta motif, these films effectively reappropriate the American individualist spirit which typifies Hollywood film. In this way, we see the extent to which Italian cinema has been able to forge new forms of representation out of the culture of the colonizer.